Magic Kingdom -Day 2

Woo-hop it's day two.  First thing this morning was breakfast at Cinderellas Royal Table.  This was strictly just for me.

We met Cinderella right away & I was clearly thrilled.  Then on to the breakfast where my sweet hubby surprised me with a tiarra.

He let Noah crown me.

Then he presented me with a glass slipper and a toast.

Then he got everyone desserts.  Such a wonderful husband.  And such a great way to celebrate 15 years of marriage.  

Today we finished up Main Street, Fronteer Land, Adventure Land and Liberty Square.

We fast passed meeting Mickey.  

Totally worth it.  We also fast passed Big Thunder Mountian Railroad.  I loved that one as well.

For dinner we had a reservation at Mickeys Backyard BBQ.  If your kids are really into characters, do this.  My kids were not that interested.  They liked meeting a few, but didn't want to meet them all or wait in too many lines.  It was fun, good music, good food but super super hot.  

If given the chance we would skip this one next time.

That wraps up day two!

 

This is where we got inspiration for our Magic Kingdom touring plan.

Magic Kingdom - Day 1

We had such a wonderful time today.  We arrived at the Magic Kingdom and had a character breakfast at the Crystal Palace.

It was a really good Buffett.  After we had seen all of the characters we headed out in to the park.  We started out in Tomorrow Land, then on to fantasy land. My favorite ride there was The seven Dwarfs Mine Train.  I am so impressed how every detail is remembered.

For lunch we ate at Be Our Guest. It was okay.  It was not really what I was expecting.  For as fancy as the Resturant is, I thought the food would be better.  It's pretty much sandwiches.  But the presentation is nice.

It was recommended that we fast pass Enchanted Tales With Bell.  I am so glad we did.  I highly recommend this one.  My husband and both kids got a part & they absolutely loved it.

We started calling Eli the ultimate tourist.  He pretty much spent all of his soy inert money the first day.  Noah & Wes took up pin trading.  I booked us to watch the fire works at wishes dessert party.  It's an all you can eat dessert buffet with an awesome view of the fireworks.  

After that we headed back to the hotel, exhausted.  Ready for tomorrow. 

Total steps for today - 19,704.  About 7 miles!!!

This is where we got inspiration for our Magic Kingdom touring plan.

Manatee Day

Swimming with the manatees has been on my bucket list since I was a little girl.  I saw one somewhere & fell in love with this giant creature.

Since the trip to Disney was a surprise, I incorporated things into our homeschool that would be beneficial.  We did a little study on manatees a few weeks before we left.

Who doesn't love super hero manatees?

I found several free teaching resources on teachers pay teachers, as well as if any news stories popped up on manatees we watched them.  I used the ones linked here, here, and here.  But if you type in Manatee a lot pop up and none are very expensive.

We booked our Manatee tour through River Ventures

It was so much fun.  We rented a car and took a two hour drive.

We then got on a boat house and started our four hour tour.  It was unbelievable, better than I could have imagined.  The first two that we came across was a mom and calf.  It's crazy how this is a 3000 pound animal and it sneaks up on you.  The mom was fine eating.  The baby was so curious.  She swam all around us and "kissed" Noah twice.  This baby was also about Noahs size.  Roughly 85 pounds and over four feet long.  After that we had two more swimming encounters and a viewing encounter.  When I get home I will up load some more pictures, but for now - the baby.

Dinner was at the Hoop-Dee-Doo Musical review.  This is worth it.  Very enjoyable, super funny.  The kids and adults loved it and we all agreed it is a must do for when we come back.

Noah was so tired he fell asleep on the boat ride back to the bus.  However, they still wanted to swim when we got back to the hotel.

Finally - Bed.

And on to day four!!!

Surprise! We are going to Disney.

We decided to surprise the kids with a trip to Walt Disney World in Florida.  I did a ton of prep work for the Vacation.  I ordered the Passporter, which I highly recommend.  It has a ton of useful information, plus tabs and pages for you to plan your vacation and store all of your reservations.

 

I made the kids their own travel journal to fill out while on the plane and each night in Disney.  They can re-cap their day & remember it later.  It can be printed out from here.

We have this fun Disney bingo game for while we are waiting for the plane & on the plane.

I hit up the goody bag section of party city and made a great air plane bag.  It's all Mikey Mouse themed.  Pens, crayons, coloring sheets, and more.  A great place to make a fun air plane bag.  Sorry I'm not a great blog photographer, but you get the idea.

We packed in secret two weeks in advance, hoping that we could pull this off and that they would not know until the morning that we left for our trip.  Of course, I had to make us custom luggage tags.

I really never thought we would keep the secret this long.  The night before they had no idea.  Noah was asking me "what's for breakfast" and "would school be hard tomorrow?" "Were we going on field trips". So crazy.  

http://youtu.be/jhs_dLsmRaI

All of my prep work was for this moment, the surprise.  I wrote the boys a letter from Mickey Mouse you can down load a Disney font and it looks like its from the Mouse him self.

Then it was off to the air port.  This was where it started to sink in.  "We are really going?  This was not a prank?"

When we landed I asked "can you handle another surprise?"  Noah said "you are going to kill us with all of these surprises.  We grabbed our luggage and walked out to the limo that Wes and I had rented.

"What is going on???"

And then to the hotel where we unpacked and looked around.  It has some beautiful pools.

And we took a swan shaped paddle boat out.

(View of the hotel)

Our first night we had dinner at English blue Zoo.  

I was channelling my inner Belle.

We are celebrating our 15th anniversary while we are here.

So super excited & no idea how I got that huge bruise.  But what I do know is that I am going to sleep!!!   

See you tomorrow!!!

Friday Favorites

This was another fun week.  The kids got to see the fabulous sweet Georgia.  Whom we always love to get time with

 

We got to look at our trunk from Texas Wild life.  This was a wonderful resource.

 

Then they left for Summer Camp.

I had a busy week with out kids.  I got my shoes for my sisters wedding, my nails done and....

I did a really fun pin-up shoot with Zoetic Studio.  David was awesome and he got some really wonderful shots.  I can't wait until he is done editing so I can see them!!!  After the photo shoot we had a fun home-school mom's wine night.  It was a hit, we will do it again for sure.

That was our week, how was yours?

Friday favorites

We had a wonderful 4th of July.  My mother had a similar color swim suite as I did, so we were beach twins.

 

My sister & beautiful niece were there.  It is always good to see them

The fablous Shannon H & I got to meet up to look for bridesmaid dresses.  We some how convinced my sister that she did want us to have floor length sequin gowns.

This one is bitter sweet.  We sold our truck of 15 years.  I know it was the right decision, but its sad not to see it there anymore.

My mom held a cupcake class for our homeschool group.  It was a huge success.

The kids left for Gran & Gramps camp.

And I had a relaxing beach weekend with my best friend of almost 30 years.

How was your week?