The Art of Animation Resort and the Magic Kingdom

As previously mentioned, we were given a very generous gift of two nights at the Art of Animation along with 2 Magic Your Way tickets for each family member.  We had such a good time!  We would have put pictures up sooner, but I used my real camera (not my iphone), and I couldn't find the camera cord.  Alas, I'm pretty sure Keith probably hid it somewhere in the office to inspire me to clean up in there.

I worked Friday, Saturday and Sunday...all 7pm to 7am shifts, came home that Monday morning and slept for 3 hours and then we finished packing and were out the door for what should have been a 30 minute drive.  Unfortunately, traffic and poor (overtired) co-piloting skills, as well as needing to stop for gas because somebody (me) likes to drive dangerously low on gas and somebody else (Keith) finds that incredibly frustrating.  Nevertheless, we made it to the Art of Animation and it was nothing short of spectacular.  

The funny thing about staying in a hotel with the kids is that as a family of 5, it's hard to find enough space for everyone.  This was not the case here.  Honestly, I almost didn't even want to go to a theme park, I was enjoying the resort so much!  Then again, I had just finished the final week of my 4th semester of my graduate school classes and so my house was (is) looking a bit rough.  It was nice to be in a clean environment without a textbook or laptop in sight.  

We stayed in room 6621 in the Lion King area of the resort and immediately changed clothes to go for an evening swim.  

The largest pool in the resort was just a short walk from our building.  It had a Finding Nemo theme.  There is actual music playing under the water....so cool!  

After a brief swim, we went back to get our jammies on and settle in because we had an early morning planned for the Magic Kingdom. 

I couldn't get over the sweetness of the kids' suitcase.  Books and lovies...I sure hoped there were some clothes in there, because I let them pack themselves.  Fortunately, they did a great job. 

Rafiki and Me having a moment.  

A look around the resort with the kids....

All of the artwork was awesome to look at.  The kids were amazed at the big wall of animation in the lobby of the resort. 

Our room was fabulous.  The resort has three family areas: Lion King (where we stayed), Finding Nemo, or Cars.  The regular hotel rooms have a Little Mermaid theme.  

The main living room area.  There was also a coffee pot, microwave and dorm size frig.  The kids had their own bathroom in this area.  

The kids refused to use the fancy washclothes.  

The master bedroom.  We had our own bathroom, too.  It was so nice to be able to close our door and stay awake after the kids went to bed. 

The kitchen table transformed to a Murphy Bed.  To see the video of Megan thinking she had to sleep on the kitchen table CLICK HERE.  

Off to the pool for some evening swimming....

Reading the rules and deciding if this is the pool they want to stay at. 

Megan playing on the splash pad. 

The pool had family activities going on all the time.  Here's Megan in a hula hooping contest.  

Heading back to get ready for bed. 

The boys were thrilled to watch TV while in bed on the pull-out couch. 

Megan was tired and just wanted to read and go to sleep. 

We got up early the next morning and had Megan make her bed up, so we could eat at the table.  We brought breakfast food from home. 

We got to the Magic Kingdom about 20 minutes before "rope drop", since that's what all my Disney-fanatic friends had suggested.  While it was a bit of a wait standing around, it was worth it to get a jump start on the day before the park gets too crowded.  

Before the park officially opens, some of the characters ride the train into the station and welcome all of the guests.  It was really cute.  Also, a random family got to stand up on the platform, too.  

We went straight for our favorite ride, Buzz Lightyear.

I rode with Megan and Daniel and was in charge of steering the space ship, while the two of them shot at targets.  

Megan's score. 

Daniel's score.  Guess who was busy looking around instead of shooting? 

Keith and Joshua looking all serious. 

Daniel looking rather upset about something. 

The big boys goofing around on the People Mover. 

There, that's better!

It's an exciting time to be over 8 cans tall...that means you can drive your own care in the speedway.  

Daniel got stuck with me as his driver...

...which must be why he's gripping the dashboard.

Joshua drove behind us, and Keith and Megan were behind him. 

We walked around the new Fantasy Land to check out all the pretty new things in that area, and decided to ride the tea cups, since we've never been on them.  Keith doesn't do spinning rides, so he sat this one out. 

