Disneyworld 2007 Part VII

Today we were off to the second water park, Blizzard Beach. Everyone headed straight to TeamBoat Springs where we road as a family in a large circular raft down and a curvy, crazy, twisting mountain. It was a blast! Then Ethan and Troy were off to Summit Plummet which at 120 feet is the tallest water slide in America. At 51 mph they headed straight down the mountain. Let's just say I'm very impressed with the dare devils. Check out the video of Summit Plummet here: http://disneyworld.disney.go.com/wdw/parks/attractionDetail?id=BBSummitPlummetAttPage

After another fun day in the water, it was off to Magic Kingdom for more rides. As mentioned before one of our crowd's favorite rides was Buzz Lightyear. Peyton especially loved this ride. As soon as he'd spot Buzz he'd yell, "To Infinity and beyond."


Tonight dinner was at the Liberty Tree Tavern where we dined on roast beef, turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and apple crisp all served family style.






Three cheers to our outstanding tour director for an absolutely wonderful trip. Minimal crowds, no waiting in lines, delicious food, great company, and memories to last a lifetime.

With 2 more days still left to go it's hard to imagine we could have anymore fun, but we did!!!

Disneyworld 2007 Part VI

Off to Magic Kingdom for another great day of walking on all of the rides. The park was all decked out for Halloween! It looked great!


Much to Ethan's dismay we went on Small World! Peyton, Dylan, Drew, and Ella really enjoyed this ride.


Then it was off to Epcot to the Canada pavillion for lunch at Le Celier! The cheddar cheese soup and filet mignon were absolutely delicious. One of my favorite parts was the Smore for dessert! Yummy!! Another fun day!


We decided we needed a little break from the heat and headed back over to Disney Quest. It was nice to be in the air conditioning. Ethan and Alex found a motorcycle racing game that they literally played for an hour. Drew spent that time racing Tokyo Drift cars. Nate found a boxing game that he absolutely loved. Troy and Aaron reminisced about Troy's days managing the arcade Tilt. After everyone had worked up an appetite we headed over to Wolfgang Pucks Express for dinner. It was some of the most creative and delicious food ever minus the Chinese cole slaw that poor Tanya had an entire salad of. I would definitely try Wolfgang Pucks. Delicious! Another fun day!

Disneyworld 2007 Part V

Today was a new adventure for everyone. We went to the water park Typhoon Lagoon. There was no better way to start off a hot, humid day then to go swimming!

First on the agenda, snorkel with the sharks. Aaron, Troy, Ethan, Alex, and Nate headed straight for Shark Reef. They were the first ones there. Everyone got their snorkels and masks on and got ready to go. Everyone loved it! Drew, Ella, Dylan, and Peyton loved spotting the sting rays, shark, and other fish.



Another one of our favorite rides was the Crush 'n Gusher. You could go on a 2 or 3 person inner tube and the slides shot you up and down like a rollercoaster. Ethan and Alex loved this ride.

I think the crowd favorite was the giant man made beach and wave pool. Every 90 seconds a 6 foot wave was created. You could actually surf. All the boys and Ella loved this! We spent a long time playing here and wished we would have found it first!
After a fun day in the sun we headed over to Epcot to ride Test Track and for dinner at the most amazing Chinese restaurant called Nine Dragons. I had talked up the Chinese food here so much that I was a little worried that the Chinese Connoisseur wouldn't like it. However, Troy and Tanya absolutely loved it! After a wonderful dinner we decided to head back to the hotel and get the kids to bed early. Another wonderful day!

Disneyworld 2007 Part IV

This was our first day in Magic Kingdom. It started out with breakfast at Crystal Palace before the park even opened. Peyton was so excited to have breakfast with Pooh and Pig-e-let. Pooh's stuffed french toast was absolutely delicious. Peyton and Dylan were so cute when the characters came around. They loved them. Peyton kept yelling, "Pig-e-let. Pig-e-let." All the kids joined in the parade.




After a yummy breakfast it was off to Fantasy Land to ride the rides. First up, Dumbo. Once again we basically walked right on!


Another favorite ride was Autopia. I will never again get mad at people driving slow because it may not be their fault. Drew, Peyton, and I got the slowest car imaginable. No matter what we did it would not pick up any speed. Let's just say we had quite the line behind us


Aaron got the high score on Buzz Lightyear. Drew and Ella loved riding the Blue Line.



After a fun time at Magic Kingdom we left for Disney Studios. All the boys, Ethan, Alex, Drew, and Nate, wanted to ride Tower of Terror, so off Tanya and I went to take them. Tower of Terror is one of my favorite rides. The boys were so brave, but not one of them volunteered to go on it again with Troy. Drew still tells me what a brave little boy he was for going on that ride!

We had dinner reservations at The Brown Derby and then priority seating at the fireworks show Fantasmic. Dinner was absolutely wonderful. I think all the adults ordered the Filet and boy was it tasty! We had some time before Fantasmic, so we decided to go on the Great Movie Show ride. Just then it began to downpour. We waited around for about an hour hoping it would stop, so that we could still see Fantasmic. It didn't and we wound up having to buy ponchos. This was the first trip that we didn't bring them. Luckily Troy and Tanya were prepared and kept our boys dry! Thanks!

