Sep 13
Posted under Life, Travel by MicheleP.
Our vacation comes to an end today – thanks Mickey for a wonderful time! [photopress:The_family_with_Mickey.jpg,full,pp_empty]Â The happiest place on earth brought out the best in us [photopress:My_little_princesses___hugging.jpg,full,pp_empty] And the not so best [photopress:Neener_Neener.jpg,full,pp_empty] [photopress:I_made_Libby_cry.jpg,full,pp_empty] Now, we are going home to do something we didn’t do on vacation… [photopress:Disney_All_Done.jpg,full,pp_empty] SLEEP! [...more]
Our vacation comes to an end today – thanks Mickey for a wonderful time!
[photopress:The_family_with_Mickey.jpg,full,pp_empty]Â
The happiest place on earth brought out the best in us
[photopress:My_little_princesses___hugging.jpg,full,pp_empty]
And the not so best
[photopress:Neener_Neener.jpg,full,pp_empty]
[photopress:I_made_Libby_cry.jpg,full,pp_empty]
Now, we are going home to do something we didn’t do on vacation…
[photopress:Disney_All_Done.jpg,full,pp_empty]
SLEEP!
Sep 12
Posted under Life, Travel by MicheleP.
Are ya tired yet? It’s Day 6 and we are! We’ve had 6 straight days of the parks with 2 three year olds. I’ve honestly been amazed at their stamina – we haven’t even had a really good meltdown – that in itself is amazing! Of course, it helps that every day except for one [...] [...more]
Are ya tired yet? It’s Day 6 and we are! We’ve had 6 straight days of the parks with 2 three year olds. I’ve honestly been amazed at their stamina – we haven’t even had a really good meltdown – that in itself is amazing! Of course, it helps that every day except for one we’ve headed back to the hotel for afternoon naps. If the girls didn’t need them, their mama did!
Today we went back to Epcot and started our day eating breakfast with the princesses in Norway. This was by far my favorite character meal and I think the girls enjoyed it too. Before they took us to our table, the girls got to meet and get their picture taken with Belle.
[photopress:The_girls_with_Belle.jpg,full,pp_empty]
Then we were seated in the tower and the food feast began! We will all need to spend a few days in food detox after this trip!
[photopress:Breakfast_at_Storybook_Princess.jpg,full,pp_empty]
As we ate, several of the princesses came around to greet us.
[photopress:Meeting_Snow_White.jpg,full,pp_empty][photopress:Meeting_Sleeping_Beauty_1.jpg,full,pp_empty][photopress:Meeting_Mulan.jpg,full,pp_empty]
The final “princess” to visit took us all by surprise.
“Mama – who is that?” I thought it might be Mary Poppins but wasn’t totally sure.
“Um, honey, I’m not really sure – why don’t you ask her name?”
Sure enough, it was Mary Poppins – not exactly sure how she qualifies as a “Princess” but I guess at Disney World everyone is a princess who wants to be 
[photopress:Meeting_Mary_Poppins.jpg,full,pp_empty]
After breakfast, we rode a few rides. Evidently Scott enjoyed the Viking Voyage[photopress:The_Vikings.jpg,full,pp_empty]
The rest of the morning, we caught up with a few more characters before heading back to our room for a (much needed) nap
[photopress:Meeting_Chip_and_Dale.jpg,full,pp_empty][photopress:Libby_and_Goofy.jpg,full,pp_empty][photopress:Clara_and_Minnie.jpg,full,pp_empty]
After nap we told the girls we were headed back to Epcot and Libby began crying. I assumed she was sad because she wanted to go to Magic Kingdom (definately their favorite of the parks) but had to laugh as she simply said, “I’m too tired to go back to the park!” I guess that is a good sign that you’ve had a good vacation – when the kids are so tired that they don’t want to visit the park anymore!
We let the girls play in the room for another hour or so and then when everyone was feeling a bit more happy, we headed back to Epcot. Did you think we would just stay in our room on our last night?! Of course not – and there was dinner at Coral Reef – we couldn’t miss that!
A big storm blew through just as we were getting to the park and so we ended up spending more time in the aquarium than originally planned.