All smiles. 

It looks like there is still more construction going on in the area.

Perhaps another roller coaster?

Keith and the kiddos.

Oh boy...Tangled's tower.  Megan was so excited!!

The boys with the Liberty Bell.  

We ate somewhere in this area in a nice air conditioned sit-down place.  Then we moved on to see a show.

It was the first time the kids had seen the Country Bear Jamboree. We did a ton of stuff and saw a few shows in this area. 

Then we moved onto the Jungle Cruise. 

We ended up waiting in line for 45 minutes and Keith and I decided this would be our last ride of the day, we'd start heading back to go swimming. 

But, before we leave, we had to get a Dole Whip.  Yummy!!

And Keith had to check out the watch store on Main Street.  I had considered grabbing a Starbucks from the bakery, but we had refillable cups back at the resort and I could get a coffee in that.  Remember, I'm not usually awake for an entire day without a nap in there somewhere, so I was starting to fade right about now. 

Back at the resort, it seemed everyone else decided it was a good idea to go swimming, too.  No worries, the pool was big enough to handle a many people without it feeling too crowded.  Keith and I got a nice shady spot to sit and we watched the kids play. 

We ate dinner at the resort, supplementing some of the items that we brought from home (sandwich stuff) with some yummy stuff from the resort's counter service dining area.  Then we considered taking the bus back to the Magic Kingdom to watch a parade and see fireworks, but the sky looked very menacing.  So we opted for a walk around the resort's different areas. 

Scar

Over in the Little Mermaid area, everything was larger than life! 

Megan and the statue of Price Eric.

Wow, that's a big Ursula! 

Just imagine them singing "everything's better, down where it's wetter...under the sea". 

Wow, the Little Mermaid area was just amazing.  We moved into the Cars area of the resort...

The pool was really cute, you could sit in the cozy cone for some shade.  

And sure enough, the rain came down fast and hard, so we walked to the arcade, where we had a credit for a bunk of coins that came with our hotel stay. 

 We considered hopping in the pool one more time before bed, but everyone was looking pretty exhausted, so off to bed we went.  

The next morning, we woke up and had breakfast in our room, packed out things and went to the Little Mermaid pool for a final swim.  

The kids had a great time climbing all over Keith while I relaxed on my chair. 

And here we are...married for 15 years.  Wow, how time flies. 

And our three monkeys. 

It was a great trip.  We loved the resort and the visit to the Magic Kingdom.  

Visit from the Ketchums

Our original plans for our anniversary were to go down to Disney, stay in a resort and visit one of the parks. Unfortunately, with the tremendous amount of rain we've been having, we ended up postponing the trip for later in the month of June.  The timing worked out better in the long run, since I was able to complete one of my last exams for this semester before we went on vacation.

The Ketchums were generous in giving us this trip for our 15 year wedding anniversary.  They were also in town for a while and we had the pleasure of visiting with them a couple of times.  It's always so great to see them. 

We all tend to be big readers.  I love that the kids can talk for hours about what they are reading. Some of the family favorites right now are any of the Riordan books and the Harry Potter Series.  

Joshua played a little piano for the family while we were waiting on some pizza delivery .  Nobody is taking any formal lessons, but Joshua has learned how to read music in his recorder class, and has translated that to the keys.  He's doing great, and will likely play more musical instruments this coming school year.  

Is it really July?

How can it possibly be July already?  June was such a nice month for us, but it went by so quickly.

Megan and I made "clean eating" fruit cups and the kids love them! This mixture is strawberries and raspberries, but we tend to use whatever we can get in bulk at Costco. 

Daniel called me into the bathroom and I came running in thinking there was something wrong, instead he wanted me to take a picture of is mowhawk.  Oh boy...he's such a little rebel. 

Sometimes I marvel at the kids' ability to use all this technology.  Joshua likes to watch You Tube videos of Mario Kart races and then teach the tricks to Daniel.  

We had a lot of rain in June.  Our make-shift ghetto rainbarrel even overflowed once or twice during some of the heavy rain.  

