Florida Vacation (Aug. 12-16, 2009)

DISNEY WORLD!!

Our first family vacation by ourselves. We usually travel to see family or with our families. We decided to take a last minute trip before school started back up for Hubby. We also were celebrating G's 2nd birthday!! We can't believe he is already almost 2!!! We first went to "The happiest place on Earth." Disney World!! Wifey has a friend that moved to Florida and works at the resorts so we got in for super cheap!!! We stayed at the Port Orleans Riverside Resort.

This was our greeting when we arrived at 2:30 am. After a delayed plane, a broken down magical express, and a taxi ride to our resort it was a pleasant site to see!!! Then we were up early to meet up with Krista and her fiance at the Magic Kingdom!! Riding "It's a small world" with mommy!

G's first ride was the haunted mansion but no photo's are allowed so this is him in utter amazement on the "It's a small World" ride!

Front row and center for the parade that turned into a street party where the characters got off the floats and danced around with the crowd. It was SOOO much fun!!! Hubby tried so hard to get G to say Mickey Mouse but he learned Goofy first!!! And here Goofy is on top of the float!

At the parade in front of the castle!

Watching the parade leave!

G of course wanted a balloon and who are we to deny his request...??

But oh how he loved the DUCKS!! Here we are spending all this money at Disney World and he absolutely loved chasing the DUCKS!! But you sure do have to love him!!

This was our MASSIVE bed that we are still debating as to what size it is because now we want one!! But... where oh where is G... can you find him???

Relaxing on the shuttle to Animal Kingdom after our nap!!

We always planned our day around a nap or break in the middle of the after noon and it worked out amazingly well!!

We arrived at the Animal Kingdom and it was raining but we could deal with it and kept on going but then..... the DOWN POUR!!! We found shelter in a store for a while and then moved on.

To see some animals... and then after realizing the Animal Kingdom closed at 6!!! We headed back to the Magic Kingdom!!!

This was G's absolute favorite ride!!! He got to spin us around and drive our "car" around the ride! We went on it 3 times!!!

Daddy and G outside our favorite ride!! "Buzz Lightyear!!"

This was a close second favorite.... the CARS!!! Yes we broke the rules and after we left the loading area G sat on daddy's lap and drove around the track!!! He LOVED it but it was such a long wait we only had the opportunity to do that once!

At the end of the race family photo in our Car!!!

You can't go to Disney and not ride in the Mad Hatter Tea Cups!!!

This is a sewing machine in Minnie's house and reminded us so much of Wifey's mum!! We had to take a picture and let her know we were thinking of her and next time we will be sure to bring her along!!!

G in the refrigerator as ALWAYS!!!

The microwave exploded with popcorn when you pushed the right buttons and the oven squished a cake!! Minnie and Mickey's house was so cool!!! We were walking through rides, houses, and shows with out much wait because of the rain earlier in the day people decided to head out. This totally worked to our advantage because we just took our time and walked around not knowing what we were going to do next.

And THEN.... after strolling through Mickey's house to our SURPRISE we found.......

MICKEY and MINNIE!!!

They were our first characters to see at Disney and we didn't have to wait at ALL!!! We got many autographs and photo's with characters for our book but we only picked a few favorites to put on here.

You can't pass up the Dumbo ride either!!!

And the awesome fireworks!! We thought if you stood anywhere you could see the castle you were in good shape to see the fireworks. So we stood behind the castle and BAM!!! The fireworks were going off right above our heads!! You miss the story that is being told by Jiminy Cricket but the fireworks were AWESOME!! We were so close there was flying debris and a worker was coming around gathering all the debris she could find. G was in awe!!

And then he zonked... he was out cold!!! What a trooper!!

The next morning we were up and out early to try the Animal Kingdom again! We were waiting longer here to see characters and to get on rides. G decided to take daddy over and sit down for a little break!! So cute!