[photopress:Shark_Attack.jpg,full,pp_empty][photopress:Look_at_that_.jpg,full,pp_empty]
As we passed by a table the girls squeeled with delight.
“Mama! Can we please do that?!”
“Do what, honey?”
“Color! Can we color?”
[photopress:Doing_art_at_Epcot.jpg,full,pp_empty]
I’m so glad we paid hundreds of dollars so they could come to Epcot. And. Color.
I can just see it now…”Clara – what was your FAVORITE part of the trip?”
“The coloring.”
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Sep 11
Posted under Life, Travel by MicheleP.
Day 5 of Disney and we are starting to show signs of fatigue – when I uploaded my pictures, I realize I only took 10 pictures today – that HAS to be a Disney record. We spent today at Epcot and to our delight, it seemed that most everyone else did NOT come today. September [...] [...more]
Day 5 of Disney and we are starting to show signs of fatigue – when I uploaded my pictures, I realize I only took 10 pictures today – that HAS to be a Disney record.
We spent today at Epcot and to our delight, it seemed that most everyone else did NOT come today. September is supposed to be “off season” but we’ve found all the other parks quite full each day. If this is the slow season…I cannot imagine coming at Christmas or Spring Break.
The girls were enamored with the “big white ball” and even more thrilled when we told them we got to go inside it and ride to space! And since there was no line at all, we rode this one several times.
[photopress:The_girls_in_line_for_the_spaceship.jpg,full,pp_empty]
[photopress:Michele_and_Clara_on_the_spaceship.jpg,full,pp_empty]
However, Scott called it quits when Clara chose Portuguese on the language screen and he had to listen to the entire narration in (very loud) Portugese.
We also got to ride the Nemo ride several times – the girls thought it was so fun to sit inside a clam
[photopress:Scott_on_Nemo.jpg,full,pp_empty]
For lunch, we headed over to the World Showcase and had a wonderful meal at Marrakesh in Morocco. We sat right next to the musicians (which could be a blessing or a curse, depending on if you enjoy that style of music) and the girls were invited to dance with the belly dancer. Thankfully, they still prefer the likes of the princesses to belly dancers
[photopress:Dancing_with_the_belly_dancer.jpg,full,pp_empty]
After naps back at the hotel, we boarded a boat and went to Downtown Disney for some dinner and shopping. Just look at the enthusiasm on the girls’ faces!
[photopress:Taking_the_boat_to_Downtown_Disney.jpg,full,pp_empty]
After dinner, we had a “small world experience”…No, we did NOT ride small world again…but ran into a friend for the second time in a day. I knew Renee was going to be at WDW this week and we had planned to meet up after lunch one day but that didn’t work out. We ended up running into her at Epcot and then again at Downtown Disney. How crazy is that?!
[photopress:Michele_and_Renee.jpg,full,pp_empty]
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Sep 10
Posted under Life, Travel by MicheleP.
Day four at Disney and we headed to Hollywood Studios. [photopress:The_Family_at_Hollywood_Studios.jpg,full,pp_empty] Once again, we started our day early with a character breakfast – this time going to the Play & Dine event with the Little Einsteins and JoJo. [photopress:Libby_at_Play___Dine.jpg,full,pp_empty] We were very excited to see the Little Einsteins – and only a bit disappointed that [...] [...more]
Day four at Disney and we headed to Hollywood Studios.
[photopress:The_Family_at_Hollywood_Studios.jpg,full,pp_empty]
Once again, we started our day early with a character breakfast – this time going to the Play & Dine event with the Little Einsteins and JoJo.
[photopress:Libby_at_Play___Dine.jpg,full,pp_empty]
We were very excited to see the Little Einsteins – and only a bit disappointed that Annie wasn’t there but we survived 
[photopress:Meeting_Leo.jpg,full,pp_empty]
Midway through breakfast the girls got to dance on the “stage” with JoJo.[photopress:Dancing_with_JoJo.jpg,full,pp_empty]
And then they got big hugs from Goliath – or “GoLion” as they call him [photopress:Meeting_Goliath.jpg,full,pp_empty]
The only thing that would have made this better was if I would have thought to take the right outfit for the occassion…
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Other highlights of the day were watching the performance of Beauty and the Beast, Little Mermaid, Playhouse Disney and riding Toy Story.
