Eating with Celebs

Thank goodness I consulted many a Mickey Mouse fan before we went to Disney. These Disney vets tipped us off to dining with the characters rather than standing in long lines at the parks. Our first celebrity dining experience was at breakfast with Pooh and friends, Mary Poppins and Alice in Wonderland and friends. The kids loved this and Daddy loved the breakfast buffet!

Nate, Miss Mary Poppins and Tessa

Mad Hatter...I do think he was mad.

Alice in Wonderland

Tigger. Tigger liked our table and kept bouncing back!

Pooh. Look at those smiles!

This was an attempt at a Christmas card picture. Instead looks a little like a creepy engagement picture! That whole house is really made out of cookies too!

Tessa smiling nicely. Nate distracted...imagine.

Magic Kingdom II

Day two of Magic Kingdom was hitting things we hadn't seen and going back to some of our favorites. We also went to Mickey's Magic Christmas Party that evening. The decorations and Christmas music filtered in all through the park was awesome!

That night at the Christmas party they made it snow on Main Street. Some people were really going bonkers over the fake fluff. We Midwesterners appreciated how pretty it was but were glad to see it wasn't accumulating!

Riding Buzz Light Year ride...again.

The kids were excited to run in to the trash can again! He kept teasing and taunting Tessa this time around!

Now this picture had a lot of potential. Look at that backdrop? But yes Nate looks rather red-eyed and miserable because we had just tortured him by taking him on Lilo & Stitch. This ride goes pitch black for a minute (a VERY LONG MINUTE when you are sitting next to a screaming, freaking out kid) and has animal-alien noises filtered in and your seats shake. It came with a warning that Troy and I seemed to dismiss as we had seen the cartoon before thinking "how bad could it be." Well, Tessa had no problem but our dear, dear chicken-pants Nate had a royal meltdown. Poor kid. He inherited this chicken-ness and fear of the dark from his mother. The rest of the week when the kids would act up we would use our awesome parenting skills and threaten the kids with taking them back to Lilo & Stitch!

Having a cool snack as Dad rode Space Mountain all by himself!One of these pics was deemed good enough for our Christmas card this year. This was just one of the 10 along the way to the one we chose. The kids are sitting on a sleigh along the Christmas parade route.

Here come Mickey and Minnie for the Christmas party parade!

At this point in the evening...after we had enjoyed our complimentary refreshments that in reality we paid for with our additional ticket pricing for the party...Nate was low on fuel, crying and wanted to leave. We reluctantly left before the final fireworks show.

In the end, we had to thank Nate for the timing of his whining...because we got to see the fireworks from the boat on the bay on our way back to the resort! We had the best seats in the house!

Magic Kingdom I

We went to the Magic Kingdom for two days. Our favorites rides here were Peter Pan, Toy Story and the safari boat tour. We seemed to luck out with sunshine, perfect temperature, little waits and great seats on nearly every ride!

And here we are are. The quintessential family pic in front of Cinderella's castle!

Cinderella's Castle

Our resort was on the bay so we could take a boat or a bus ride over to the park.

We just happened to run in to Pinocchio when we were getting our stroller for the day!

This is Nate up front on the safari boat tour. He took in every word the Captain said.

While we were waiting for one of the parades we encountered the Talking Trash Can. They picked Nate out of the crowd to come over and ask him a question. Nate asked what he liked to eat. The trash can said "trash!" The trash can then kept asking Nate where his sleeves went and what had happened to them!

Waiting in the stroller for a parade. We learned very quickly that we shouldn't do the double stroller...these kids found a way to fight about just about anything! Even though they were 4 and 6 having a stroller for them was a good thing!

And when you wear a Pluto hat, Pluto certainly doesn't miss you in the crowd!

Ghetto Pluto

Tink was the only character we stood in line to meet. And, frankly, that was an accident because we thought it was a ride! As you can see, Tessa wasn't digging Tink at the time so there's Dad in the pic with his cool backpack on!

Getting ready to take off on the carpet ride....I do believe Nate was talking smack about his was going to go faster and higher.

Minnie on the carousel

Nate on the carousel. Look at those smiles!

Miss red-cheeked Diva getting her shoes tied. That's her loving brother's shoe above her head.

