Disney World!!

Well, our quick trip to Orlando has come and gone. After much anticipation and excitement, we had a great 3 day trip to sunny Florida. Monday morning we left our house at 6 am so that we could catch our 10 am flight out of Atlanta. We arrived at the gate with about 15 minutes to spare (much to the chagrin of my always-early-never-late husband...except when he is with his wife and kids). The flight was uneventful and fun for the kids and we landed in Orlando by 11:30 am. After picking up our rental car, we decided to head straight to Sea World in hopes of getting in most of the park in 1/2 a day. It was a challenge to hit all of the shows back-to-back-to-back, but the kids loved most of it (Sea World for an 18-month old is fun for the first 30 minute show, but after that Trey became very restless). Fortunately we packed lots of snacks and candies and managed to wrestle our way through most of the shows. The park closed at 7 pm, so after a full day of fun, we finally headed to our hotel. We stayed at an Amerisuites that was part of a Timeshare package that for the 2 nights of hotel, plus 2 Disney world tickets, only cost us $123. The hotel wasn't in the best shape but the room was big, which was great for our party of 5. There was a pull out couch as well as 2 double beds, which allowed the girls to have their own bed...very important for our crazy sleeping girls! After a quick dinner at our favorite restaurant, Chick-fil-A, we headed to bed. Tuesday morning started early with a quick continental breakfast, then Jeff and I headed for our mandatory 90 minute timeshare presentation. Jeff and I have sat through a couple of timeshare presentations before, so we knew what to expect. I have to say that the sales people at this presentation were probably the most rude and pushy of the ones that we have had thus far. But in the end we said, no thank you and thanks for the tickets and cheap hotel. We were done with the presentation by 10 am, so we decided to let the kids take advantage of the decent pool at the hotel and swim for about 1 hour. They loved it! I was anxious to see how Trey would do, since he hasn't been swimming for a while, but he loved it. There was a small water slide that kept the girls busy. After a quick bite to eat, we headed to the Magic Kingdom. We finally entered the gates of Disney World at about 1 pm. We really didn't think we were going to be able to ride all of the rides, since the park closed at 7 pm, but we decided to give it a shot. We were pleasantly surprised to find little to no wait times at most of the rides. In fact the longest we waited for a ride was probably 10 minutes and that was Splash mountain. The kids loved the rides....even Trey behaved completely on every ride! We were able to ride all of the rides except Dumbo, the Haunted Mansion, and Space Mountain (the last 2 by choice) as well as take in the parade at 3 pm. As we were finishing up the last of the rides around 6 pm, the skies opened up and it began to pour rain. After waiting 20 minutes to see if the rain was going to let up, we decided to make a run for it. We packed the girl under the stroller canopy and Jeff carried Trey in his hooded jacket and we ran for the entrance. We were soaked by the time we reached the long line to the monorail, but actually in better shape than a lot of people. We had remember to pack our jackets with us throughout the day despite the 80 degree heat, and boy were we glad we did. After waiting for a good 10 minutes to ride the Monorail, we were slammed into a train car full of people. We were much relieved to arrive at the Tram, until we realized that in the large crowd and bustle of getting to the Tram we had left Kendal at the Monorail (Jeff thought I had Kendal, and I thought Jeff had Kendal) Let's just say I was sprinting to the top of the ramp and was relieved to find Kendal with a Disney employee fine, but crying for her parents! What an emotional roller coaster in just a short minute...relief, fear, and relief again. So after an emotional and exciting day we decided to head home after a quick bite to eat at Chick-fil-A. We knew before we came on the trip that Wednesday's weather forecast did not look good. So after sleeping in and another continental breakfast we headed to the Florida Mall to kill some time before we headed to the airport to catch our flight home. The Florida Mall was big mall with a lot of fun stores and an all important indoor playground for the kids. We headed to the airport early, so that we would not be cutting it close for our flight home. We were actually to our gate about 45 minutes early, which is a lot of time to kill when you have little kids at an airport. Trey kept occupied pulling our little carry on suitcase up and down the hallway in the Terminal. It was the cutest thing you have ever seen. He looked like a little man who knew exactly what he was doing and where he wanted to go. Although I was hoping that all of the physical activity might wear him out for the plane ride, he managed to stay awake and busy the entire flight. He was good though, as were the girls. We finally got to our car to head home about 6:30 pm. After a quick stop at Chick-fil-A for dinner we headed home. It wasn't long before all 3 kids where sleeping soundly in the back seat. We were all exhausted! In fact, I am feeling that exhaustion once again after writing this travel diary/book of our trip....thank goodness it was only 3 days...a good length for a trip with young kids!

The only negative about the trip was that my camera decided to call it quits after 4 great years of pictures on Monday afternoon...just as we were ready to take pictures at Sea World. I continued to click away during our vacation, but the pictures a pretty poor. Oh well, what can you do!

Coming home has been quite the adventure. I think I jinxed myself after writing my last blog entry about the flood....Mother Nature struck again while we were gone, but this time it was wind and hail damage. Whatever hit Tuesday morning at our house, whether wind or a tornado, it managed to do quite a bit a damage to most of the neighborhood. We were told by golf course personnel that there were over 3,000 trees down between the golf course and the neighborhood. We lost most of our patio furniture, a deck box and had a some exterior damage to our house, but overall we feel very blessed that it wasn't any worse than it was. Needless to say it has been a busy day, catching up on laundry, figuring out our house mess, shopping, visiting teaching, etc...Thank goodness tomorrow is FRIDAY!