Sep 10
Posted under Life, Travel by MicheleP.
We decided to go to Animal Kingdom today. We started out with Donald’s Safari Breakfast at the Tusker House. Although it was no fun to have to set an alarm to get there on time, we enjoyed being able to go into the park an hour before it even opened. By now, the girls were [...] [...more]
We decided to go to Animal Kingdom today. We started out with Donald’s Safari Breakfast at the Tusker House. Although it was no fun to have to set an alarm to get there on time, we enjoyed being able to go into the park an hour before it even opened.
By now, the girls were starting to get the hang of this character greeting business and were very excited about meeting more characters. Every time they saw one of the characters in the restaurant they would scream out “GOOFY!”, “DONALD!”, “DAISY!” Of course, every other kid was doing the same thing so you can imagine the chaos inside this place.
[photopress:Meeting_Mickey.jpg,full,pp_empty]
[photopress:Meeting_Goofy.jpg,full,pp_empty]
[photopress:Meeting_Daisy.jpg,full,pp_empty]
After breakfast we headed out and ran into – literally – King Louie and Baloo. Baloo scooped up Clara and I worried we would need to bring in a crisis team to help her recover – but as you can see, CLARA (who is in green) was perfectly happy…it was Libby who was upset by it all. Go figure.
[photopress:Meeting_King_Louie_and_Baloo.jpg,full,pp_empty]
We headed to the Safari ride next and enjoyed seeing quite a few animals there. Of course, I have no proof of these animals or anything else we saw that day because my camera battery died just after the Baloo incident so the rest of the day was spent sans camera 
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We saw the Lion King show and Finding Nemo. Both were fantastic. The girls were glued to their seats during the Lion King and were very excited to be selected to participate in the finale dance with the actors. However, by the time we got to Nemo it was late in the afternoon and they used this show as their nap for the day.
After naps we rode one of those Rafting Rapid rides – I wasn’t sure the girls would like it but they LOVED it – especially when they got wet and told all the people standing in line as we walked out…”You’re gonna get wet!”. We also enjoyed Bug’s Life and even though we were warned that it might be a bit scary, the girls loved it.
We ended the day at Animal Kingdom by watching the parade and then headed back to our hotel for dinner there and an “early” bedtime at 9:00. It was the first night we were in bed before 11 – and probably the last one too.
Sep 09
Posted under Life, Travel by MicheleP.
We headed back to the Magic Kindom for a second day on Saturday. Since the girls had enjoyed the rides so much the first day, we decided to give a little roller coaster a try today. They were very excited and eager to ride: [photopress:Clara_on_roller_coaster_1.jpg,full,pp_empty] Until the ride actually began – and then it was [...] [...more]
We headed back to the Magic Kindom for a second day on Saturday. Since the girls had enjoyed the rides so much the first day, we decided to give a little roller coaster a try today. They were very excited and eager to ride:
[photopress:Clara_on_roller_coaster_1.jpg,full,pp_empty]
Until the ride actually began – and then it was all downhill from there (sorry, couldn’t resist that one )
[photopress:Clara_on_roller_coaster_2.jpg,full,pp_empty]
Looks like we have another few years on Small World and Dumbo in our future.
After exhausting all the rides we could, we caught some shows – the Mickey PhilharMagic was amazing. It was so funny to see the girls reaching out trying to touch everything that came near them.
[photopress:Girls_at_3D_show.jpg,full,pp_empty]
And we also got to meet a few very special ladies…
Scott wanted to know if he got to meet Ariel too…[photopress:Meeting_Ariel.jpg,full,pp_empty]
Belle at StoryTime[photopress:Meeting_Belle_at_Storytime.jpg,full,pp_empty]
And Belle in her dress – Clara whispered “You are my favorite” as she met her[photopress:Meeting_Belle.jpg,full,pp_empty]
[photopress:Meeting_Cinderalla.jpg,full,pp_empty]
[photopress:Meeting_Sleeping_Beauty.jpg,full,pp_empty]
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