Last October we took a family vacation to the Disney World. We had a great time and it was a magical time. The magic really comes from the excitement of two little girls and their parents. A week of playing and seeing new things together was great. The girls are ready to go back immediately!

How we found our room when we got back one evening.

We stayed in the park at the All Star Movie Resort. It worked well for our needs. The section we were staying in was based on 101 Dalmatians and it created a lot of discussion, mostly from Julia. She called it the puppy hotel. She also gets the name of the movie incorrect and calls it “one Dalmatian puppies”.

If you ask the girls what their favorite rides were they are likely to say one of these: Dumbo, Buzz Lightyear Spin, and the classic It’s a Small World (which Julia called the boat ride). If you ask their parents they would tell you that Julia’s favorite ride was “It’s a Small World” and Emily’s favorite “ride” was finding princesses and getting her autograph book signed. The parent’s favorite ride was Midway Mania at Hollywood Studios. While we waited in line for rides and to see characters Emily would draw in her autograph book. On one page she drew each of the princesses she met at the park.

We spent one day each at Epcot, Animal Kingdom, and Hollywood Studio. The rest of the time we visited at the Magic Kingdom. Grandma and Grandpa joined us for three days of the visit. It was a great to share the sights with them. Some of the days we visited we pushed Julia’s nap back, some days she took a nap in the stroller as we visited, and some days we bailed and took a nap at the hotel. One day Emily was pretty sick and crashed after lunch. For that evening Robby and Julia returned to Magic Kingdom and enjoyed the park on their own. Being flexible seemed to work well for us.

The longer we stayed at the park the more of the overwhelming feeling seemed to leave the girls. The first day they were just not sure of what to make of it all.  Mama loved how excited the girls got every time they saw Cinderella’s castle as we approached the park, the serious conversations that Emily had with the different characters, the fun names Julia gave things, and the low stress family time we enjoyed.

Julia kept a shyness of the characters through the whole trip. Many of the character meetings required encouragement for her to pose for her photo and meet them. Some she wouldn’t approach at all, some she was brave if Daddy was there, and a few she was so excited to meet that she put her shyness aside and blossomed with complete joy. The most tender greeting were with Rapunzel, Aurora, Minnie Mouse, Daisy, Merida, Tinkerbell and Pluto. Emily was herself with the characters. This meant that she would approach them and give them hugs and made conversation with them. She never was done talking with them. It was like catching up with long lost friends. Overall we saw 25 characters between all of the parks.

Park Highlights:

Magic Kingdom –

• Julia’s 4th birthday celebration was at Cinderella’s Castle, we were seated for the last seating for the day so we were not rushed out. It was a great end to an amazing birthday day at the park.

• Julia sang “It’s a Small World” while we rode the ride countless times.
• Emily had her first 3D experience and loved it. Robby had to catch her before she grabbed the woman in front of her while she was trying to grab the floating gems.
• Julia called the Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin ride the “shoot bad guys” ride. Mama can see that the name Disney gave the ride might not be real easy for a little kid. She loved this ride, probably because it was so interactive.

Epcot –

• We met Pluto which was the character that Julia kept asking to see. It was worth the wait for the hug and excitement she had.

• We briefly toured each of the countries to give the overall experience. Julia fell asleep and was carried for several of the countries.
• Mama got to meet her favorite character at Great Britain, Mary Poppins.
• Emily met Pooh and Tigger also at Great Britain. She hadn’t talked much about this meeting and it was not clear that she was excited while we stood in line, but it was the most joy she had at any of the greeting opportunities. She just kept giving each of them such sincere hugs.

• We kept running into Grandma and Grandpa as we travel the world tour. We traveled the same direction, but went at our own paces.

Animal Kingdom –

• Julia had been shy about meeting the characters at this park, but when she saw Baloo from a distance she was curious and wanted to meet him. She is not familiar with the story, but stood in line and went right up to see that big bear. She wouldn’t approach King Louie though.

• Last day with Grandma and Grandpa. Great to see them, but made for a sad day with the girls knowing that we were saying good bye.

Hollywood Studio –

• The girls loved the Honey I Shrunk the Kids Playground! We let them play there for a LONG time, but they were never going to be ready to leave.

• The girls had disposable cameras on this day to document their day from their eyes. They enjoyed the activity, but didn’t understand why they couldn’t see the photos right away. I guess digital cameras would be better next time.
• Mama and Daddy rode the only “adult” ride of the whole trip. We took turns riding the Star Wars ride.

• If the line hadn’t been so long we could have rode the Midway Mania over and over again. A funny story from this ride was that Emily asked Robby why she had to wear her 3D glasses, because it was not 3D. She thought that things were only 3D when they came toward you, but shooting balls away from the car did not seem to count.

We are looking forward to our next opportunity to return to Disney. It will not be our next vacation, but it will be hard to drive past the park on the way to visit the Grandparents without wanting to stop over for a short visit.

It is almost like Goofy is wishing everyone Welcome or See You Later all a the same time!

We stopped on the way home and celebrated a weekend at Jolie’s house. Grandma rode up with us and got to visit a bit longer. Mikayla was sweet to share her room with us. All the girls wanted to do was to play with Natalie and Dylan and swim in the pool. They got to do all of these things a lot. On Saturday Uncle Ken and Aunt Cindy came over for the evening and it was great to visit.

It is great when peer pressure pushes the right way. We had used this visit as motivation for the girls’ swimming class and now swimming with Natalie and Dylan wasn’t just a reward, but more inspiration. Emily enjoyed being able to jump into the pool at any point with Natalie. Julie refused to be left out of the fun and continued to build her confidence at swimming so she could jump in the deep part too. Dylan, being the lovable rambunctious boy he is, was a bit rougher in the pool and would push off of other people. The girls never seemed to mind his pushing and it seemed to make them better swimmers too. One of Mama’s favorite thing from the pool was watching Dylan and Julia swim underwater and be nose-to-nose looking at each other. Just a cute side note – Julia took to calling Nichole, Coaly. It is just her own special name.

