Well, we’re back from our Florida vacation (and Disney)! I know this isn’t the usual DIY project or craft, but we had such a wonderful time, I wanted to share it with you!
We drove (yes, drove) 14 hours overnight from Baltimore, MD, caravan-ing with my sister and her family, including her husband, four girls, and one friend. The drive was much smoother than expected, and Ethan was a champ to do most of the driving!
We stayed at Mystic Dunes, a resort very close to Disney complete with lots of pools, a water slide, and mini-golf. Most of the trip, we swam in the resort pools, even in the rain. The kids all loved the warm water, sun, and playing with the cousins. I enjoyed the older cousins entertaining my younger kids while we relaxed!
We also spent one day at Cocoa Beach, very close to Port Canaveral. My grandparents lived right next to Cocoa Beach most of my life, so we have visited Cocoa Beach many many times. It was a little different this visit, since this was our first visit since my grandparents passed away. But we still had a wonderful time at the beach.
Lulu was at first very hesitant about the sand, thinking she was “dirty.” But quickly fell in love with it!
As you may have seen on FB, we were also in Florida during a tropical storm. Fortunately, most of the storm was north of us, but we still got a good bit of rain. So, we headed to Downtown Disney armed with ponchos, figuring we could run into the stores if the rain got too heavy. The girls ended up LOVING it because they could see bunches of Disney figures up close (okay, it’s not the real deal, but they still loved it). The Lego Store was also a big hit.
Finally, to tell you about the best part of the week….Disney’s Magic Kingdom!!!
All 7 kids and us 4 adults were pretty excited. None of the kids had ever been to Disney and all LOVE Princesses – what girl doesn’t?! As soon as we got there, we made a bee-line for Disney’s newest Princess and Izzie’s favorite, Merida! (You may remember her Merida birthday party last February.) As you can imagine, Izzie was over the top excited and even wore her Merida dress for the occasion, although a but shy up-close.
Izzie was also sure to get Merida’s autograph!
Next on the list was meeting Ariel, since she is also a favorite. Oops, I accidentally called her Merida. My bad.
We were super bummed to not meet Beast (you know, from Beauty and the Beast), who is Lucy’s absolute favorite. We did meet Gaston who was one of the best parts of the day. He was so so funny.
Once it was Lucy’s turn, she was less excited. lol. But don’t worry Gaston understood that Lucy was just intimidated by his amazing good looks, who wouldn’t be?!
Other highlights were riding roller coasters with our fearless girls, shooting astro blasters at the Buzz Lightyear ride, It’s a Small World, the TeaCups, and Tom Sawyer’s Island.
And of course, the closing fireworks over Cinderella’s castle were simply Magical!
After we drove home to Baltimore, as I put Izzie in her bed at 3:30 am, she asked me if we could start another countdown to Disney. Not for a couple more years, my beautiful Merida. xoxo
What do you think? Are you going on vacation this summer?
How sweet!!! What great pictures!!! You all must have had a wonderful trip!
I was a great trip! I don’t think I will be ready to drive that far again for a while either!
Looks like a wonderful trip, filled with lots of fun activities!
So glad you all had such a good time!
Yayyy! What an awesome trip, next time we can go with you guys and add to the fun! lol
Such an awesome trip! I want to go back to Disney sooo badly! We went for our honeymoon and are dying to go back!
What fun for your children. Though we did many things and took vacations with our children, we never made it to Disney World. Your girls will remember this forever. Well maybe Lulu will have more memories of your next trip since she’s pretty young, but if you share pictures through the years she’ll keep those memories alive.
I’m hoping to take another trip to Cali and then Hawai’i before the summer is out, but I haven’t even been home a month so I’ll have to wait. Little Khloe is growing like a weed Jocie. She’s holding her head up and staying awake so much more. Katie, our daughter is getting better at sharing pictures so that helps. Khloe’s too wiggly during Skype to really get to see her though.
Looks like y’all had so much fun! We took our boys to Magic Kingdom a few years ago but they were a little too young to get into it I think…they weren’t very familiar with the movies yet. We’ve been debating going back next year, I’m so glad your family had such a good time!
How fun! I love that you got to go as a big group. Precious memories.
Looks like an incredible trip! Living so close to Disneyland our kids always have some sort of countdown underway to the next trip. I can only imagine how excited a trip to Disney World would make them!
Looks like a great trip. Hope the sunburn stayed away!
Great memories for your kids, I’m sure they’ll remember those times for a long time.
Looks like fun! When I was a kid we used to drive to Disney also… 14-15 hours from Indiana! My sister and I drove each other crazy in the back seat but we have lots of great memories. 🙂
You sure had a wonderful time and it’s very sweet to see it through these photos
In my opinion – family time together is the best project ever 🙂