Hollywood Studio

Hollywood Studio's was our favorite park. Well 4 out of 5 of our's favorite park. Addyson like Magic Kingdom the best. Hollywood Studio's was magical for us "older" children. The rides were AWESOME!! Tyler's favorite was the Twilight Zone's Tower of Terror. It takes you really high up and drops you. Addyson was too short so I "had" to stay with her. Kamron chose to stay with us as well! Todd, Kamron and myself LOVED the Aerosmith Rock-n-Roller Coaster. Disney has the greatest invention called "Child swap" If a child is too short to ride a ride, like Addyson was, they gave us a 'Fast Pass' and one parent stayed behind with the child while the other one stood in line for the ride. The wait time was short that morning so Todd and the boys rode it first. They LOVED it!! When they got off, the boys rode it with me again AND we didn't have to stand in line!! IT was AWESOME. It was hands down the best ride we rode. LOVED the Aerosmith songs blaring and the 0-60 mph in 2 seconds and the upside down in the dark thrills were great too! Another high profile ride was Toy-Story Mania. If you don't look at any of the links, you HAVE to look at this one. This ride was amazing. We stood in line for 20 minutes just to get the Fast Pass. When we returned to ride it 3 hours later the stand by wait time was 120 minutes...2 hours wait time. We enjoyed just walking onto the ride. The Fast Passes for the day were out in 2 hours. CRAZY!! IT was a fantastic ride though. We stayed at Hollywood Studios from open to close that day. We rarely did that but was just having so much fun. 95% of the rides located here we rode. The Star Wars one we rode 3 times. The kids loved it. We stayed late to watch Fantasmic, the laser water light show that evening. We waited 2 hours in line for a good seat. It was SOOOO worth it!! Here are crazy pictures while we were waiting: Mom was a sucker for light saver souvenir's that lite up and changed color's.

The kids could of played at the "Honey I Shrunk the Kid's" playground for hours. We definitely relaxed there while they played.

Aside from the night firework shows the BEST show we saw was the "Light's, Motor, Action, Extreme Stunt Show! Check it out! Here we were waiting for them to open the doors. Once again we had AWESOME seats. I have 2 FANTASTIC books that helped me plan this trip. If you are planning on taking the plunge and going to Disney, email me and I will tell you which ones. They were invaluable!!

In front of the Star Tours ride they had an "Imperial Speeder" that the kids got to sit on. I had to make Addyson sit on it but she loved it once she was on it. The boys LOVED it!!

While poor Addyson endured the endless waiting with me while the boys were riding the "grown up rides" she posed for a cute picture.

At Disney they take pictures of you and group them all together on our Photopass card. When we got home I plugged in our photopass numbers and all the photo's from the trip they took were grouped together. I can share them with you if you let me know you want me to. Comment on my blog or shoot me an email and I will invite you to look at them.

Next up...Magic Kingdom and the Bibbity Bobbity Boutique where they turned Addyson into a PRINCESS!! She LOVED it!!!!!!!!

Animal Kingdom

We went to Animal Kingdom on Saturday. It was not our favorite park, but one we enjoyed. I think the horribly hot and humid weather with no breeze probably added to the less than enjoyable time at Animal Kingdom, plus it was Saturday and was definitely more busy than Epcot was the prior day. We stayed from 8-1. We took our lunch into the park and that worked really well. We decided to do it every day like that. Our favorite attractions at Animal Kingdom were the Kilimanjaro's Safari, Dinosaur, Expedition Everest, and Primeval Whirl. The Safari was awesome and Addyson LOVED it. Everyone but Addyson loved the Dinosaur ride. It took you back into time like Jurassic Park did and at one point a HUGE T-Rex jumped out at us. The picture from the ride was priceless. I had her head in my lap and her eyes were covered the whole time. She has no idea what the ride was even about. If we have any chance of getting her out of our bed at night, shielding her from that ride was a wise choice! The boys all rode Expedition Everest. It is one of the Roller Coasters that Animal Kingdom is famous for. We went there first since the line was small. I had a rule that anything that Addyson was big enough for she was riding. We made it to the front and her heart was beating out of her chest and she was bawling before we even got on the ride. I made a quick decision to not make her ride it and it turned out to be a good one. Todd and the boys LOVED it. Todd said it was way to intense for her and we are glad we opted out at the absolute last minute!! The boys and I rode Primeval Whirl and waited for an hour in line! They were not taking fast passes for that ride and we thought it was going to be awesome. We were so disappointed. Addyson was too short but would of loved it. The large playground at the park, the kids posed all on their own for these pictures. They are so funny!!