Running low on fuel. Yep, that's drool.

Nate about to board ship on the It's a Small World ride...no worries Tessa awoke for the ride!

Castle all lit up after yet another parade

Seriously. How happy do these kids look? Nate is holding his Jack Sparrow sword.

Hollywood Studios

So I took a gazillion pictures on our Disney trip (notice I will keep referring to it as a "trip" because it was FAR from a vacation!) and I will certainly not be trying to share all of them. But I do want to share some highlights as we did have a really great and memorable time! Our first park stop on this magical Disney trip was Hollywood Studios. We actually really, really enjoyed this park. We even went back on one of our "days off" to catch a parade we had missed and go to a few things that the kids seemed to dig...like Star Wars and Indiana Jones! Of course, Nate and Tessa were all about the Toy Story stuff so that was our very first stop and well worth it. Surprisingly, that was our longest wait all week and it was only 25 minutes!

This was one of our first "autograph" encounters with the Green Army Man from Toy Story. The characters are much more accessible and seemed to walk around a lot more at Hollywood Studios.

Nate is down on the far end rockin' his guitar and that is Tessa in front with the piggy-braids jammin' her tambourine! They got picked to help "make a commercial" with Phineas & Ferb.

Nate and Tessa riding on some Star Wars thingy. Please notice Nate's Pluto hat. It was a very early souvenir purchase and one you will be seeing lots and lots of in these pictures!

Snack break. Eating milkshakes as big as our heads. We did the Disney Dining Plan and boy, we had plenty and plenty of food. Yep. That's me sporting the Minnie backpack. Cool mom. Never thought I'd be "that mom" or "that kind of tourist," but oh was I ever!

Honey I Shrunk the Kids playland.

Unfortunately all of the Jedi training classes were filled by the time we got to the park but we still enjoyed watching the demonstration. Right after taking this picture, Darth Vader walked over right in front of us and pointed straight at Tessa while she was sitting on Troy's shoulders. Nate and Tessa thought that was pretty cool!We went to Fantasmic that night and it was AWESOME! Unfortunately I don't have a fancy enough camera to take pictures of a light show so this was about as good as we got.

Me and my munchkins waiting at the show. Seriously. How obnoxious is that Pluto hat?!

Do you think these kids are having fun at Disney yet? Posing with one of many "towel sculptures" of the week. Our housekeeper was really great at this and surprised us every day with something cool!

Friday Night Scavenger Hunt

So, on December 2nd the kids came home after school to find Buddy the Elf (Santa's spy Elf on the Shelf) holding a special letter for them. Because they didn't want to curse Santa's magic they knew they were not allowed to touch Buddy. They were tortured until Daddy got home to get to the letter out of Buddy's hands. Much to their surprise it was a letter with a clue for a brief scavenger hunt around the house. The final clue led them to Mickey Mouse backpacks chock full of Mickey stuff (Thanks Gramma Gayla!). They were excited enough about that but nearly lost their marbles when we told them they were gonna get on plane the next morning to fly to Disney World to see Mickey and all of his friends! Nate's reaction and I quote, "OMG, we're going to Disney!" Yes, he said "OMG." Not "oh my god/gosh." Hilarious. Tessa, poor thing, was concerned about the cost immediately and says, "but I thought it's 'spensive?" Her reaction is directly related to Troy having told them a million times over that Disney World is really expensive. He didn't lie. It is. Mickey, in so many words, raped us. But, so sad that our daughter had to be concerned over this matter! She got over the cost and immediately started planning all of her encounters with Minnie and Belle and Ariel. They didn't burst into tears and unfortunately we won't be making $10,000 on AFV for their reactions, but we were pleased and excited! And, believe it or not, they DID sleep that night.

Getting ready to go to the airport. Funny thing when I ask my kids to get together so I can take a picture they almost always immediately go to the fireplace. This is them posing with their backpacks and our dirty, sooty fireplace. Mouse ears

Disney World or Bust

At the airport

Tessa showing off her awesome backpack that was chock full of stuff for the flight and downtime at the airport. They both did great traveling. Troy did too thanks to the in-flight bar and 20% off all drinks with our new credit card!