Emily, Natalie, and Dylan – pool buddies. It has been so much fun to watch Dylan over the years become more interested in playing with the girls. It is a little tough being the only boy in the gaggle of girls, but he is doing great with them!

Uncle Ken started a game of throwing the little kids into the pool, for which they all lined up to take turns. The game evolved into Jennifer and Brett swinging the kids into the pool in turn. They loved that game too.

This is Julia’s favorite pool game . . . jumping in, getting out, and doing it all over again!

Dylan and Emily bonding over a little tablet movie watching. He was pleased to show Emily a Dragon movie (one of his favorite topics). They sat together enjoying it for quite a while.

Remarkably, Julia has decided that she likes dogs now. It was like some switch was changed and instead of worrying about if Max was in his cage, she was now wanting to know where he was. She liked to go and speak to him in his cage. She even would seek Max out to pet him. She has asked for a dog and has requested two boy dogs. She is quite insistent on the matter too. We will see, but Mama is pretty sure that when a dog comes into our family there will only be one.

Beautiful Beach, Beautiful Girls!

We try to go to the beach once per trip to Miami. It takes a little while to get to the beach so we try to make the most of it when we go. This trip it was just the girls, Grandma, and Mama at the beach. We set up our shade, got some photos, and then played in the water.

Julia kept trying to swim in the ocean like she did in the pool and she ended up with pretty red eyes. She just kept trying though. One game the girls played was to carry wet sand into the ocean and rub Grandma and Mama’s arms with the sand. It was like our own trip to the spa. Emily asked several times to go out in the deeper water with Grandma. For having simple cups to dig in the sand the girls just stayed busy and happy for a long time. Everyone seemed to enjoy the sunny, fun day tremendously.

Two flowers that Mama would pick!

Enjoying the sun and surf!

Our Ju Ju girl!

Sun-kissed water and girl.

Digging in the sand. The ocean was destroying as fast as they were building, but that didn’t deter them.

Our shady spot, but we didn’t spend much time there. While the day was hot, the water felt great!

Playing with Grandma in the ocean.

The girls wanted to do lots of swimming while we were on vacation. And we did a lot of swimming. For a Mama it was a lot of hard work to watch two little swimmers.

Emily is doing marvelously in the pool. She has confidence to jump into the pool at any depth, increasing confidence in swimming “under water”, and loving just the fun of swimming. She loved doing cannonball jumps. We made a new game of riding the elevator down game. This game originally served to encourage the girls to get their faces underwater. Our new variation involved Mama holding her far out of the water and slowly lowering her as the elevator rides down and then at the basement level, instead of dropping her under the waterline, Mama would throw her across the top of the water into deeper water. She loved it!

Julia started off by not being able to pop herself back up to the surface after jumping into the pool. Somewhere in the first couple of days she figured it out and she was fearless. We would think she was on the steps of the pool and getting out to find that she turned around and tried to swim back into the pool. She just wouldn’t stop trying to swim. It paid off and she showed the biggest improvement. There was nothing that she wouldn’t try. She mimicked Emily in trying cannonballs, jumping into the pool, swimming long distances, and putting her face in the water. She even figured out how to do a back flip off of Mama’s shoulders which Emily then scrambled to learn to be like Julia.

Enjoy the smiles and fun memories –

Swimming with Daddy! It is wonderful to show Daddy all our new tricks.

Uncle Doug and Elizabeth playing.

Water soaked grins

Grandma being silly with the girls

Pool smile- really she is just saying, “get the photo done so I can go back to swimming”.

The first stop on our vacation was at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. Robby got to spend a little time with Elizabeth, the girls got to play with Grandparents, the girls were fascinated with Elizabeth and her toys, and there was lots of swimming.

Some of the sweet or fun things that happened while we visited:

LOVE THIS! What is better than an eye-squeezing hug!

Emily is in-love with Midnight. This poor cat got more attention than he could probably handle, but he kept coming back for more. Emily would carry Midnight from room to room covering him up with blankets and treating him like a baby. Emily is asking for a cat of her own. At five she is already coming up with rational arguments of how we could work a cat into our home and promising to keep up with cat responsibilities. Please, no kind gifts of a cat for our house.

Elizabeth seemed to enjoy having other little people to play with. She crawled into the Lego cart and Emily happily pulled her around the house. What we didn’t catch with this photo was the tumble that Elizabeth took a few minutes later that ended the game. They enjoyed it while it lasted.

All the kids were taking turns wearing Uncle Doug’s hat. Julia had stolen it and was running around the house with it. She was proud of herself.

Julia has her favorite friends that she sleeps with. This trip she brought three and got a bear from Grandma. She seemed to have a firm hold on Nina the Mermaid this particular afternoon. Not to mention a sleeping kid is a perfect kid – Cute!

The girls love to borrow their Grandparents tablet and draw things. Julia was quite proud of her drawing

We heard stories that Lizzy thought she could sit on any flat surface that she could get to. Sure enough we watched her move the toys and then climb up on this shelf and try to sit. She did successfully sit, but it didn’t look too comfortable. The girls were trying to stop her and sticking with her to make sure she was safe until Sabah could get her down. Emily and Julia were surprised by this climbing thing because neither of them are climbers.

What a sweet face sitting next to Aunt Rachelle on the couch wearing a Julia dress. Aunt Rachelle was pretty lucky!