Day 3- The Magic Kingdom (LOTS of pictures)

The morning that we set off for the Magic Kingdom it was raining, but we figured it was as good of a day as any, so we continued on.  

We were one of the first in line for the park to open.  

Once the park opened, we made a mad dash for Belle's castle and thankfully the rain stopped.

Checking out Belle's books...

the beasts' castle....

Of course when it was time to meet Belle, my kids were being shy, so I joined them for a picture.

We spent the next few hours in Fantasyland, making sure to ride all of the most popular rides first.  There was actually a less than 5 minute wait for every ride all day!  So it was so great!

Dumbo!

By lunchtime, the weather was perfect.  Very hot, but no rain!

We waited under some shade for the Move It, Shake It, Celebrate It Parade while Caroline took a nap.

It was not a disappointment! We loved every single minute of it!

Grayson's little hand waving at all the characters was so sweet!  He was really loving seeing some of his favorites!

Afterwards, we grabbed some lunch and rode some more rides until it was time for the afternoon parade.  Grayson napped while we waited, so we just enjoyed walking around for a bit. 

When he woke up, he requested popcorn, so that held him over while we waited in the hot sun for the parade.  We had a great spot right in front of the castle and it was not crowded at all.

We LOVED the parade- it was so great!  We finished riding all of the other rides that we had planned on riding and saw some shows.  Caroline took another nap, so I sat out with her while Grayson and Chad rode the race cars.

Prince Charming's Carousel...

It's a Small World.. this ride was Caroline's absolute favorite!! It was so cute--she kept smiling and pointing to all the "babies".  She and Grayson both loved it!

Chad had been waiting all day to get his hands on this gigantic turkey leg for dinner.  10 bucks later, his tummy was full and he was a happy man!

We walked around the park one final time just to make sure there was nothing that we had missed that we wanted to ride or see and then we settled down at Casey's Corner for fireworks.There were no crowds at all, so we pretty much could stand wherever we wanted.
Chad and I got our Pineapple Dole Whip;

Grayson and Caroline got a lollipop and glow sticks and we waited for the show to begin.  It started drizzling rain right before the fireworks started, but it stopped just in time for the show.

We were once again impressed and enjoyed every minute!   I guess I was too caught up in the fireworks ( or maybe my dole whip)  because I didn't get any pictures.  It was truly amazing!

We left the park shortly after and only stood in line about 10 minutes to get on a bus.  The kids were asleep on the bus before we got back to our resort.

It was an exhausting day, but truly magical!  The kids did great, the weather held up for us, and the crowds were perfect!  I'm not going to lie, we're already planning our next trip to the Magic Kingdom--we will most certainly be back!

Day 2- Character Breakfast and Campground Singalong

Ready for our character breakfast at Cape May Cafe to meet Minnie, Donald, and Goofy (and celebrate Mommy's birthday)!

This was one of our favorite days! The Beach Club Resort was beautiful, so we spent some time walking around that morning while we waited for our character breakfast reservation. 

 

Let's meet some characters!!

 

 MINNIE!

Caroline would not leave my arms if there was a character in sight, so I had to accompany the kids for most of the pictures. 

As soon as we sat down to eat, Minnie, Donald, and Goofy started coming around, so there was too much excitement going on for us to actually eat for the first 30 minutes or so. 

 

 DONALD DUCK!

 GOOFY!

I didn't bring an autograph book, so we got them to all sign our table paper instead.  I'll somehow figure out a way to preserve it for Grayson. I didn't think he'd care about their signatures, but he was very excited about it.  I'll remember an autograph book next time!

 

Our breakfast was really perfect timing! Since it was an 11:00 meal, we were one of the last families in the restaurant, so the characters each came around about 3 times to visit with the kids.

And then as we were getting ready to leave, they all came over one last time so that we could get a family picture with all 3 of them!  We felt very special--a great birthday surprise!

 

After our meal, we headed back to the beach right outside the cafe.  We all put on our swimsuits and spent the remainder of the afternoon there. 