After we got tired of waiting around we decided to let G burn of some energy in the Dinosaur Land!! Our brave little boy went down this HUGE slide all by himself!!!

After the energy had burned we went and got some good food (expensive!!!) and proceeded on with our day! Another favorite character was Eeyore!!! He was with Tigger and Pooh so we didn't have to wait long at all to see all of them!!!

The Tree of Life at Animal Kingdom!

This is our hotel beautiful!! We found ourselves here again on the second day for another nap. That is G playing in the fountain in front of our hotel room! Typical G!!! Directly across from our hotel was a beautiful river where boats came and went. Today we decided to not only nap but to go swimming in the pool as well. The Magic Kingdom had Magic hours and was open until 2 am so we relaxed longer before heading back to the parks!!

In front of the Magic Kingdom!

The Magic Carpet ride!! Watch out for the camels... they REALLY do spit!!!

The Jungle Safari boat ride. There was a HUGE wait but we found out that with our park hoppers we were lucky enough to also have the fast pass option!!! So we got our fast pass and came back at our alloted time and walked right onto the ride!!

This was one of the best shows except for the Laugh Factory. We cannot remember what this show was called something that starts with an M.... but it's the 3D show and it was AWESOME!! You felt water when water splashed and you smelt fragrances at the same time you were seeing them on the screen... soo cool!!

Castle at night...

G was slowly crashing we didn't make it until 2!!!

The very next night we watched the fireworks from the front of the castle to hear the story. Both nights were awesome experiences!

Our Mouse Ears!!!

We tried to get G to pick a different souvenir but he wanted his car. Typical right? Everything is a car and he loves them!! We got away cheap with the car that has Mickey and Minnie riding in it and a balloon....he is such a great kid! After buying some souvenirs for mommy and daddy we walked out of the store and right into perfect seats for the light parade!!! We thought we missed it but on this special night with magic hours they do two!!! We were lucky!!!

The peacock was AWESOME!!

Beautiful floats all decked out in lights with characters! This was a Fairy Godmother!

Then it was time for us to pack up our stuff and move onto the.....

BEACH!!!

This is hubby and G's first time in the Atlantic Ocean!!! We played on the beach and then went to the pool for a little while. Then we were off to see some sites around Melbourne, Fl and found some good food! Then back to the hotel to get the kiddo to bed and an early rise for....

The Sunrise!!! We set up our high tech baby monitor and went for a stroll on the beach while the sun was rising. It was so romantic and nice to be there with just the two of us. Of course after the sunrise it was straight back to bed for more sleep!!

Our family at the beach in Florida!

This is Krista;

her and wifey were the best of friends in middle school and then she moved away. Wifey and Krista found each other through the internet and it was a reunion after almost a decade of not seeing each other!!! We owe a lot of our fun and excitement to her and her soon to be hubby! We already want to plan to come back!!! They had to leave early on our last day to get their nephew back so next time we'll be planning more time with each other!

Our beach bum!!

He was having so much fun and didn't care that he had sand in every crease of his poor little body!! He loved the beach and our vacation!!!

CHEESE!!

He's starting to lean in and say cheese now that you just can't resist taking a picture of his cute face!!

He was being very independent at the pool and with his swimmers he started to swim on his own!! We are thinking with a full body swim suit to help him stay up straight he'll be swimming in no time!!

Swimming with daddy!!

On the beach by the pool in Florida of course we had to order some fruity drinks and drink them by the pool as if we do this all the time!!! It was so relaxing!!

G sitting in a lounge chair by the pool fitting right in as if he were at home!!!

G started talking so much on this trip, expressing things like... "Come on!!" and "Go Ahead!!" and so many other things we were utterly shocked to see him grow and learn in such a short period of time!! He is still learning and communicating so well!! We love our little boy who will be 2 on the 25th!!! We were truly blessed to be able to go on this vacation get a way!! We loved every minute of it and didn't want to come back to real life. But we had to and so here we are planning our next vacation of course!!