Even though our trip to Disney was cut short this year, due to hurricane Irma, we still had a blast. Prepare for picture overload as I recount the memories.
Andrew and Kate walked to our friend's house to drop Duke off the night before we headed out to Disney. Sometime between the time they left and came back Kate got bit up pretty good by mosquitoes. The two bites that mattered the most were the ones right below both of her eyes. Poor thing had swollen eyes for 3 days. Here she is the morning before we drove out.
In the car and ready to go!!...to church. :)
We went to sacrament meeting in the morning and left right after to drive to our hotel for Sunday night. We only stayed there one night. Monday morning we drove to our Disney hotel, dropped off our bags and headed to Magic Kingdom.
Here the girls are all ready to go to the park, mist fan in hand to battle the heat.
Our first fastpass for the day was "it's a small world". We quickly paused on our way to take the first picture of our time at Disney World.
"it's a small world" was a hit with the girls. I was worried about Ellie but shouldn't have been. She was so enthralled by all the dancing people and animals, it made me happy to watch her.
The lines were very short for the merry-go-round so we hopped in line to take a ride before heading to our second fast pass.
Ellie had so much fun!
Next, we went to meet four princesses. Cinderella, Elena, Rapunzel, and Tiana. Cinderella was the first one to greet. I guess it was all too sudden for Kate because she really didn't want to say hi, so, she stayed back with me while Abby and Ellie talked to Cinderella.
It only took Kate a couple minutes to realize that the princesses are super sweet. Right after Cinderella was Elena and Kate went up to her no problem.
Waiting in line for Rapunzel and Tiana.
Kate's favorite - Rapunzel.
Tiana was cool. She told Kate that it's okay to be shy but to get over the shyness you just have to dig a little deeper. I didn't realize till walking through the park later that she was quoting a song from her movie :)
Kate brought her own money this trip, $13, and was determined to buy a toy that first day. I knew that we would never hear the end of it if I didn't allow her to buy something, anything!, so after meeting Rapunzel she bought a Rapunzel doll. That doll did not leave Kate's sight the whole trip. Well, she at least knew where it was.
Ellie was not a fan of being buckled into the stroller but she loved crawling in and out of it as she pleased. So much fun for Daddy and me to make sure she didn't land on her face.
The girls loved their new Mickey Mouse sunglasses they got from Grammy just for this trip.
Third fastpass - Dumbo the Flying Elephant
Waiting for all of the elephants to take off was really quite hot. It felt like the sun was beating down on us like crazy and so Ellie was not a fan at all, until she was lifted up into the air. Then she was walking on sunshine.
The Barnstormer was up next. Ellie was, of course, too short to ride so Andrew and I took turns with the girls. He took Kate and then I took Abby. She had no idea what she had signed up for having never been on a roller coaster before. When we went over the first hill she was shocked but after two seconds she started laughing. It was over way too soon and so she was more than ready for round two!
We did a lot of walking this trip. The hotel we stayed at was Shades of Green which took a bus and then a tram to get to the park. When getting on the bus you had to fold up your strollers which we didn't want to do with two sleeping girls. So, after getting off of the tram to head back to the hotel for our afternoon siesta, we walked. And then walked some more.
After our siesta was over we headed back to Magic Kingdom
We did Enchanted Tales with Belle that night and I'm glad we did. I don't think we would have gotten another chance this trip because it was cut short and Belle is Abby's favorite princess. It was quite fun and when it was Kate and Abby's turn to take a picture with Belle, they both lit up so much, it was adorable.
All of the girls enjoyed killing aliens with Buzz Lightyear
Tuesday was spent at Epcot. Tuesday was suppose to be a half day for us all. The plan was for me to fly to Utah that afternoon for my dear Uncle's funeral on Wednesday and then fly home that night and arrive back in Orlando early Thursday morning. We didn't have much time so Andrew and Kate rode Soarin' and then we all walked to see Belle in France. Abby was smitten, seeing her favorite princess for the second time.
We then went under the sea with Nemo and Friends.
We left right after so I could get dropped off at the airport. We stopped at Walmart on the way to grab some water and fill up on gas before hurricane Irma arrived. She wasn't suppose to arrive till the weekend but Andrew wanted to be all set to go way before then.
I dropped Andrew off to get the water at Walmart while I went and got gas. The parking lot was PACKED and so I figured I had time to go find some being as that there wasn't a station nearby. I barely turned out of the parking lot when Andrew called me. It was a mad house. The line to check out was all the way to the back of the store, an easy 1 hour wait to check out which he was not willing to do. And people everywhere grabbing what they could before Irma arrives. That freaked us both out a little so as we drove to find a gas station we talked out plans.
We decided that I would forego my trip to Utah so we could finish up Disney one day sooner and head out of town. After a few phone calls we arrived back at the hotel. The girls had been begging to go to the pool so after getting all of my travel plans taken care of, we headed down to the pool.