 

They had a really cool pirate ship swimming pool with a slide, so Grayson had alot of fun swimming in the pirate ship. 

 

Later on, we took the ferry across the river to the Boardwalk. 

The kids fell asleep in the stroller, so Chad and I took advantage of the  quiet time and walked around enjoying the beautiful scenery. 

After naps that afternoon, we loaded up on the bus and headed to the Fort Wilderness Campground to take part in the campfire sing-along with Chip and Dale.

As soon as we walked up, guess who we saw?  

 CHIP AND DALE were there to greet us!

There were not many people there, so Grayson got to play cornhole with the chipmunks before the sing along got started. 

listening to the cowboy sing songs and eating dinner....

 

 SMORES!!!

 After Smores, they showed a movie, but it was Lilo and Stich, which Grayson has never seen, and he decided it was too scary.  So, we took a bus to the beach area and they played in the sand while waiting on the water parade and fireworks. 

Unfortunately, a huge rain storm came right after the water parade, so we left before the fireworks got started.  We did not get back to our resort until about 11pm that night.  It was a very long night after that because Caroline started vomiting in her bed, so we were up until 12:30 that night trying to get her bed cleaned up. Of course she would vomit for the first time in her entire life on our Disney Vacation, right?!?   Our next day was Magic Kingdom and we had to be up early, so I was a little worried that the late night would make everyone miserable while there.  But everyone ended up getting a good night's sleep and woke up happy the next morning. 

So...Day 3--Magic Kingdom--up next!!

Let the Memories Begin- Day 1

We just got back from our first-ever family vacation--just the 4 of us!!  We went to the most magical place on Earth--Disney World!
We decided to make our first trip to Disney very low-key, since our kids are 4 and 2.  We didn't want to completely wear everyone out with each day being slam-packed, so we only planned a character breakfast and one day at the Magic Kingdom.  We planned to spend the rest of our time scoping out all of the other Disney resorts, swimming in pools, and taking advantage of all of the free activities that Disney has to offer.
Thanks to some tips from friends who frequently visit this magical place, we had lots of options to fill our days.
We were very happy with the outcome.  Everyone stayed rested and relaxed and we were able to accomplish all that we had planned.
Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure we chose the rainiest week of the entire year for Florida.  However, we kept moving along with our plans and everything worked out.
Another bummer was that the kids had a bad cold the whole week, so I'm pretty sure they didn't feel 100%, but we all survived and had a great time!

After all the prepping and packing, we finally made it out of the door at 6:30am on Sunday morning, Florida-bound!
The kids slept a total of maybe 45 minutes the whole 7 hour drive (someone was excited!).  We attempted afternoon naps shortly after getting settled at our resort, but no one fell asleep except Chad, so I eventually took the kids out to explore the resort a little.  We stayed at Pop Century and there were huge statues of movie characters scattered all over, so they loved running around checking everything out.  For some reason, I have no pictures of this--don't know what I was thinking!

A little later, we  headed to Downtown Disney for the evening.

This is the closest Caroline would come to a character the entire trip!   She was not a fan of the huge, fuzzy  animals walking around trying to get a hug!

 Due to no nap, Grayson's eyes were pretty much glazed over the entire time as he tried to take it all in. 

And for some reason, this little girl gets more energized with the less sleep she gets.  So we pretty much spent the evening chasing her around as she refused to ride in the stroller.

We enjoyed the live music and entertainment that Downtown Disney had to offer and it was not crowded at all.  We ate at a highly recommended sandwich shop, Earl of Sandwich, and walked around until dark. Then we decided to head back to the hotel since we had a character breakfast to look forward to the next morning.

 Of course the kids were rejuvenated once we made it back to the resort, so we had to unwind by watching Mickey Mouse cartoons on TV.  We eventually headed out for a late night swim at the pool.  

For some reason, they LOVED being in the room. And Caroline thought it was so funny that we were all sleeping in the same room.  She was in a pack and play and kept popping her head up to tell everyone good night.  It was quite humorous!

COMING UP:

Day #2---WARNING:  picture overload!!