Friday - left the house at 9am. We wanted to leave around 7, but everyone kind of slept in, and since we knew it was going to be a long day, we decided to leave a little later. We got to the park around 11:30. We went to the Magic Kingdom on this day because we had tickets for the Christmas party there that evening. We had a really good time. Cainan seemed to enjoy himself. He didn't seem overwhelmed. He loved the music and the lights and the attention of all the Disney people. He LOVED the parade. I thought he was going to jump out of his skin when he saw Mickey Mouse and the other characters. We didn't take him up close, but he loved to watch them move around. Finley did pretty well, too. She kind of buried her face while we were on the rides, but loved to ride around looking at everything, and eating! Arlington, of course, LOVED every minute. Now that she is 41 inches tall, she is big enough to ride every ride in the park besides Space Mountain. For those of you that aren't familiar with Disney - that is their big roller coaster. Anyway, she got a chance to ride two new rides at this park - both roller coasters, one a water coaster. She couldn't get enough of either! She is such a little dare devil. She barely makes the cut off for these rides, but she was ready LAST year! :) The babies did really well and took a long afternoon nap, so that Mat and I could take turns taking Arlington on her favorite rides.
In the evening was the Christmas party. This is a must if you travel this time of year. The park closes at 7pm, but you can buy these tickets to the Christmas party that is from 7:30pm-12:00am. We would never make it to midnight, but we made it until 10pm! Which is good for a 4 1/2 year old! But you get a special bracelet that allows you to stay. The park pretty much empties out, and the characters all come out and dance with the kids in certain areas of the park. They don't stand around so you can stand in line to get pictures taken. They talk and play and dance with the kids. It is SO great. Arlington got a chance to dance with the stepsisters and stepmother from Cinderella and she loved that! They kept coming up and dancing and talking to her, and she was having a blast. They also give away free cookies and hot chocolate all night long. There are Christmas stories and music going on all over the park, and then they do a big special Christmas parade. It is really nice. Before the parade starts, while you are waiting around, the Disney people come out and play games with the kids - jump rope, hop scotch, limbo, etc. Right in the street. That is fun. AND all the rides are open, so you can continue to ride while the park is pretty empty. Which we did! It is a lot of fun. The babies just slept in the stroller, and that made it so easy. It was a great day.
Saturday - Epcot. This park Arlington found a new ride as well. Finally tall enough, so that made it exciting! We rode a few rides, ate some really good food, and headed to the countries area. Again, if you are not familiar with Epcot, they have a section with 12 countries that replicate a lot of the buildings, food, etc. Very cool. At Christmas time each country tells the Christmas story of their country (example - the Christmas witch in Italy - nice). They are cool stories. They also have Kid Stops where the kids can get a mask, then get a decoration to attach to the mask, and a stamp from that country. They color the mask as they go. We made it around 7 countries, so not bad! It is a long walk, and Arlington was a trooper. The babies slept for a good while when we were in the countries, so that helped a lot. Arlington enjoyed going to the countries and getting the stamps and coloring.
Epcot is decorated for Christmas as well, and each night someone famous reads the Christmas story. The night we were there was Steven Curtis Chapman (Christian singer). We stayed until we got tired for walking - which was around 8:30pm.
Sunday - Animal Kingdom and MGM Studios. AND today is 4 months since "Gotcha Day" with Cainan. We can't believe he has been with us that long already! Now our plan wasn't to do two parks today, but it worked out that way! We started with the Animal Kingdom. We had never been to this park before, and it was nice. There is a lot to do there, but I thought it was a lot like the zoo. There were a few fun rides, but mostly animal stuff, which was fine. Arlington got to ride a ride called "Dinosaur" (again because of her new height!). Now this ride was SCARY! But she loved it and rode it a couple of times. It was dark, but she knows it is pretend. From the first time we started going to Disney, we have explained to her that it is all pretend and just for fun and that nothing will hurt her. She has always been on the brave side, and since she knows there isn't anything real with the rides, she is free to just have fun. So on every new ride we start with "We know this is going to be fine because it is...." and she says "pretend!". And we say, "and nothing will hurt us because it is...." and she says "pretend!". It is cute, and it works. I don't want her to be a scardy cat like me. :) We took the safari ride there, and that was a nice. Arlington and Cainan loved seeing the animals. Finley fell asleep. The babies were both kind of tired early, but not cranky. Luckily they are little troopers. They both took another long nap at the park while Arlington rode and when they woke up we decided to go to MGM studios. There were a few rides we wanted to see if she was big enough for over there, and MGM has a great Christmas light show at night, so we went there about 4pm. MGM was open until 8pm, so that was perfect.