She tried so hard to do what the boys did!

Being silly one more time!

Then dad said NO more! We want a good picture!

We were waiting for "It's a Bugs Life" 3D and a really nice lady took a family picture. There were so many 3 D shows in all the parks. Some were really great. This one wold of scarred any little children. Thank goodness ours loved it!!

Carved from wood!! WOW

Look at the carvings in the tree. There were so many like this. They were really neat!

This is Expedition Everest!

Next up, Hollywood Studios! It was every one's favorite that was over 7 years old. Addyson loved Magic Kingdom the best!

Epcot, 1st full day at Disney

We started the Disney World journey at Epcot. We started there because I had reservations in Norway for our character lunch with the princesses. Pictures below. We also met all the other characters. It was a SUPER way to start our vacation. Epcot ranked up there as being one of our favorite parks. We LOVED the ride Soarin' and Addyson will tell you it was her favorite. We rode it twice thanks to the Fast Pass. The boys LOVED Mission-Space. Addyson and I opted for the "less intense" green version while the boys did the full force orange version. To give you a little glimpse at how intense it is, each seat is equipped with barf bags! The boys loved it! Todd didn't enjoy it as much. We also loved Test Track. Picture to follow. It was a 5 minute ride that went 60mph at one point! Addyson loved Nemo and Friends. They also talked with Crush from Nemo in an interactive show. It was really neat!! It rained daily on us so during one of the down pours we took the time to stand in doors and visit some of the characters. Here are the pictures.

I just LOVED the pictures with Addyson and Minnie. Minnie LOVED her outfit and Addyson's smile never went away!

Look how cool Kamron is, they didn't enjoy the characters as much as Addyson did. (Or so they said)

The one who started it all... Mickey!!

Here we are at the Princess lunch. Focus on Addyson's face. It was priceless. I am only posting a few, I have a ton catching her staring at the princesses. She truly 100% thought they were the "real" princesses. She even told me that they slept in the castle every night.
Ariel from Little Mermaid:

Princess Aurora from Sleeping Beauty:

Addyson talking with Cinderella.

Snow White, Addyson's favorite.

LOVE this picture of her! It captures her whole emotion when she saw each princess this is the look she had!

Family Picture with Bealle from Beauty and the Beast.

Eating our exquisite lunch at Norway.

Epcot has the famous jumping water. Guess how many pictures I had to take to catch the water in mid air! LOL

Waiting for test track!! The first ride we rode!! I love this picture of the boys. They LOVE the roller coasters! Can't say I blame them, I do too!!

Looking at the sting rays waiting for "Crush" to start.

One of Addyson's favorite rides, Nemo

Test Track!!!!

Next up, Animal Kingdom!!

More on Ft Wilderness...

Here are a few pictures of the kids fishing in the pond behind the camper. A guy fishing beside them caught some big fish. We didn't however, but they had fun trying!