Lots of rainy days means plenty of time for reading.  The kids dug into the pile of books that I bought at the scholastic warehouse sale.  I wish our library had a better selection of big kid books. 

Keith and I laughed and said this June was very much like living in Kodiak.  During our Alaska days, if the sun came out, everyone stopped what they were doing and ran outside to enjoy the weather.  Such was the case in June.  I recall sitting in the office studying and I looked up to see the sun peaking through the clouds and I yelled, "everyone in the pool!".  My apologies to the neighbors for all the shrieking and giggling at 9:30am, but what's a mom to do?

My boy in his Red Sox shirt.  I think he wears it every other day or so.  Not that I'm complaining. 

We celebrated out 15th wedding anniversary in June and I spend the day running some errands.  Around dinner time, I texted Keith a picture from Five Guys and told him I'd be home soon with his gift.  :) It was a delicious treat.  

I went in to wake Joshua up, and Megan is sitting up there just chatting away with him.  Funny how they still get up at 6:30 am, even though schools out for the summer.  I wonder if this will continue on to the teen years. 

I came home from work wide awake one morning and decided that I would study for a bit before getting some sleep.  I had peace and quiet for about 15 minutes....

and then the boys decided to join me.

Woody hiding in the bookshelf makes me smile. 

School's Out for Summer!

There are so many things running through my head that I want to write about.  The kids have had a spectacular school year and we are excited for some summertime fun!

Keith dragged me away from studying one day to go see Star Trek.  He's a huge Star Trek fan and so it seemed like something fun to do on one of our last days of having free childcare, I mean, while the kids were in school! 

Yes, that's Daniel!  He loves gymnastics, but dislikes the rings.  I was surprised at how well he did pulling his knees up and just hanging there.  He does good when Coach John is close by. 

That same day, we got home just in time for a huge rainstorm to hit and flood different areas throughout our neighborhood...including our front patio. 

Keith helped move the water off the concrete and onto some of the plushy lawn to help get rid of the water build-up.  He also went out to the street to rescue our neighbor's trash can and recycle bins. 

One night at work last week, I found an Oragami Yoda hiding out in my lunch bag. 

Celebrating the beginning of the last week of school with a dinner at Moe's.  Yummy!!

Tying his shoes for the last time as a first-grader.  Wow...where did the time go? 

Daniel's awesome teacher, Ms. Parker, made these great shirts for her class to wear on one of the last days of school.  It says "Parker's Peanuts".  So cute!!

Most exciting for us this week...receiving Megan's FCAT scores.  It's no secret that reading was a bit of a struggle in the beginning of the school year, and so to see that she earned a 4 (5 is the highest possible), was just thrilling.  She was so excited at her score!

Keith caught a baby anole, and we all took turns checking the little guy out before releasing him back to finding his mother. 

Last day of school means cleaning out desks and bringing home TONS of stuff!  The school is getting new textbooks and gave away the old textbooks.  We were happy to bring home some textbook.  I guess since my kids "go" to public school, I can't really call us homeschoolers, but we tend to be more like "afterschoolers", working through some extra educational opportunities when the opportunities arise. 

This is a statue of Vince Carter (NBA basketball player) out in front of Mainland High School in the Daytona Beach area.  It was a huge grand from Vince Carter that allowed the school to be rebuilt into the beautiful structure that it is now.  

I was out at Mainland to give a talk to the first 3 class periods of Health class.  The teacher was having guest speakers come in to talk about their career, and my niece, Mary, asked if I'd be able to come in.  I had a great time interacting with some very enthusiastic freshman and sophomores.  

See, I can be functional on 3 hours sleep.  I'm counting down the time until I graduate from school and get a daytime job so I can fix my insomnia issues.  

I met up with my little sister, Pam, for some pancakes before hitting the road to home. 

While passing through the Lake Mary area, I stopped at the Scholastic Book distribution warehouse.  Every once in a while, it will open to the public and drop the prices to at least half price.  I came home with 22 books for the kids for $60.  It's a whole new world now that everyone is reading chapter books. 

Best part of the kids' last day of school....seeing that everyone has been promoted to the next grade up! 

Goodbye 1st, 3rd and 4th grade.

Bring it on 2nd, 4th and 5th grade.