I've decided to break the trip up into a few posts since it was getting so long....

Here are the first two days....

We are home! One the way home a man on the plane asked if we won or Mickey Mouse won. I’d say it was a tie. Mickey won parts and we won parts. Here’s the tale (or tail. HA. I crack myself up.)

Thursday (2/5)

We got to the airport with our 3 suitcases, 2 car seats, 2 strollers, 2 adult backpacks, and 2 toddler backpacks. All of this for 3.5 days. Can I tell you how much Leanne I miss the days of not checking baggage? We were at the airport with plenty of time to spare – so much so, that the kids ran around in a vacant part of the airport, rode the moving walkway (a lot), and ate pancakes from McDonalds. We’d decided to forgo car seats on the plane (they aren’t required, are such a hassle to load on/off the plane, and put the kids legs/feet at the perfect length to kick the seat in front of them. Repeatedly. We’d rehearsed that they would sit in their “big boy seats” and keep their seatbelts buckled– and lo and behold, it worked. They sat in their seats, read books, played with stickers, watched movies on the iPods, and with 15 minutes to spare, Carter fell asleep. Thankfully, we were able to get a large SUV that fit all of our stuff and we were off.

First stop. Lunch. We found the nearest Cracker Barrel and loaded up on biscuits and jelly. Grayson was really happy – he LOVES biscuits and jelly! We headed to pick up our condo packet and then to the condo. We were both really happy with the condo. It was beautifully decorated, had a ton of room, and had everything for the kids (books, toys, movies.) We had decided not to stay in a hotel room on Disney property for several reasons 1) so little space. It is hard to turn the tv off at 8 and lay there until the kids fall asleep. And then once they are asleep to turn it back on with the volume so low that you can barely hear it. With the condo, they have their room and we have ours – and a living room. 2) the kitchen. No, we weren’t planning on cooking elaborate meals in the kitchen, but it is nice to have a place to store the kids soy milk and our diet coke! 3) a 1140 square foot condo not on Disney property cost nearly half of what a 400 square foot hotel room on Disney property would have. 4) the condo complex had a really nice pool had we wanted to go swimming (we didn’t.)

Anyway….we dropped our things off at the condo and headed to Downtown Disney. Of course, it was one of the coldest nights of the year in Orlando (it was in the 40s while we were at Downtown Disney – but dipping into the 30s that night.) We walked around, went in a few stores, rode the train and carousel, and finally got dinner. Our friend Robin met us at the Earl of Sandwich and we got to hang out with her for awhile before she had to head home to go to work the next morning. The boys slept in their room in their ‘big boy beds’ (twin beds) and did great!

Friday (2/6)

We’d planned on getting up, getting ready, and heading to the Contemporary Resort to see if we could get a spot at Chef Mickeys breakfast (the characters come to the breakfast) but it took us awhile to get up and going and in the end we decided we needed to eat sooner versus later. We opted for Perkins ( I LOVE their potato pancakes.) Neither kid ate too much, but we figured it was the excitement of it all, being in a new place, etc. We didn’t think anything of it.

We headed to the Contemporary after breakfast to see the hotel and ride the monorail to all of the hotels on the monorail. We walked around the hotel and boarded the monorail for the Polynesian. I’d never been here and it just made me think that Greg Brady should walk through carrying the tiki that he found in a cave (anyone remember that episode of the Brady Bunch???) The outside paths were perfect for the kids to run around. We found the beach with a hammock and swings – and amazingly no one was out there (I don’t know why – the weather was beautiful. It was in the low-mid 60s and perfectly sunny.) We had fun on the hammock and swings and running around in the sand! Score one for us.

We boarded the monorail and headed to the Grand Floridian. I think this hotel is just so pretty. We walked around, rode the elevator (we did this every place that HAD an elevator) and then walked around outside. The kids threw money into the fountain and then played on the beach there. They loved the covered beach chairs and I could have hung out on the hammock for hours (really, it is the most relaxed I’ve been in a long time – even if it was just for 10 minutes.) I wanted to walk to the marina, but the kids were done and wanted a snack. So we found a kid size table by a tv showing Disney cartoons and had some snacks (well, Carter ate – Grayson nibbled.) Score another one for us!

We got back on the monorail we headed to the Contemporary with plans to go to the condo. But we took a wrong turn and ended up…somewhere. By now, the kids had fallen asleep in the car and so we opted to find a Target and pick up some things while they napped. Somehow, even on vacation I managed to spend $75 at Target (it’ll help when we aren’t shelling out $30 on pull-ups.) We made it back to the condo and tried to feed them lunch. Grayson still wasn’t interested. Sigh.

After some requisite lounging, we headed for Fort Wilderness Campground. They host a campfire nightly (FREE!) and we thought we’d introduce the kids to s’mores! We got there early and found a playground where the kids ran around and had a blast. We boarded the bus (you can’t drive around the property – you have to take the internal bus system) and headed to the campfire. We bought our s’mores kit and sticks (ahem, wooden dowels) for $12 (yea, free, huh?) When we got to the campfire, Leanne asked me what time it was (they have a sing-a-long at 7:00) – it was 6:41 (I do have a point with this information.) We’d roasted exactly one marshmallow, when Leanne heard something and turned around to see Grayson throw up all over himself. He proceeded to throw up while we pondered our options. We realized we didn’t have many options. We still had to take a bus to the car. Leanne asked me what time it was. 6:51. Wow. We lasted 10 minutes. We waited about 15 minutes and then slowly walked to the bus stop – well, carried our kids to the bustop. I stopped in the store to see if they could get us back to the car more quickly – but was told no – although he did give me 2 bags to use “in case.” Thankfully, we made it to the car without incident but did have 2 more incidents en route home. Grayson fell asleep in our bed and every time he coughed (which was frequently since he’d already had a cough), we both jumped. He did up getting sick one more time during the night – but that was all – thankfully. Score one for the Mouse – heck, might score 2 for the Mouse.