Field Trip

Van had a field trip to Westside Pizza for preschool. He was so excited. They got to see in the big fridge and watch how they make their pizzas. Then each of the kids were able to make their own pizza. I loved hanging out, just me and Van.

After the field trip wasn't so fun, Van had a tooth that had a huge cavity he had to have filled. It was his first one and it was so sad! They had to numb his slowly because he was so sad. Finally they got him numb enough and filled it, but it was a rough few hours after. He ended up chewing his entire lip up and was bleeding and sore for days. He has another one that needs to be filled that I haven't scheduled yet because it was traumatizing. He even let me use toothpaste the next few days because he didn't want another cavity, but he HATES toothpaste. 

 

Last Day

 Our final day in Disney World we had to check out before we went to breakfast. We had a character breakfast at another resort so we had our hotel hold our bags and we took the skyliner over. It was fun to have a different way to travel besides only buses. Our breakfast was delicious and fun. Minnie, Goofy, Daisy Duck, and Donald Duck came to our tables to visit. The food was good too. I love a good breakfast and the kids weren't too exhausted to enjoy sitting for a meal. 

After breakfast we took a shuttle to the airport and headed home. Claire seemed so old on the ipod for the entire flight. She was quite sad when it got taken away when we landed. It was an amazing and exhausting trip. So many fun memories made!

Magic Kingdom

 Our sixth park day was Magic Kingdom. I am a little sad that this was on our last day. Claire and Van were tired and sick of parks. I could tell Van didn't want to be there from the way he walked into the park. Magic Kingdom is my favorite park and we were too tired to fully enjoy it. We had lightening lanes this day which helped a ton. We left around 5 and were able to ride 10 rides and eat two meals in the park. We started the morning at Buzz Lightyear. As soon as you used one lightening lane you could schedule another one so you always had three scheduled. We used them all day and it saved a ton of waiting in line. I was super glad I took Claire and Van to wait in line for princesses the second day because this day was mostly rides. Everyone started together on Tiana's Bayou Adventure (Splash Mountain.) This was my first time on most of the rides since I was pregnant the first time and had a three year old the second time. We rode the Seven Dwarfs mine train, that was probably Claire's favorite. The older kids did Tron. We did most of the classics, Ariel, Dumbo, Winnie the Pooh. We saw the older group a lot more this day because of the fast passes. We rode pirates together. Kent bought a shirt and Maggie got a puzzle in the gift shop. At some point Corbin bought a lightening McQueen shirt.

Dinner was at Cinderella's Royal Table inside the castle. I was not excited for it because the meals had been so hard. My littles would have rather done other things than sit down meals. This one was wonderful though. There were princesses that would come visit you during your meal. Everyone got a wand as a souvenir at the end. The food was really good, I had the filet minion. 

The older group stayed in the park for the 9:00 show and fireworks. We took Claire and Van back to swim one last time. We were able to swim quite a few nights after leaving the parks. That was a little crazy to me because we left the parks tired, but my kids always had more energy for swimming until 9:00.

Universal Studios

 We left Disney property on Sunday to go to Universal Studios. Most families took an Uber, but us and Malcolm and Ellie's family rented a van. It was actually super inconvenient. Uber is the way to get around these days. Matt and Malcolm had to go get the vehicles and then parking was busy and quite the walk to get to the entrance. Now we know if we ever do it again. The only thing that I liked about having a vehicle was that our family was all together. Corbin wasn't too pleased because we got started later and he missed out on one of the roller coasters, but I liked it. Matt rode with Corbin, Maggie, and Kent on the hulk coaster. Our whole family rode Kong together, Van was terrified. Then we split up. Claire and Van were pretty content at the Jurassic playground and could have stayed for hours. Our three olders we didn't see again until it was time to head back. 

I really don't know what the big kids did every day in all the parks, but they were just living their best life. They had no littles to keep up with and were go go go all day, everyday. 

