We're Baaaaaack

We got home last night around 8:00 from our trip to Disney. We had a wonderful time. All our prayers for good health and great weather were answered! It was around 80 every day and only rained a couple hours the first night we were there and one other night. We have tons of pictures to share. Sorry for the long post, I just know some of you will want all the details!

Our trip was "magical" in many ways. Our hotel, The Polynesian, was awesome! We were right next to the Ticket and Transportation Center which was so convenient. We were able to ride the monorail or boat to Magic Kingdom and the monorail to Epcot, there were buses to the Animal Kingdom and to Hollywood Studios. Our room was huge and we had a great view of the beautiful gardens. We had a beach that overlooked the castle and we were able to watch the fireworks from the beach several nights. The chef's at Disney are great. At every restaurant were we ate, they all came out and talked to me and either walked me through the buffet line to show me safe foods for Caroline or made her a special meal.

We arrived Sat. night and unpacked. We went to Magic Kingdom and ate dinner and then watched the Spectromagic parade. It is amazing. After that we took the boat back to our hotel and watched the fireworks from the beach. Then we crashed!

Sunday morning we had breakfast at Chef Mickey's with Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Pluto & Goofy. The chef made Caroline special pancakes & she enjoyed that! It is a really fun place to eat and the food was good. We headed back to Magic Kingdom and the girls enjoyed riding rides like Dumbo, the teacups, small world and story time with Belle. We headed back to the room for lunch and tried to rest. The girls were too excited though! We took the bus to Hollywood Studios and made it in time to see the end of the parade. After that we watched the Beauty & the Beast show which was awesome! We also saw the Little Mermaid show and enjoyed meeting some characters. We watched the firework/water show Fantasmic which was great. It was a little scary at times but we warned the girls about this ahead of time and they were very brave.

Monday morning we slept in and took our time getting out. We went to Hollywood Studios in the morning and finished seeing everything we wanted to there. Jason really wanted to watch the Lights,Camera,Action show and it was really great. It is a behind the scenes look at how the do movie stunts. In the afternoon we headed back to Magic Kingdom and enjoyed dinner at the Plaza Restaurant. Caroline enjoyed a hamburger and fruit. For dessert she had a huge popsicle and ate every bite. We did a few more rides and headed back to the room to sleep!

Tuesday we went to Epcot for the day. Jason and I took turns riding Soarin & Test Track while we did other things with the girls. There were no lines and our longest wait time for anything the entire week was 20 minutes. It was a perfect time to go! The girls enjoyed several rides and we went to visit all the countries. We had lunch in Mexico and met tons of characters. Almost every country had a character! The girls loved that. We went back to the room and swam for a while and then had dinner at the restaurant in our hotel. This was by far our least favorite meal of the week. We decided it would be really fun for adults, but with a small child with allergies it was not the greatest meal. We were planning on going back to Epcot to watch the fireworks there but decided to just hang out at the hotel because we were all tired. We went to the beach and watched the Magic Kingdom fireworks and then turned in for the night.

Wednesday we went to Animal Kingdom. This was a really neat park. We watched the Lion King show which was awesome. I think it was my favorite thing all week. We were sitting close to the front and the girls got chosen to participate in one of the songs! They shook little drums and got to dance around the entire stage area! J & I rode Expedition Everest a really fun roller coaster and we also watched the parade. After our day there we headed to the Animal Kingdom Lodge and ate dinner at Boma. Wow. This place was great. We LOVED the food! The chef was wonderful and made Caroline a hamburger and safe pasta. The had a huge buffet that also had lots of safe fresh fruit for her. This was our favorite meal of the week.

Thursday was Caroline's birthday! She had the best birthday any little girl could dream of! The girls started their day at the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique. I was not so sure of this at first. It is a "salon" where a Fairy Godmother in Training does little girls hair, makeup & nails. They loved it and I am really happy we did it. They could choose from 3 hairstyles and makeup colors. They also go to take home all the extra makeup and 2 different nail polishes. We brought their princess dresses to wear. After that, we headed across the castle to eat breakfast with the princesses. It was a fun experience and all the princesses wished Caroline a happy birthday. She enjoyed a special waffle made by the chef. Madelyn pigged out on muffins, fruit and cinnamon rolls! We spent the rest of the day in Magic Kingdom shopping, riding rides and enjoying our last day. We had dinner at the Crystal Palace with Pooh, Tiger, Eeyore and Piglet. This was a great dinner. The chef again was wonderful and brought CJ a safe brownie with hot fudge and powered sugar on top. There was a candle in it and we sang her happy birthday. They had also decorated our table with little Mickey confetti. We watched the fireworks after dinner.

Friday we left the hotel at 5:30 am for our long drive home. Madelyn was crying and not wanting to leave! I felt the same way. We really had a great week and enjoyed being together. Hopefully this will be our last trip as a family of four! We're already planning our next trip with Silas :) After this trip, we think age 4 and up is perfect. Madelyn was so excited all week and truly enjoyed everything. Caroline had tons of fun too, but was tired. We're hoping to go back when Silas is 4 or 5.

I'll post pictures next!