We're Back!!!

And in need of a vacation from our vacation!!! What a trip!! Was it ever HOT!! I wouldn't recommend Florida in August to anyone......but the kids had a great time!! We met some friends there, so there were 8 of us all together. It's really hard trying to make 8 people happy at the same time, but we did OK. We flew in on Saturday, and checked into our hotel.

We stayed at the Pop Century Resort on the grounds. It's big, colorful, and totally cheesy (in a good way!) It was a lot of fun. We stayed in the "60's" which was full of Peace Signs and the "Hippy-Dippy" Pool with Flower Showers! (which was perfect after a long hot day at the parks!) It's one of the budget hotels, but it was well-worth the money. There were 3 pools, a food court, game room and loads of pop culture everywhere.

The first day we went to Epcot and ran the kids right into the ground! It's hard trying to see everything in one day. The lines were long, and the sun was horrible. But we did most of the rides we wanted and saw most of the sites we wanted to see.

We went to the "Princess Breakfast" at the Royal Banquet Hall at the Akershus in Norway (Epcot). The girls loved it, although the food left a little to be desired. I'm all for trying new things, but some of the Norwegian food wasn't really kid friendly!! But we got to see Belle, Aerial (that's the girls with her), Mulan, Snow White and Aurora. Sadly, Cinderella was a no-show, and we had to track her down at the Magic Kingdom, since she is Ana's favorite princess EVER! Chad was rather unimpressed with the Princesses though. What can I say? Boys!! After Epcot, we did go to the Magic Kingdom and rode all the favorites: Splash Mountain, Space Mountain, the Pooh Bear ride, Peter Pan's Flight, Snow White's Adventure and of course, Pirates of the Caribbean!! They have added some Jack Sparrow to the ride!! We saw the Electric Light Parade and the Wishes fireworks show.


The Animal Kingdom was fun too. The Kilimajaro Safari was wonderful and we saw so many of the animals. They have a new roller coaster called Expedition Everest which was a lot of fun....and had a huge Yeti!! The boy's loved it!! (our friends have a son Chad's age, so he had someone to pal around with too!) The Tree of Life is just amazing, and so is the 3-D show called "It's Tough to be a Bug!". We ate lunch at the Rainforest Cafe which is always a treat. The brought out a "lava" cake for Chad and Belle's birthday and sang to them. They were too embarrassed for words!! Gotta love that.

MGM is probably my favorite, just because I love movies so much. I had to take the girls to the High School Musical Pep Rally. They are hooked on that show. It was a lot of singing and dancing and just plain fun! Here are the girls trying on some princess hats! The boys went to the Indiana Jones Stunt show and loved it, although Mike had a hard time getting the bullwhip away from Chad. Although it was cool, figured he'd use it on his sisters! The Tower of Terror is awesome!! It's a Twilight Zone theme, and it's entails getting into an elevator and having it drop! They also have the Rock and Roller Coaster which goes from 0 to 60 in something like 3 seconds!! It's in the dark just like Space Mountain, but there are lots of neon signs and Aerosmith songs playing.....loudly! Ana freaked out after the Tower of Terror, and wouldn't even go on some of the other rides!! She usually loves stuff like that too. But she had her fun. We saw the Fantasmic show which is absolutely incredible. Don't miss it if you ever go!! There is also the Great Movie Ride and lots of memorabilia from all the old MGM movies, like Dorothy's ruby Red slippers! Again, there is almost too much to see in a day. I think we ended up at MGM 3 times during the week.

We finished up our final day with a Pooh Bear Breakfast at the Crystal Palace in the Magic Kingdom. It was just Ana and I, since Pooh Bear is our favorite. She was so excited to see Eeyore!! This is probably my favorite picture from the whole vacation! We also saw Pooh himself, Piglet and Tigger. The the kids got flags and got to join a parade! The food was wonderful!! Way better than the princess breakfast! They had a puffed French Toast that was to die for! Yummy!! Finally we took all the kids to Downtown Disney to do some shopping. I got the cutest Tinkerbell purse, Ana got a Minnie Mouse doll and a Princess Wallet, Belle got a Lady doll and a High School Musical necklace, and Chad got some sort of light and string contraption and a Pirates of the Caribbean sword and shirt. Fun was had by everyone.

Our flight was delayed coming home, but everyone was glad to get back. The doggies missed us terribly, not to mention the grandparents (who live down the street from us). It really is good to be home. Hope to catch up with everyone soon!

Later!