All three girls really enjoyed our time at the pool. They had a little kid area with a couple slides and a play area to climb on. The big pool was three feet deep and had stairs leading down into the water. Kate and Abby are getting really good at swimming and wanted to try out the big pool with Daddy while I watched Ellie in the little kid area.
Andrew and I switched places a few times but eventually we all ended up in the big pool. You can see it in the picture below, a big water slide three stories high, that Andrew decided he would like to go down. He did and it was fun.
Well, our determined little three year old decided she wanted to have some fun on this big, awesome slide too. You had to be a certain height to go down this slide, which she nor Kate met. That didn't deter her at all. I was watching the girls while Andrew was coming back to us from his turn down the slide when I looked around and could not see Abby. I looked over at the stairs up to the slide and saw her making her way up. I yelled at her to stop. She didn't. I got out of the water and started walking towards her, yelling out threats of spankings as I went. She continued to climb. I started climbing the stairs up after her and when I got to the top she'd already gone down the hole.
Andrew was at the bottom to catch her as it was 6 feet deep where the slide shot out. Thank heavens she had her life jacket on. And come out she did, smiles and all. Trying as hard as I could to hold back a smile, I scolded her once I came back down the stairs. I admit, I couldn't help but feel proud of my defiant little three year old. She took that slide on like a champ.
We went back to Epcot that evening and got to see Mickey, Goofy, and Minnie. They are probably my favorite characters to meet. They are definitely in the top five. They are just so sweet and the girls love them. Ellie wasn't super sure of them at first. She definitely didn't want them touching her but was okay with herself reaching out to them. I have to add, she acted the same way with all of the characters, from mouse to princess.
Tuesday night we decided that Wednesday would be our last day at Disney so that we could leave before the rest of Florida did. I called and changed our hotel reservation so we could check out Thursday and then went to bed.
Wednesday was already planned so that we would go to Magic Kingdom. First fastpass of the day was to RoadRacers. Abby and I were up first and had a lot of laughs the whole drive. Man, those cars are hard to keep straight!
Kate and Daddy were up next but while Abby and I were in line, I noticed a mom driving with her two boys. I asked if both Kate and Abby could ride with Andrew and was given the thumbs up. The three of them had a blast!
Ellie was having fun climbing in the stroller so Abby took a turn at riding in the ergo.
While waiting in line to see Merida, Andrew went on a walk with Ellie to keep her happy. They found two ducks a ways down this walkway and lured them back with goldfish. Ellie was smitten. She would make the cutest sounds whenever she saw ducks again from this time on.
Merida was cool and had a crazy thick Scottish accent.
On our way over the bridge a performance was going on right outside the castle so we stopped and watched for a bit.
Next ride was Jungle cruise. Ellie was excited to see a duck.
Annd, I guess the other animals were cool too.
Kate and Abby really enjoyed it. They were constantly looking out the whole time.
On our way to our next ride it started pouring on us. We barely made it to this train station for cover when it really started coming down. I had just gone on the Barnstormer with Abby and came back when we decided to take cover. We could see the roller coaster continue to run while it was raining so Kate and Daddy went on the ride in their ponchos and rode it three times straight. Kate LOVED it and came back grinning from ear to ear!
The lines for everything were short after the rain stopped so we jumped in line to say hi to Ariel. Kate and Abby were excited. Ellie, not so much.
After all of the morning fun our tummies were pretty empty. We stopped at Gaston's Tavern and while I grabbed a table with the girls, Andrew got the food. He didn't realize the cinnamon rolls were so huge so he got two and we ate them all up!
Abby fell asleep on the way to go meet Jasmine and Aladdin so I took Kate on the magic carpet ride while Andrew saved our spot in line.
Aladdin was quite funny and Jasmine was very nice. The girls were happy to say hi and I was excited to have met someone we hadn't met before.
Coming back from our siesta we were all smiles.
Our last night at the park
Ellie found some more ducks.
We ended our trip the same way we started it, on "it's a small world". Andrew said that this is his face he makes when he is hoping his wife doesn't drop her phone in the water. I didn't.
Oh wait. I guess this was our last ride. :) Winnie the Pooh.
We stayed for the fireworks and got a decent spot at the front of the castle. They were AMAZING. Like, the perfect montage of clips and music with fireworks going off at the perfect time and color and size. It was just so awesome. I was blown away. Definitely the best firework show I have ever seen in my life. Oh Disney, I love you so.
All the way back to the hotel the girls entertained themselves by untying knots that Daddy would tie in their glow stick necklaces. There was a sweet couple on the tram that thought this was funny when the girls first started doing it which made the girls think it was even funnier. They did this for about an hour while I got the rest of our things packed up. :)
We left the hotel right before check out, trying to delay getting on the highway to sit in traffic for as long as possible. What would normally take 7 hours to get home took 10 1/2 hours. It was a long day. All of the girls did great though.
Kate had fun feeding Ellie cheese puffs.
Oh, that cheesy little hand! Ha!
Our trip was so much fun. We hope to go back before the end of the year to use our last two days. Disney is such a magical place and we love being there!
