Disney Rating: Buy!

The good: no cooking and no cleaning, hours of endless fun, EZ pass combined with toddler exchange which made for lots of rides, a kids club that allows you to drop off your children at any time during the hours of 6 a.m. - midnight, waiters that cut up your kids food, feed them and take care of their every need (including making a bed out of chairs and tablecloths for Ty who fell asleep during dinner once), amazing Broadway styled shows, great beaches, and most importantly, hearing your kids say that "this is the best vacation ever". Countdown to January 30, 2010...

The bad: coming home with 10 days of dirty laundry, realizing that I am the chef, bored kids, and trading Broadway shows for boxing matches between the kids...but in the end the return on investment makes it well worth it!

Here are some of the highlights of our Disney World/Disney Cruise vacation:

The view from our hotel room. (Clearly a much sunnier view than what I am used to seeing out my bedroom window most days in November.)



Spending a day enjoying the resort before spending the next few days at the parks.



Downtown Disney. We had a great dinner at the T-Rex restaurant (you wouldn't know it from the golden arch photo that couldn't be passed up) and then Jack insisted that we rent one of these speed boats so I could zip the kids around. Well, let me restate, not "zip" as it was powered by what looked like a lawn mower engine.



The Castle: Anytime Sage heard anyone even utter the word "castle" in a sentence, she'd immediately yell to them, "No, my castle".



The Characters (Luckily the boys aren't into getting photos with the characters but Sage couldn't get enough of them. I spared you every photo with every character!):



Connor couldn't get enough of the Everest ride at Animal Kingdom. In one day he made it on 6 times. Ty loved the Kali Rapids ride as you can see from how drenched they are in this photo.



From talking trash cans to 3-D movies.



Ty, in a rush to catch up with his dad, quickly throws on what he thought was his denim shorts. Neither of us could figure out why they were so hard for him to put on until he returned with his dad and I realized whose PANTS (yes pants) they actually were...



Disney Cruise Line. This was our first cruise ever but I can't imagine sailing on any other cruise line after this experience. By far the prettiest ship! And where else do you find a dining staff that feeds you? :)




Sage clearly excited about her new purse dad bought her. What was even cuter was to see how excited she was to show it to all the characters who were very kind and acted very interested in her purse:



One thing I learned while on this vacation is that Ty may have a future in entertainment. One of my favorite memories of the cruise is of Ty singing happy birthday to total strangers. This is how it began: Each night the dining room staff would sing to various people for their birthdays. What we didn't know was that on the first night after the crew had finished singing, Ty worked his way over to the table and sang Happy birthday to that person. Apparently he would have to stop half way through the song and ask "what's your name?" It wasn't until after someone approached us to tell us what a great singer Ty was that we figured out what he was up to. From that night forward, when Ty heard the staff start to sing it was a signal for him that he was up next. Throughout the cruise people would say "hey, there's the boy that sung to us last night". So on Mickey Mouse's 80th birthday (which took place during our cruise) Jack made arrangements with the cruise director to have the boys come up on stage that night and sing to Mickey Mouse. They now have special badges and certificates for acting as "onstage peformers". It was so cute to see the excitement on their faces as they got up before hundreds of people to sing Happy Birthday to Mickey Mouse. It was truly magical for them!



Atlantis (We love this place and they had added so much since our last visit. If I can figure out how to download video, I'll have to download the piece of Sage going down the rapids. It is hysterical!):




Castaway Cay:




I just love this photo of Ty with Minnie in the moo moo. Judging from this smile, I think he has a crush on Minnie...



Cocoa Beach: Jack was anxious to return to Ron Jon's for some new swim wear. Ty was excited to play in the waves.




Final analysis: We had a blast. We'll stick to longer Disney cruises and separate trips to Disneyland!

5 years ago...

So I was just on my brother and sister in laws blog and saw what they dressed as for Halloween this year and said I'd share our version of the same costume from 5 years ago. As if I needed to tell you it was taken 5 years ago...I think it's pretty clear from just looking at us! Thankfully dancing wasn't a part of the evening!

Happy Halloween!

Jack LOVES Halloween. He gets so excited for the annual trip to Target to pick out costumes and is the King of pumpkin carving. Thankfully the first costumes purchased this year ended up being the ones actually worn on Halloween. (We've learned to avoid returning to Target with the boys until after Halloween to avoid the weekly costume exchange that took place in years past.) Here are a few photos from the week:

The preparations:



The costumes (Ninja, Wolverine and Witch):



The Excitement: Sage cracked us up because she would run from house to house, while the boys casually walked. She would then frantically search for the door bell and then position herself right in front! Although she was unable to outlast Ty, she proudly outlasted Connor (as you can see from her pure excitement here).



The final outcome: Perhaps the "criminal" in the family will have to assist with all that candy or else we may see a few more visits from the tooth fairy in the near future.




The sugar rush: Although it didn't have much of an affect on the boys, you can see that was not the case with Sage. (It also affected her ability to sit lady-like.)





The UGLY:

So around 10:30 p.m. the kids are all in bed and Jack and I are up in our bedroom watching TV when we hear this noise outside our home which is clearly someone attacking our poor pumpkins. We run downstairs to find some hoodlums running down the street. The devastation on the doorstep was something Jack didn't want the boys to see as they'd be heartbroken so he disposed of all the evidence and thankfully we had our first winter wind storm last night and this morning when the boys noticed the pumpkins gone, it was pure delight to hear them say "oh no! Our pumpkins must have blown away in the wind." Shortly after they were down the street looking for them knocking on neighbors doors asking if they had seen them. In the end they concluded they must have rolled down the street and bounced onto the golf course. Sounds good!