Day 4 - Epcot

Sunday's adventures took us to my favorite Disney park--Epcot. Even though the park is generally geared to older kids, the girls had a blast! Between accommodating Kate's nap schedule and just the general chaos of Disney, we didn't get a ton of family photos with all 4 of us in them. But, we were able to capture one in front of the "ball" at Epcot.

We weren't sure what Kate's reaction to Disney would be--whether she would be overwhelmed, just tolerate it, or think it was fun. She quickly demonstrated upon being in Epcot about 5 minutes that she mostly thought it was great. She thought Daisy Duck was nothing short of fabulous! As you can see above, she certainly can't be bothered with taking a picture with Daisy...she needs to get TO HER!

More joy (from all the girls!) when we stumbled upon Stitch. The characters were quite a hit throughout the whole trip! And, we have a book full of autographs to prove it...

The girls loved the Nemo ride, and thought posing with Nemo outside the ride was pretty cool too!

Epcot brought our first day of less-than-great weather--a decent amount of rain. Somehow between the rain and just general busyness of the day, we managed to not get a single picture of us at the World Showcase at Epcot! But, we did have a great time there, and enjoyed a beautiful fireworks show from the balcony of one of the buildings in Japan--a great view!

Day 3 - The Magic Kingdom

Saturday was our first full day in one of the parks, so we of course decided to start with the Magic Kingdom. Here we are with all of our gear waiting for the bus to pick us up from the hotel. We do not travel light (and we don't even have Kate with us yet!).

All of the books said that "Dumbo" was sort of a silly carnival ride...and that all kids LOVE it. And, they were right. Likely not worth the 20 minute wait in line for us adults, but the girls thought it was fabulous! And that, of course, made us think it was fabulous too. It was our first stop that morning...

One of my favorite memories of Disney as a child was riding the teacups, so that was a "must" as well. Bucko and I took one for the team and rode in the teacup with the girls--who had predeclared that they wanted to go "FAST!". And, we did. After Bucko and I stumbled off the ride, Anna's comment was "Whew--good thing we did this before Kate got here. I think this would have made her spit up and make tea!"

Later in the morning we ventured to Fairytale Garden for Storytime with Belle. Oh, the girls loved it! Sydney even got to be in the story (as the clock). Anna and Natalie loved watching her in the production, and thought getting to meet Belle afterwards was just fantastic.

One of my favorite things about Disney World was all of the live entertainment. For whatever reason, it just made the whole experience that much more "magical". The girls loved the show in front on the castle about Dreams--Anna still talks about it every day! Throughout the trip, we adults spent an inordinate amount of time in this position shown above so the girls could see the "action". I think we're all about 3 inches shorter than we were pre-Disney, and may all require some therapy/surgery for compressed discs. But, the girls had a great view, so again, we're happy!

We wrapped up our morning/early afternoon at Magic Kingdom (before returning to the hotel for a rest) with some of the yummiest pineapple frozen yogurt I've ever had! As you can see, Anna enjoyed it too...

Welcome Kate and Daddy!! After a 3 hour delay in Houston because of bad weather, we were THRILLED to have Daddy and Kate join us in FL! They met us at the hotel during our afternoon break, and then ventured back into the park with us that evening. While most of us adults found it rather underwhelming (and a little creepy), Kate loved her first Disney show--Country Bear Jamboree. Little does she know what more fun adventures lay ahead in the next few days...

The Launch - Day 2

We took our adventure to a whole new level on Friday by renting a minivan and driving to Kennedy Space Center to see the STS-132 Shuttle launch...the last flight of Atlantis. We lucked out at the last minute and got a causeway pass (well, actually two, but that's a whole other story), so we were able to see the launch from about as "up close" as we could without being VIPs. Above, the girls watched the Shuttle on the pad (and dolphins in the river in front of us) in eager anticipation.