Disneyworld 2007 Part III

Our third day was the day I had been looking forward to since we booked the trip. Tanya, Ella, and I had reservations for breakfast in Cinderella's Castle. Ella dressed up as Cinderella and was the prettiest Cinderella you have ever seen. We ate breakfast in the Castle with Cinderella, Belle, Jasmine, Aurora, and Snow White. What a fun, girly breakfast!!




Meanwhile the boys went to Donald Duck's Breakfastasaurous in Animal Kingdom. They had a great time and loved seeing Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Pluto, and Goofy. Drew loved that he could pick whatever he wanted for breakfast which included a plate full of hot dogs (sausages).





We all met at Animal Kingdom and saw Nemo the Musical. It was over 30 minutes long, but even held Peyton and Dylan's attention. We went on the Safari at the end of the day and saw all of the animals! It was great!!





Kali River Rapids was one of the favorites. Ella absolutely loved the ride even though she got soaked. Aaron enjoyed it too. Although for the rest of the day every where we went we kept smelling this odd smell. No one could place it, just that it smelled like mildew. Low and behold it turned out to be Aaron's shirt. The Kali River Rapids did him in. I don't think that dri fit golf shirt did it's job!!

Disneyworld 2007 Part II

Saturday morning was our first day at the parks. We hopped on the bus promptly at 8:15 am headed for Epcot. Troy, Tanya, and the kids joined us at the next stop. It was so great to see everyone. We got to Epcot before it opened and there weren't many people there. This proved to be a very good sign as we literally walked on every single ride that day!! Aaron headed over to Soarin' California for fast passes while the rest of us went straight to Test Track. I think Test Track proved to be one of the favorite rides of the trip. We rode this ride countless times. All the kids would keep their hands up for the entire ride even when we were going over 60 mph. Next stop, why Club Cool of course! Free soda pop from around the world. I mean who could go wrong with that when it's 90 degrees and 95% humidity outside. We then went over to Nemo and watched Turtle Talk with Crush where Nate was the star of the show! It was awesome. We had dinner at Rose and Crown in England. Our tables were right on the water. The food was delicious and better yet included in the dining plan. We ordered an appetizer, entree, and dessert at every meal. We definitely ate well on this trip!

Disneyworld 2007 Part 1

We had a wonderful trip to Florida. It was so great to go with Troy and Tanya! We all loved being together and what a fun time we had! It all started at about 1:30 am on Friday, September 7th, when Alex came upstairs completely ready to go. The only problem... we didn't need to leave for the airport until 4:50 am. I told Alex it was too early to be awake and to go back to bed. He exclaimed, "This is worse than Christmas morning. At least then I can wake up early!" About 45 minutes later I hear voices talking. I go to investigate to find Ethan and Alex in their room playing Sonic Heroes. Alex was way too excited to fall back asleep and had got Ethan up too. Neither was cranky just really excited. We left for the airport right on time to drop Aaron and three boys off. Drew and I had a direct FIRST CLASS flight that left 3 1/2 hours later, but arrived only 45 minutes after the boys. The flights went great. We met at the airport and boarded the Magical Express which took us straight to the Port Orleans Riverside Resort. We checked in and went straight to our room in Alligator Bayou 3727. Everything looked so much like New Orleans. Drew gave the room his stamp of approval which we all know is huge being the first class traveler that he is. I think we were in the room no longer than 5 minutes when we headed off to Downtown Disney to eat at the Earl of Sandwich and check out Disney Quest, the 5 floor arcade. Believe it or not the boys were still not cranky! Everyone loved Disney Quest. I mean what boy wouldn't when you can play any and every game without having to put money in. I even found Mrs. Pacman and Super Pacman. We were hoping to meet up with Troy and Tanya, but the airlines broke their stroller so Troy had to take a cab to Wal-Mart, the only thing open at 11:30 pm, and buy a new stroller. Back to the hotel to get a good nights sleep. By this point in time Ethan and Alex had been up for 20 hours straight and were just starting to show signs of sleepiness!

Drew's First Day of Preschool

I meant to post this before our vacation, but didn't have time. Drew was so excited to start preschool. (He is going to the same preschool he went to last year.) I'm not quite sure how Peyton felt about it though. Since the big boys have been in school Drew and Peyton have become inseperable. They are constantly making up new games - comfy crib, rocket ship fire truck bed, and race track. They pretty much play together all day long! Drew is so happy to be back in school. He loves seeing his friends and his teacher from last year. He really likes his new teacher, Teacher Charlotte. Being the independent guy that he is he loves having his "own" school to go to. Peyton is adjusting and loves it when it's time to pick up Drew Drew.

Hey Batman!

As you can see, Batman enjoys picking out his own clothes now. This is one of my favorite ensembles he's put together! Usually he has four shirts on and two different crocs. He is such a cutie!