We waited in line for a raptor encounter. It was a fun one. It was basically a meet the character with a raptor. There was a guide that made the experience fun and it was super up close to a moving raptor. 

Van loved Jurassic World. He picked a mosasaurs and was so thrilled with it. I liked it much better than his first souvenir. 

Universal was hot, but so fun! There is so much to do there, way more than the two parks we had already done for sure. We easily could have gone back for another day. I wished we had skipped out on epcot for another day here. 

I had missed Harry Potter land last trip so that was cool to walk through. It was crazy busy, but we did ride one roller coaster and the train. We ended with Dreamworks. Saw Gabby from Gabby's dollhouse, rode the Trollercoaster, and played on another playground. 

Animal Kingdom

 Saturday the older kids rope dropped again to ride Avatar. Animal Kingdom was another one that I wish I would have only spent a half day in. We started at the Kilimanjaro Safari, which was amazing. It was fun to be in line and on the ride with the entire family. The giraffe's were literally right next to our vehicle, we could have touched them, but weren't allowed. 

We waited in line for an hour to ride Dinosaur. Van liked the end of the line museum, but was pretty scared in the actual ride. Claire loved all the rides. I was actually impressed at how well she did and how much she enjoyed it all. She didn't like the lines, but loved every ride she went on for the entire week. Van was thrilled at the end of the ride to find a carnotaurus that he bought. It is huge! I couldn't tell him no though, he was so set on it. They all had $50 to spend throughout the vacation so this is what he chose.  

The rest of the park was kind of like a zoo, with more walking to see animals. Van wanted to see the Komodo Dragon and Claire wanted to find the axolotl. The older kids did only stay part of the day and headed to another park to finish the afternoon. 

Dinner for Saturday was at Tony's, the Italian Restaurant from Lady and the Tramp. I didn't like the experience because we weren't by family at all and it was loud, but the food was good. 

Blizzard Beach

Blizzard Beach was day three. There was a little misunderstanding and it took a while to get into this park, but once we had tickets and were in it was a great day. There was a wave pool that was super fun. They had a ton of slides, an obstacle course, zip line, and kid area. Definitely something for everyone. Van kept playing a game that he was a dienosuchus that was sleeping on my shoulder. He was obviously exhausted so I laid him on a beach chair and he fell asleep for over an hour until Matt woke him up. It was hot, so I got a beach towel wet and laid it over him. Then I just chilled next to him for a while. When he woke up we went on a family tube ride that we all loved. 

Dinner this night was at O'hana's. This is the only restaurant that we have gone to every time in Disney. Claire had been eyeing this baby bolt for three solid days and I finally let her buy it. I wanted to make sure it was actually what she wanted because she had already bought her autograph book, but she was very happy with it!

 

Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios

Wednesday was Hollywood Studios. Matt rope dropped with the teenagers this morning. They were excited to do the star wars rides at this park. Kent had saved enough money to make his own light saber too. It was $250 and he paid for the whole thing. He was thrilled with his purchase. Matt said it was a fun experience and the guy that led it was really good at what he does. 

I knew there wasn't enough in the park to keep Claire and Van occupied for the entire day so I took those two to Magic Kingdom to start. We waited in line for Cinderella, Belle, Rapunzel, Tiana, and Ariel. We rode the carousel and then Matt came and met up with us. On our way out we saw Mirabel and met her too. So it was just a princess morning. Claire was so excited to get signatures in her autograph book. Van liked them more than I thought he would too. He was super shy, but enjoyed seeing them. 

 

We went into Hollywood Studios around one and I am so glad we didn't go before then. It was super hot and there were not very many rides. We just happened to see Mark and Marianne as we were walking in, which was fun. We had Lightening Lanes for Toy Story Mania and Slinky Dog dash which were both fun and super nice to skip the lines. On the rides we had lightening lanes we would usually meet up with everyone. It was nice to see my older kids for a while. The only other rides we did were Minnie's Railroad and Tower of Terror, although I skipped out on that one.