Vacation 2007

The plane ride down was not as bad as I projected. The kids were tired, but we did well at the airport. Baby in sling, carseats on the stroller. Patrick was unable to bring the pack n play for Corinne and left it in the van.... more on that later.

Corinne woke up HOT and congested. Yay.... Gave her some meds. She slept on the plane but was burning hot when we arrived in Orlando. Given that she got so dehydrated that time and ended up in the hospital, I was trying hard to not get all freaky.

The first day was fine for the guys. They hit the condo's pool (we got upgraded to a 3 bed 3 bath instead of 2 bed 2 bath!! SPACE!!) but I stayed back with Corinne, giving her a cool bath and meds and trying to get her to sleep. Which she did very little of. Patrick ran out for different medicine as she wouldn't take the first kind and it was 2 am.... Yawn!

She woke up feeling better and we hit Daytona Beach. AWESOME TIME. (Aside from the hour long ride of Justin whining over not wanting to sit down anymore....) We bodyboarded, we built a sand puddle for Corinne, found lots of shells, ate ice cream... all in all, we had a ball. (unintentional rhyming...)

Again, that night, Corinne wouldn't sleep in bed with us (which I knew) or even in the little bed I made for her in our suitcase with pillows and blankets (don't judge me). So, my darling husband ran out AGAIN at 2 am to get a pack n play from Wal-Mart, which she promptly fell asleep in within 2 minutes. (which I also knew would happen).

We went to the Magic Kingdom ourselves on Monday and had a good time. Some serious issues periodically from our oldest but we tried to just appease and overlook as much as possible as this WAS vacation, and the whole park didn't need to listen to him complain and scream. The whole trip was worth it when Corinne saw her favorite Minnie Mouse and clapped and smiled from ear to ear. Oh, and watching her play in Pooh's house, the water by Donald's boat and squealing with joy in "It's a Small World." Evan decided that his favorite ride is also the Splash Mountain and Justin actually tried Space Mountain and loved it! My MIL arrived that night and we went to bed way late, to wake up the next morning and hit Animal Kingdom.

I think that right here, I'll just paraphrase the next two days so that I don't ramble on about the bad stuff, kay? Let's just say that Justin did NOT do well, we all got very wet and hot and the days were less than wonderful. There WERE some great moments: Evan watching the baby gibbon and laughing with me, Justin saying that The Everest ride was so "unique" about 20 times, riding The Rockin Roller Coaster 3 times in a row (headache!) Evan riding Tower of Terror 2 x's in a row (yes, he's only 5. He's a daredevil!) and the kids digging for dinosaur bones and climbing together. Let's just leave it at that.

But on Thursday and Friday, we had GREAT days. Epcot was SO fun! I made sure that we used our 3 adult to 3 kids ratio as best as possible. Patrick was the Fastpass runner. He went straight to Soarin and got our passes at 10 am (which were usable after 1 pm. Crazy.) They run out of passes at Epcot so early, as they only have about 4 main rides. We then hit the big ball ride (space something....) and then the Seas and did the Nemo ride which we ALL loved. SO cool. Their aquarium rocks, too. The boys then had about 2 hours of fun at the Innoventions building, playing video games, interactive games and such while Corinne napped (did I mention that she napped EVERY day in her stroller? She was such a trooper. Seriously, a great baby for travelling.)

Soarin was fun and the boys got to ride it twice (ever hear of Rider Switch at the Disney parks? Check into it. Extra rides with your Fastpasses for the kids.) We had a minor (well, not so minor) issue with Justin when we said it was time for the adults to enjoy the world showcase but
we forged on and (surprise surprise!) he had fun! The kids loved going to each "world" and seeing the different buildings and shops. We had sweets in France, lamb in Morocco, and wine and beer in Germany. Corinne was THRILLED to see baby ducks in Japan and we had to watch them for a good twenty minutes while admiring the koi and landscaping. Justin was so excited to visit China and we caught the show with the acrobats doing amazing stunts. Evan pretended to pass out from sheer joy in the Germany toy shop when they had his favorite toys, Schleich knights, set up in a big layout and he got to pick out a new one. The day DID end on a sour note when we left to go see Fantasmic at MGM and found out that they didn't have the second show on Thursday nights.... Ugh. That car ride back to the condo was AWFUL.

On Friday we hit the Magic Kingdom again and rode SO many rides, I can't even remember them all. Corinne liked every ride with "guys" (animatronic people), Evan wanted to ride EVERYthing and was happy pretty much the whole day, and Justin was the most agreeable he'd been all week. We made sure to leave on time to hit Fantasmic and it was WORTH it. We did the late show and were able to have Justin and Daddy ride Rockin Roller Coaster once more before getting in line and still managed to get front row seats. Corinne LOVED seeing her mouse friends one last time, and the boys loved the villlains and fireworks and explosions.

The plane ride back was, again, great! Corinne fell asleep on the RUNWAY people. Slept until just half an hour outside of Chicago, then did a sticker book with me. The boys were entertained with Daddy and Grandma and I got to drink a Bailey's on ice (nice).

And now? Now I'm beat. There is so much freakin laundry and stuff to clean. The kids are so happy to have their stuff back. They are definitely enjoying the down time. Patrick is out shopping for new work clothes for his new job tomorrow! He's so excited. I hope this works out as well as he wants it to.

Sorry for the book. If you made it this far, you must really love me. If not, well, I had to record it all SOMEWHERE or else risk losing bits and pieces to my already scattered memories of the trip.

Oh, and PAtrick is already planning our next vacation.... :)