These are all taken by photographers at Disney- we purchased the photo pass CD which was awesome!

I finally have time to write some more about our trip to Disney! I *think* I have Matt convinced to make the trip again in 2 years 🙂 I personally think I want to go around Thanksgiving to that I can enjoy all the Christmas decorations. But time will tell.

Sunday after unloading all the crap from the van and running out to Publix while the little ones took a short but needed nap, we head to Disney for the first time. It was nice because everyone knew where we were going but still really didn’t have a clue. Sunday we arrived around 4pm and stayed till around 10:30. This was the day that Zach and myself got to ride the most. Basically everything in Fanstyland we rode with a kid on a lap. My favorite was Peter Pan but Zach really liked “It’s a small world.” We ended up eating at a Pizza place, not good not bad just kind ok.” The plan was to stay for the parade and it was pretty cool. We ended up getting back to the house around 11.

Monday or melt-down day as I am going to refer to it as was the most whiney and stressful of the whole trip. The reasons for this were pretty simple, we stuffed too much into one day and after the late night prior it was awful. I am glad we did it all because of the birthday we celebrated but in the future my lesson is learned. No early morning after late nights. So we arrived back on property at 8am. Kendall, Lily and Haley all had appointments at the Bippity, Boppity Boutique. We do have some great pictures from this and they all enjoyed themselves. Kendall had the most fun because her fairy godmother read her several stories. Honestly, I don’t know if we will do this again, I will not schedule it without the girls asking specifically to do it. After finishing with the Boutique the girls meet the real Fairy Godmother from Cinderella. Lily really really really likes Rapunzel from Tangled and this was the last day of a special meet and greet where the kids got to dance with Rapunzel and Flynn Rider and color and have some really neat interaction. It was also very very long of a wait, 2 hours to be exact. Zach and I waited in line while everyone else went to Tommorowland. They rode the tea cups and enjoyed a show where Kendall got to be on TV with the Monster from Monsters Inc. The only problem was that because they did not realize it would take so long in the show they were within minutes of missing Rapunzel. Lily still says this is her favorite part of the trip so I don’t regret waiting at all!
After finishing with Rapunzel it was off to Royal Table for lunch. This is definitely a thing to skip. The food was good but the interaction with the princess was really brief. So no matter what we wont be doing this again. Although I would not do it again it does have some of the sweetest memories. Zach was sooo tired by this point and off schedule that he had a all out melt down. I finally got him calmed down and started eating only to have Kendall climb up on my lap and cry. Both the kids were exhausted, but as Kendall was crying on my lap Snow White walked up behind me and she looks up smiles and says “Hi Snow White” Seriously like she talked to her on a regular basis. Kendall then got her picture made with all the princess and got in a much better mood. After lunch we watched a show outside. Lily keeps telling us it was the Blue show and then headed back to the house for a quiet evening. Unfortunately, we have no pictures from the Royal Table because Amanda accidental deleted all of hers and my camera didn’t get used because of the melt downs.

Tuesday morning we slept in and headed to Disney about 9 am. On the way Kendall looks out the window and says “LOOK LOOK water is coming up.” The neighborhood sprinklers were on. We take the kid to Disney World and she is more excited about the sprinklers than Snow White. Can anyone top that?

Tuesday was the day we spent at Epcot. The annual flower show was in full swing and we got to see some really pretty flowers. They had alot of the characters and all the princess in some of the shrubs. We met Tinker Bell this day as well. We decided to tour the countries for dinner and ending up eating ok Chinese. Our friends ate in Mexico and said it was horrible. Matt ended up eating in Germany and ranks that as one of his best meals. We only enjoyed about half the countries and walked quickly around the remaining ones just to get back to the van. I really enjoyed this day. So my plan is to post pictures from it on Wordless Wednesday. More stories to come as I have time to post!

The house we stayed in. We had paid for early check-in(11am) but when we arrive it was not unlocked. We ended up waiting outside for about 30 minutes but the house was awesome. It was 6 bedrooms. Haley and Andrea shared a room downstairs. Amanda had a room to herself with the window facing out. Kendall also had a room to herself. Lily and Izzy shared a room “like high school roommates”. Zach ended up in our huge closet. He slept very well.

My goal over the next week is to post as many pictures and writings as I can think of about our Disney Vacation. The reason I am sure you know is to record and in the future print and pass on to the kids. First I am going to start with the major failure of the trip- the budget.

I am sharing this part of our trip to help others if they want to plan a trip and need to stay on a tight strict budget. If you don’t care just skip and enjoy the picture of our van at the bottom.

Overall, I am placing us at around $400 over-budget. I can easily pinpoint several of the reasons that this occurred. The first reason was gas. We ended up spending $400 on gas, which is a full one hundred over what I budgeted. The second budget buster was our meal at “Hollywood and Vine” with the characters. I have to say I would do this meal again, if my kids were the same ages. They LOVED the character interaction and the food was the best on property we ate. However the final cost was $190. This included gratuity that was around $30. Gratuity was also added at the Bip boppity boutique that I had not planned on. The final budget buster for us was the desire and ability to stay later at the parks than I expect. We ended up eating one meal a day out which was not planned for 3 of the days.

Here is the van we traveled in along with the signs that Matt placed that say “Mouse Bound”. I was not a fan at first but we needed them because you would be amazed at how many large vans are in each parking section.