Look at Addyson stand there, do you think she is a born fisherman or a princess??? LOL

When we arrived at Ft. Wilderness we had decided that we were NOT going to spend the extra money to rent a golf cart to get around the 400+ acres at the campsite. They had internal buses and the kids had their scooters to make it easier on them. After ONE day that was out and we rented a golf cart for the remaining 7 days! LOL So much for the exercise that I wanted to get while we were there. It was the best spent money of the WHOLE trip!! LOL

This is the pool at the campsite. We swam most of the time in the evening after being at the parks all day. NO sunscreen when you swim at 10:00 at night, right! The pool was open 24 hours a day with 2 life guards on duty from 10-10 every day. The kids would of loved to swim daily! They loved the slide!

One night we went to the campfire and sing along with Chip and Dale. We were made to do the Chicken dance and the Hokey Pokey. I think the kids liked that mom got out there and did it with them. That is one video I will not be putting on here! LOL During the campfire the kids roasted smores and had a super time. They wore their swimsuits and we skipped out on the movie and opted to do our nightly swimming instead.

Addyson and I at the campfire.

We only spent 1/2 day at Animal Kingdom and came home and rested. The kids were all sound asleep and there was a family of ducks walking through our campsite to the water. It was so cool!! During our stay we had 2 Armadillos, a family of ducks, a snake, too many frogs to count, snails, and mosquito's that we saw next to the camper. I have to say that the snake freaked out Addyson quite a bit!

Epcot is next for sure!!

Monticello to Fort Wilderness in Orlando, Fl

Were HERE!!! After 26 hours DRIVE time, Probably close to 30 hours total in the car getting to our destination, we made it!!
We stayed in Disney's 400 acre Fort Wilderness Resort and Campground. WOW! It was impressive!

We arrived by 2pm and began preparing camp like we have done numerous times. We began to pop UP the camper, and it would not go! We were quite stressed out to say the least. After about 4 hours and many phone calls to Lubbock where we bought the camper, and a really nice person who worked at Ft. Wilderness, it was a dead battery and blown fuse. We jumped it and it was smooth sailing. We did have to make a dash to the local tourist trap Walmart for a new battery, they didn't have our speciality fuse. Here is the camper before we were highly stressed! We had our own little pond behind our site that the kids fished at.

Here is the pond

Located directly next to the pond was the huge playground. I wish we would of spent more time at the campsite, there was soo much to do there. Horse back riding (Addyson was too young, we will be doing it when we go back) the coolest pool ever, Mickey's BBQ, Chip and Dale's campfire and nightly movie.

Tyler checking out the scenery

Up next...Epcot

Houston to Monticello

Were not in West Texas anymore, Dorothy! I think you could become claustrophobic driving to Florida with all the trees. We drove through the CAPITOL of Florida and didn't see one building. I wonder what Floridians would think of Muleshoe, TX? We left Houston at 4 am and headed on the next leg of our journey. This was the worse time in the car. We had hit our limit...14 hours in the car with 12 1/2 driving time was rough! It didn't help that I had put Addyson's new earrings from Aunt Chrissy on too tight and she woke up in the car SCREAMING that her ear was hurting! I thought it was another ear infection (because she told me it was the inside of her ear..)and had even called the pedi in Lubbock and had decided that once we reached Orlando I would find a clinic to take her to. 23 hours later, I took her earrings out and OMG!! Her earring was digging into her ear and her ear was white from the pressure. Talk about bad mom!! Thank goodness we had not gone to the clinic yet. Wouldn't that of been great when they found out I was a nurse and what I didn't catch with my own daughter!!
We stopped in Monticello, Fl (outside of Tallahassee) and spent the night with Uncle John, Todd's uncle. We had never been to his house and had a fabulous time. We introduced him to "Jalapeno Poppers" and I think he loved them!

The drive to Orlando from Monticello was ONLY a measly 4 hours so we slept in before we drove on to Disney.

Here is a picture of John and Treina and the kids. They bonded and felt like we had been there many times. We loved spending time with you John!! Thanks again for the awesome hospitality and the great goodies you sent with us! We LOVED it all!!! Thanks again!!!!!!!!!!

Next up.....Disney Day one... What an adventure that was~!