MGM- Arlington rode....the Tower of Terror. Now, for those of you that don't know, the name says it all. I would never ride this ride. It is dark, and in the end, the ride drops you straight down and then springs you back up. NO WAY. Arlington LOVED it!!! I can't believe she was big enough. Mat took her a couple of times. Yikes. We are in trouble with her! There is also another ride called Test Track which is a roller coaster type ride. She loved that as well. That was another new one! That was the best part of this year's trip - she was big enough for all these new rides. It kept it exciting for her! The Christmas light show at night is always very cool Every building on their "back lot" is completely decorated from top to bottom with rows and rows of lights. They set the lights to music and every couple of minutes a show starts. Then in the end, it snows which Arlington LOVES. Even the babies thought that was cool. For us, we don't get to see snow fall at Christmas, so that is always fun. The lights were donated by the Osmond family. They used to be at their home, and now they are at Disney. You can't imagine how many their are! After the show, we left for the night.
Monday - our last day! Everyone was being so good! Everyone slept well at night and the babies took great naps during the day. We were very very blessed with that! It gave us a chance to give Arlington some one on one attention which she really deserved. Anyway, we were back at the Magic Kingdom today. This is Arlington's favorite park so we always do this park twice. She LOVES to ride, and this is were most of the rides are! Today was spent most of our day with our good friend Julie, her parents and her kids. Her oldest daughter is Arlington's best friend, so that was fun for both the girls. Julie also has a set of boy/girl twins that are 5 months younger than our babies, so we were a large pack running around! Julie had never been to Disney before, so that was fun! The girls rode rides all day until about 3pm, and then we separated. Arlington was ready to ride some roller coasters, but her little friend isn't big enough. So after we said goodbye, Arlington was off! We stayed until about 7:30pm, and then decided to head out for home. It is only a 2 1/2 hour trip, and Arlington had school today, so we wanted to get home. We let Arlington pick a small gift (she chose a tinker bell polly pocket that she could dress) and got some things for the babies - Minnie mouse for Finley because she can say "mouse" and loves stuffed animals, and a Donald duck car for Cainan because he can make the "vroom" noise and wants nothing to do with stuffed animals!
We also bought Arlington a big gift, but we will wait and give her that for Christmas. She actually chose it, and talked about it several times during the weekend. We wanted to get her one more thing, so this worked out well!
So that was our weekend. We had a blast. Everyone was well behaved, we ate a lot of good food (even Mickey ears ice cream - yum!), and were sad when it ended. We do go several times through out the year, but there is nothing like the trip at Christmas!
Three stories:
1 - our first day there we saw a guy propose to a girl right in front of Cinderella's castle. That was really neat to see!
2 - In Epcot China section, we saw TONS of families with adopted Chinese children! It was just fun to see. We saw many blended families all weekend, but here we saw the most! We even saw some families with boys! And we saw one family with 4 little Chinese girls! Amazing!
3 - The last day, at the Magic Kingdom, we were watching a little show. One of the cast members came up to Arlington and said, "are you enjoying the show?" Arlington said, "no" and shook her head. The cast member laughed. I said to Arlington, "she didn't ask you to JOIN the show, she wants to know if you LIKE the show". Arlington said, "oh, yes!" She thought the lady was asking her to join them, and she didn't want to! Goof ball.
3 - Cainan learned to shug his shoulders and lift his hands up like "I don't know". It is took funny! He also said "hi" constantly to people all weekend.
Enjoy the pictures! There are lots! Oh, and I made a typo - instead of "hair bows" I wrote "hair boys". Sorry! Too hard to fix. :)
1 comment:
thanks bunches, I really enjoy the news and pictures. Nanny
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