I need to blog about Disney!

So, I am sitting here with this on my back (a gift from my parents) feeling guilty for not blogging yet about our amazing trip to Disney last month (also a gift from my parents). I have been feeling guilty for a while now but have no great pictures to show so had no motivation to blog. Our first day in florida, we went to visit our friends (an hour and a half away) and I left my camera case in their living room with the charger! SO, I only got pictures from our first two days. Luckily I could use my moms camera but I haven't gotten pictures from her yet. So, more pictures to come soon.

I have to start this post telling about how we got there to begin with. We were to leave on a friday afternoon, so I was getting last minute things done around the house, still in my p.j.'s when I got the call. It was airtran saying they had canceled our flight. We would have to take a 6pm flight and not get to FL until almost 11pm! We had planned to drive to Tampa that night to spend the night with our friends so I asked if there was any way we could get an earlier flight. She said she didn't think there would be space left for 5 passangers but she checked. She came back saying there were exactly 5 spaces left on that flight but that we would have to be at the airport within 45 minutes! WHAT! OK, but it would get us to FL a few hours earlier than what we were going to be in the first place so I said "great!" I ended up not packing food for our trip, leaving the house a mess for our house-sitters, and Chris called our friend who was taking us to come earlier. We were out the door within a very stressful 20 minutes. We got to the airport and we got all the kids and luggage out of the van and said good-bye to Nate. I almost took a sigh of relief when Nate yelled out to me"don't you need the carseat?!" Oh my gosh! He is not even a dad yet. I don't know how he remembered and not me ( a mom of three! ) . Anyways, I got the car seat and we got checked in and through security with tons of time to spare. We were on the plane and we thought we were about to take off at 11 am when the pilot calmly said over the intercom that "the good news was that we were all going to Disney...and the bad news was that he had no idea when we would get there!" There was a mechanical problem with the plane and they would have to fly in a part and a mechanic from Atlanta to fix it and it would be at least 7pm before we would be able to leave!!! Oh my goodness! I was really about to have a panic attack, but my well traveled husband assured me that we would have so much fun in the kids play area and surely they would give us food vouchers so that we could go find a sports bar and watch the Phillies... So, I decided to make the most of it. We did, however decide to switch to the 6pm flight that they tried to put us on earlier. We headed out, for a fun filled day at the Philly airport. Several hours later I thought I should take a break from the greasy sports bar and take India for a walk and check our flight times. To my dismay, I found that the flight we switched to was now delayed!! SOOOOOO, I went to the check-in counter and asked them when the other flight would be leaving. It looked like it would be around 7 like they hoped. So I switched AGAIN! The plane was ready for us at 7 but we had to wait another 30 minutes for the flight crew:( The flight was uneventful and I think the kids slept some, but it was after 11pm when we got to Orlando. After 9 hours in the airport and a 4 hour plane ride, we were not feeling the drive to Tampa to see our friends. We went to the check-in desk and asked for hotel vouchers, and we got them! We got two rooms, attached and it was right there in the airport. The kids love staying in hotels, so it was a nice treat.

The next day we headed to Tampa. We hung out with our friends there for most the day and then came back in time to check in to our condo before my parents got there. My dad had a conference in one of the disney resorts, but we stayed 5miles away in a condo that we exchanged our time share for. While my dad did his conference, my mom and the rest of us did the parks for the next 6 days straight. We did Sea World two days, Animal Kingdom, Magic Kingdom, Epcot, and MGM. This was a huge man made tree in animal kingdom that I could stare at all day!

My dad was able to make it to Magic Kingdom for the fireworks and we had a full day with him in MGM (where he tried out for American Idol) and Sea World. It is all such a blur because it was so non-stop. I can't wait to get all the pictures to be able to remember more.My favorite was Sea World. I went on a roller coaster for the first time in over 10 years and took atleast 15 minutes to gain back my equilibrium. I loved the dolphins and we had a great time having dinner with Shamu. Moriah and India loved Magic Kingdom the most and Alexa loved Epcot the most. My other favorite thing was seeing 3-D for the first time in my life at Animal Kingdom. I have an eye condition called amblyopia which has always prevented me from seeing 3-D in movies. Well, either my eyes are somewhat better or the 3-D technology is much different at Disney than I have ever seen before because I had bugs coming right up to my face in that movie! I actually started to cry because I was so excited! Animal Kingdom also had an amazing African safari ride. We all loved the gorillas!

We did some fun rides but not a lot because my girls are just not quite there yet, but there were a couple rides that Chris and I went on while my mom watched the girls. This one was a dinosaur ride.

My favorite was this one that went from 0 to 60 mph in 2 1/2 seconds! Epcot was really awesome for all of the educational stuff that they had and I took India for a stroll "around the world" while my mom, chris and the the girls went on some rides. They were having their yearly wine and food festival which was fun...but would have been more fun with Chris instead of India:)
Well, like I said, it was a blur. I think I could write more if I had more pictures. It was a trip to remember for sure. India has been obsessed with Donald ever since we got home. We have one old vhs of donald that she watches every single day now! It is cute though and fun to see her get so excited about a duck:) I think she will love having her granddads talk to her in their donald voices now which will make them quite happy, I am sure.