Florida

This is going to be a long post and I might have to break it up, but for now it is going to be just one long post...

Friday, September 19:

We left around 4:30, which meant that we actually got away a little bit ahead of time. We were guessing that it would be 5:00.

Our goal for tonight was to make it to at least Chattanooga, but hopefully farther. The kids don't travel well at night, so we knew we would have to stop at a hotel. At about 10:00, Bryce and Cole were both sleeping soundly, but Faith would not go to sleep for anything and kept asking us when we were going to find a hotel. We finally decided to stop in Dalton, Georgia for the night. We got into the hotel there at about 10:30 and Faith was going strong. She was very tired, but she was still going strong. Karl carried Bryce up to our room and he never woke up until the next morning, so apparently he was tired. It was an uneventful day, which is always good when you are just stuck in the car.

Saturday, September 20:

We got up this morning, ate breakfast at the hotel, and then it was driving in the car the rest of the day. We arrived at Disney at about 5:30 p.m. We made pretty good time and the kids did good in the car today, so that helped. Cole slept almost the whole way, so that make it nice. We got checked into our room at Disney World and then had to carry all fifty thousand bags/suitcases upstairs to our room. We were crazy and requested a second floor room (there are no elevators at Carribean Beach Resort). We like it upstairs better though. When we checked in we were originally in a ground floor room, but we asked to be changed. We actually ended up with a really nice room. It was a corner room, which has an extra window, which makes your room feel bigger. We also had a view of the courtyard out one window and the pool out of the other window. It was a nice location! After we had gotten settled somewhat, Pa (Karl's Dad) came over to visit. He doesn't live far away, so he wanted to see us. We all walked across the bridge to go to the food court to get some dinner. By the time we ate and walked around a little bit, we decided to get ready for bed. We knew that we would have a busy week ahead of us. The only eventful thing that happened today was that we hit a tire with a van. It wasn't a whole tire, just those big pieces of tire that semi-trucks loose on the highway all the time apparently. I saw it, but I couldn't tell Karl in time for him to miss it. So, we hit it and it went flying. It tore up the front of the van down towards the bottom. It broke some little pieces on the bottom of the front bumper and pushed the bumper in some. It could have been worse I suppose, because it could have tore up the radiator or something like that and we would have been stuck.

Sunday, September 21:

Today was Animal Kingdom and Epcot day. We started out at the Animal Kingdom at about 9:00 a.m. We got there and headed straight for the safari ride, because we knew it would get busy fast. We didn't have to wait too long to ride it and there were several animals out along the way. I think that I missed most of them though, because Cole was screaming the whole time. And when I mean screaming, he was screaming as loud as he possibly could. I'm sure that everyone else enjoyed their safari ride listening to a screaming baby. I don't know if Cole was scared or what, but I do know that he was really tired, had a stinky diaper, and was ready for a snack. So...I'm guessing just a combination of everything led to a horrible safari ride. He did feel better after a clean diaper and a glass of milk. We looked around at some animals and rode some other rides.

We then decided to head to Epcot to eat lunch. We decided to check out Soarin' before eating to see if we needed a Fastpass, which we did. We got there about 1:00 and ate in The Land. They have some good meals here, so that was why we wanted to eat here. We ate and then rode some rides. We went into The Living Seas to see all the fish.

By the time we did this, it was almost time for our dinner reservations at The Garden Grill. We got to eat with Mickey, Pluto, and Chip and Dale. The food was good and the kids had fun with the characters. Cole wasn't real sure about the characters at first, but he warmed up to them a little bit.

Faith and Bryce even got to decorate their own cupcakes, which they though was fun. They iced the cupcakes, then put Mickey shaped sprinkles and m&m's on them.

After dinner we went on some more rides and then it was time for the fireworks. We watched the fireworks and then we fought our way to the bus stop to get on our bus back to our resort. Everyone was tired, so it was a quick bath and then the kids were in bed. Cole was still fussy off and on again today and I realized in the afternoon that he had a fever. I gave him some tylenol and that helped him to feel better. By the time we got back to the resort tonight he had a fever of 102.4. I game him Motrin before bed.

Monday, September 22:

Today was Magic Kingdom day. We spent the whole day here riding rides...

There is so much for the kids to do that we never really stopped. About 4:00 it decided to rain on us though. It was heavy at times, but it wasn't too bad, since we had dinner reservations at 5:00. We ate at the Crystal Palace with Pooh, Tigger, Eeyore, and Piglet. The kids like this restaurant.

I am not even sure that I ate here. Cole was super fussy again by this time. I had given him Tylenol a couple of times throughout the day. We decided that we would stop by First Aid and see if they had any Infant Motrin. I had forgotten my Infants Motrin at home and only had children's Motrin. He can use the children's, but I didn't want to carry the big bottle into the parks tonight, so I had only brought the Tylenol. Motrin works a lot better for him, so I was hoping they had some. Of course, they didn't. The Baby Care center next door did though, so we just bought some there. It was only about $1.00 more then I pay at home, so for Disney World that is pretty good. Plus, I was willing to pay for Cole to feel better.

Tuesday, September 22:

We went to Hollywood Studios this morning. We watched several shows here. The kids played on the big Honey I Shrunk the Kids Playground.

And we rode the new Toy Story ride.

We had to get a FastPass for this ride and we were glad that we did. It was a 4D ride and it was a lot of fun. We left here around 4:00 to head to our reservations at Chef Mickey's at the Contemporary Resort. We had to ride the bus to Epcot and then took the Monorail to the Contemporary. Bryce had been waiting to ride the Monorail and he was so excited!