All three girls were such troopers through the whole event. We got to the causeway about 4 hours before launch just to ensure that we'd get a good location (these launches are getting more and more crowded since there are only two left before Shuttle retirement). They mostly entertained themselves during the whole wait--we were impressed and thankful!

I felt compelled to use my new Mother's Day crafting tool (thanks Clint!) to make matching shirts for the "mamas" and the little girls. Thankfully for them, I spared Bucko and Roger having to wear matching shirts. We quickly realized once we were on the causeway that we could have at least paid for the minivan rental and gas if we had set up a little table selling these shirts! :-)

Grammie and Bucko waiting for the launch. As the "original space geeks" of our family (worked at NASA in the Apollo era), I was so thrilled that they got to see a launch before the Shuttle retires.

Bucko and his girls...

An absolutely beautiful launch on a gorgeous day. We couldn't have asked for anything more...

The girls loved having a minivan so that they could all ride together in the "way back" (thank you, Swagger Wagon). They spent the ride from KSC back to Orlando catching up on sleep from a late night of watching fireworks and a long day of waiting for the Shuttle launch. While Syd and Anna mostly rested peacefully, poor Natalie (far right) seem to suffer the most from my sudden stops in traffic. Sorry sweetie! Hope the whiplash has passed...

Our magical vacation - Day 1

Trying to document our amazingly magical Disney and Shuttle Launch vacation in one blog post would be...well...completely undoable. Even documenting in a whole bunch of blog posts is going to prove to be a challenge! But, here we go. The most reasonable way I could think to post these pictures was to do 1 posting/day we were in FL. So, be forewarned that you may be pretty sick of these by Day 6! :-)

We decided that asking Kate to endure the entire 6 day trip, including a full day launch excursion, might just push her to her little toddler limits, so we decided that she and Clint would wait and join us the day after the launch. So, Anna and I flew with Grammie and Bucko to FL to meet up with my sister and her family. Anna was none too upset to get to sit with Bucko on the airplane...

The girls (Anna and her cousins) were SO excited to see each other, and loved riding the "Magical Express" bus from the airport to our hotel.

Even just checking into the hotel was exciting! Oh, little do they know what they have ahead of them...

Our first few minutes in the Magic Kingdom. The girls were just amazed by it. Let the fun begin!

Who did we see as soon as we walked through the Magic Kingdom gates? Pluto! Even though we had committed to not spend ALL of our time getting character autographs during the trip, we did of course have to stop for this first one (and many others throughout the trip...pics to follow!).

After enjoying a few rides and dinner in the park, we had a wonderful evening watching the SpectroMagic parade, and then finding a nice place to sit and rest to watch the Wishes fireworks show. I had heard great things about this show because of the neat voice-over they do about "wishes", but thought it would definitely be lost on Anna at her age. But, towards the end of the show, I leaned over and asked her, "So, do your wishes come true?" Her answer? "At Disney they ALL come true, Mommy!"

Oh, I can tell already this is going to be a great trip...

Snowball

I am woefully far behind on posting to the blog, and also have lots of "outdated" photos that I've put aside to post and just haven't gotten around to. So, I am therefore dedicating this next week to catching up on the blog. We have our first big family vacation planned the week after that, so I KNOW I will have lots of pictures to post after that. So, I need to get caught up now!

Clint and Anna ventured up north to Cleveland in February to visit Nana, and had a wonderful time! Their timing was great and there was LOTS of snow while they were there, and Anna just had a fabulous time playing in it! Her favorite part--which she still talks about regularly--was the snowball that she found at the park and brought back to Nana's. According to Anna, it still lives in Nana's freezer (Nana--please tell us that's true! Or, better yet, at least please just tell Anna its true...)

Nana was quite the trooper and went sledding with Anna...

She and Daddy had some fun bonding time in his "hometown"...

Our little snow angel...

Making her very own snowman...

Thank you Nana for a wonderful trip (and for getting all the cold-weather gear for Anna--I think that made the adventure so much more enjoyable for her...)!