Disney Weekend November 2009

Back in July I found a great deal on a military website for a condo in the Disney area and it came with Sea World passes for 4! Score! We still had a day left on our military passes from earlier in the year so I made the reservations for November figuring we'd have another grand time. That we did and it couldn't have come at a better time. Before hitting up Disney though, we decided to make a stop in Jacksonville and see G-Man with the girls. The girls were so excited to see him and Gigi. They brought stickers and crayons with them so the girls could decorate their masks. It was so much better to see my dad this way versus in the hospital bed where he was when I had seen him last. Our visit with them was short, but we knew we'd be back down for Thanksgiving to visit as well.



When you're in the AF, you learn to meet up with people where and when you can. One of my friends Kim and her kiddos don't live far from Orlando while her hubby is in Korea, so they drove over to meet us for a few of the nights.


The girls were super excited to hang out and Ryan tagged along and did his best to keep up. We stopped at my old stomping grounds (well for a year anyway), UCF and picked up Miss Marcy to join us as well. She had never been to Sea World so we were excited to experience that with her for the first time. We decided to try out Mickey's Very Merry Christmas party since none of us had ever done that and I have found a new time that I love Disney... when it's all decorated for Christmas! The girls thought it was awesome to see the castle all lit up and I'd have to agree.

We showed up late afternoon on Thursday and let the kids hang out before heading over to the Magic Kingdom for Mickey's Very Merry Christmas. All the kids loved having Miss Marcy around :)

Mickey's Christmas party was from 7 until midnight! Talk about getting to stay up past your bedtime. I think the funniest part of this picture is the guy cheesing in the background. On another version of this picture he had been paying attention to his phone.

I think Emily had looked at Mickey and was trying to pose by him.

Right when we got in the park, we took this picture. Getting 4 kids under the age of 6 to all line up for one picture was quite a challenge. Well, the girls posed well, but Ryan, well he's another story ;)
After having a late night, we took it easy the next morning and finally made it to Sea World around 11am! Emily was super excited about Sea World, almost as much as Miss Marcy :)

The kids even got to see Santa!

Feeding the dolphins didn't quite go as we had planned. I think Emily was a lot more talk before getting there, but once it came to the actual moment, well she was more comfortable just hanging by Mommy. We also went over the whale and dolphin show, but had to leave the first one b/c one of the whales wasn't cooperating and listening to it's trainers. Good teaching tool for the kiddos since we talked about what happens when you don't listen and how disappointed people get when you don't listen just as we were to have to come back later due to the whale not listening. Luckily by the time we got back for the show, the whale had come out of "time out" . :)

This is most certainly correct placement for this group! :) Move ahead to our daytime trip to the Magic Kingdom. The kids were troopers the entire time!

Our very first stop was to see Tinkerbell and her other fairy friends. The girls were excited and it was cute to see them step into the "fairy world" and flap their wings so they could shrink down to fairy size. Then they flapped their wings again to get back to human size.

Ryan may look like he's running away but this was the first person he'd actually go stand by, so it was a success in our book :)

So I send the big kids and the "adults" off to ride roller coasters while I take the two little ones to the Country Bear Jamboree show. *yawn* :) So once we meet back up, it's starting to get later in the evening and the big girls are begging to go on Splash Mountain again convincing me that "we won't get wet". See picture above for end result. I don't mind getting wet, just not when the sun is on it's way down and there is no hope for drying in the near future!

I couldn't get enough of the castle being all lit up with Christmas lights.

It was another late night for the kiddos but the girls pushed through and were in good spirits for the most part. They were in especially good spirits when we let them pick these dolls from the Disney store. We made sure to call Giga the next day to thank him for the early Christmas present :) Really we just knew it would be our last time at Disney for a while so we gave in and got them these dolls. Apparently even princesses have split personalities since the doll changes from Belle to Cinderella.

Overall it was a great trip and I'm so glad our friends were able to join us. Unfortunately we won't get to see them again for a while since they will be continuing their AF journey to another part of Korea. Hopefully with the AF being as small as it is though, our paths will cross again soon!