We had fun at Chef Mickey's and Cole actually talked to Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Pluto, and Donald Duck a little bit. We even got Cole to eat tonight. He really hasn't been eating much all week, I guess he just hasn't felt good.. After dinner we headed back to the resort for some swimming.

The bad thing about swimming was that it was cold outside. We had already told the kids though, so there was no turning back now. We had fun swimming, although we didn't swim too long.

Wednesday, September 23:

This morning we had to get up early to go and eat breakfast with the Princesses. We got to see Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Belle, and Jasmine. Faith dressed up like Cinderella this morning and Bryce and Cole were the Princes. Bryce liked wearing his Prince crown, Cole not so much. When we arrived we took pictures with Cinderella and then Faith got a wand. Bryce and Cole both got a new sword. Bryce loved getting a sword and Cole thought it was a great thing to hit everything within his reach. So...it was a hit!! After breakfast we headed out for some rides. We had a list of wanted to ride rides, so we made sure we did those.

After we were there for a while and had riden most of what we wanted to ride, Karl and I decided that maybe we should head back to the resort in the afternoon to swim (so maybe it would be a little warmer), then we could come back to the Magic Kingdom after dinner. So, that was our plan, but we first had to stop by the barber shop for Cole's First Haircut. We got there and there was a huge line. We debated on just waiting or heading back to swim and do it when we returned. We then decided that since the Barber Shop closed at 5:00 that we had better wait. And wait, and wait, and wait we did. We had to wait about an hour, which was fun with 3 children in line who hadn't even had lunch yet. We were afraid that Cole would be super grumpy by the time it was our turn. However, we were pleasently surprised that he loved the big barber chair and started giggling as soon as I sat him down.

He sat in the chair by himself the whole time and did a super job. His haircut looked cute when he got done and he had new Mickey Ears to show off.

The barber shop gave him Mickey Ears with First Haircut embroidered on the back, lots of stickers, pixie dust, and a special certificate.

By the time that we got done we decided that we had to find lunch. So, we ate lunch, rode a few more rides, and called an end to our fun at the parks. We headed back to the resort to swim. Since we didn't hit the hot part of the day which we had hoped, it was still cold swimming. Everyone still had fun though.

We swam and then we decided to get a pizza at the resort and take it back to our room to eat. It was a nice to end our trip this way, kind of laid back.

Thursday, September 24:

We got up this morning and had to pack everything up. We got everything packed, went and grabbed some breakfast, stopped by the gift shop for a couple of last minute items, and then we were off to the beach. We were only left 10 minutes past check out time, so we didn't do too bad. We headed to Daytona Beach and got us a room at the Ocean Walk Resort. The first room we got was not very nice (the balcony door handle was falling off, so you couldn't hardly open or close the door and you could not lock it), so we had to switch rooms once. We finally got into our room and everything was nice after that. However, there was not much beach to be had. The ocean was pretty much all the way up to the sea wall and there were so very tall waves coming in. Slowly the ocean started going on, but not much. We did go down and play a little bit, but not much. We went swimming for a little bit and then we got ready for dinner. We headed down to Ponce Inlet to eat. We came back to our room and grabbed long sleeves and then walked down by the ocean. We didn't get all they way down to the sand (there is a little walkway up above it), because the ocean was still up real far and being dark we just decided it wasn't worth it. It was a nice day at the beach though.

Friday, September 25:

We got up this morning and headed down for our Family Picture on the Beach that we always take when we go to the beach. The kids hunted for shells and we took lots of pictures. We then decided we better head back and pack up the van before check out time. We had brought lots of stuff into the room, eventhough we were only here one night. The room had a washer/dryer, so I did all of our laundry while we were at playing, swimming, eating, etc... We packed up and checked out and then we went to play in the ocean, beach, and pools. The kids had a blast playing on the beach. Bryce loved digging in the sand, Cole loved eating the sand, and Faith loved trying to build a sand castle (which didn't work too good, so she just dug a hole and filled it with water for Cole to sit and play in). About lunch time we decided we had better leave, eventhough none of us were ready. We stopped by IHOP on the way out of town. We then drove a couple of hours to Pa's house. The kids were glad to get to Pa's house, just to be able to sit and not have to do anything and have room to just sit and play.

Saturday, September 26:

Today we went over to Karl's Uncle's house to see everyone. We got to see Darin, Susan, and their kids (Spencer and Nolan) and also his grandparents (Nana and Papa) were there. We hadn't seen them for a long time, so it was a nice visit. The kids all had fun playing together and got along really well.

Today we went to Lowry Park Zoo, in Tampa.. We got there and we didn't think they were going to take our zoo membership card that we had, thankfully they finally did (otherwise it would have cost us about $75.00 to get in...I'm not sure how anyone can afford to go to the zoo there very often). We got home from the zoo and cooked some dinner and started packing everything up for the tip home tomorrow.

Monday, September 28:

Going home day.... We got up and left Lakeland at about 5:15 our time, which was early. The kids pretty much never woke up when Karl put them in the van. Bryce slept for a couple of hours and Faith didn't wake up until we were making a stop in Georgia. I guess it was a tiring week for her. We had to make sure and keep the gas tank pretty full on the way home, because there was a gas shortage happening from Atlanta to Nashville. We got off at many exits that didn't have any gas. We finally found a gas station that had gas, so we waited 20 minutes for gas, just so we didn't have to worry about running back. We finally made it home at about 9:15. The kids' DVD player quit working on the way home, so I was worried how much entertaining I would have to do. However, I'm glad to report that all 3 kids did wonderful in the car on the way there and on the way home.

We had a very nice trip. It was busy, but lots of fun!! I do think that we are all glad to be home though.