Jacob's "Junior Year Trip With a Parent"

Our third child and I just returned home from the second happiest place on earth - Walt Disney World! (The one in FLORIDA.  DisneyLAND is in California!) It's usually called the "Happiest Place on Earth", but most of the time my home is the happiest place.  Sometimes, it's not!! Ha ha!

So this was the year it was Jacob's turn to go on a trip with a parent. I went with the oldest, my husband went with the next oldest, I went this time, and for the youngest, my husband will go.  It began as a surprise gift for me from my husband, but we decided to make it a special "Junior Year" thing with the kids.

The main reason it is so special is that with two people, we can do what we can not do with six people.  With six people, we always rent a house because it's way cheaper than staying at a Disney Resort. But by staying on property in a Disney Resort, you get a lot of the perks and experiences that we can't get when staying in a house off property.

The pictures above are from "Be Our Guest" restaurant.  It's inside the Beast's Castle. The "Beauty and the Beast" beast.  He's with us in the top picture.  It was a DELICIOUS meal! Jacob says it's the very best steak he's ever eaten! And the picture above here is the "Grey Stuff"...just like in the movie!  It's delicious!  Jacob really liked it!

Christmas at WDW is just beautiful, but I loved the fall decorations! If they had been selling one of these wreaths, I might have brought one home!  (Not really because I'm sure it would have cost a small fortune and it absolutely wouldn't have fit in the suitcase!).

The fireworks and shows during "Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party" were especially fun. I'm not a huge fan of Halloween, so I wasn't sure I would like the party, but it was really fun! There were people dressed up - both old and young and in-between - and lots of stops to trick or treat.  There were special shows and parades just for that party, so it was pretty neat and not so scary.  :)

One highlight of our trip was on the safari. There are two baby giraffes on the safari now and one of them came up really close to our bus! I think he/she wanted to play!  Sooooooo cute!

One of Jacob's nicknames is "Donald". His siblings call him that or Duck or Duckling, so we had to get a picture of him with his namesake!  Donald Duck is his favorite Disney character! He was always my favorite, too!

The second best place we ate was O'hana.  That's another perk of only having two people...we could eat at all of the nice places every day. That's too expensive to do with six people!

Jacob really, really, really liked O'hana!  This was towards the end when we still had lots of food left and he was stuffed!

A special part of the trip was getting pictures with Jacob.  He didn't mind a bit and even suggested that we stop for pictures occasionally!  I laugh because with our daughter's and my trip, we do have some pictures, with my husband and next oldest, they sent me two picture, and Jacob and I have several hundreds of pictures!!  I'm thinking #4 and his dad will send two.  Ha ha!

As soon as most people get home from WDW, they miss it.  We've missed it all week, though walking 10-15 miles a day wore us out!!  My feet needed a rest (I only got 3 blisters this time compared to 14 last Christmas! YAY! Ha ha!).  But within a day, we both wanted to go back...and that made the rest of the family want to go back.

(Bathroom fast pass from Whispering Canyon restaurant.  Such a fun place to eat!)

This year has been odd for me. I've been to Florida four times.  That won't happen again unless one of our children decides to live there, then we'll be there often.  (I want them to be close, but if they do choose to live away, Florida is top on the list! :) ) 

Our housekeeper made this elephant and decorated it with the wand and sward they gave us when we checked in a Caribbean Beach Resort.  I didn't know it, but Jacob had written her a sweet note thanking her for all she was doing. That was very sweet of him! He wrote her another one after this.

I had to post one of these, even though it's really unflattering of me!  This is how I look in all of the scary ride pictures.  My children "pose" for the cameras!  This is on "Rock n Roll Roller Coaster" in which the "limo" goes from 0 to 60 in 2 seconds!  My heart beats fast just typing that!!!  But I'd get on right now if I could!

Sunday morning, we could have gotten a taxi and ridden to worship at the Main Gate congregation we enjoy every time we are at WDW, but we had worship together - just the two of us.  That's what we did with the older two, and really, it made it an intimate time with just the two of us at each trip.  Jacob wrote his own "sermon" and led us in song and prayer. I remembered the grape juice for communion, so didn't have to spend $16 for it like I did when Lauren and I went!  His lesson was GREAT. I'll share it next week.  

Special memories were made last week.  Jacob was so appreciative of this special trip just for him.  It was pretty neat seeing how much he enjoyed it.  He was even proud of these pictures where they had us hug :).  He likes hugs.  I'm thankful he does.

Yesterday I printed off one of our hugging pictures, put it in a Mickey frame I had gotten him without him knowing, and set it on his dresser. He was so proud of it and asked how I did it so quickly and how I got the frame.  He'll always remember this special one-on-one trip.  And so will I.

Celebrating at WDW!

So, we just got home yesterday afternoon from a trip to Walt Disney World.  It was a very different kind of trip for us.  We've never been gone away from our children that long!  It was nice, but kind of weird, too.  

We weren't away from all of our children, though.  We met up with the oldest! She's working at WDW this semester on the College Program, so not only did we get to see her, but she also got us into the parks for FREE! Can't beat that!!

We also got a discount on our room.  This is outside on our balcony at Animal Kingdom Lodge. It's beautiful there! Who wouldn't want to see giraffes outside their door every day?!  I wanted to bring one home!

Lauren considered this our birthday celebration and Disney is HUGE on helping you celebrate! We received birthday buttons when we arrived and restaurants treated us royally when they knew we were celebrating!  On of our sons said it was a 2nd honeymoon, which topped our first one to Amarillo, Texas, by quite a bit! :)  Vier means celebrate in Swahili!

We went to Animal Kingdom on arrival day, then went to Magic Kingdom the next day.  Breakfast at the Beast's Castle in the "Be Our Guest" restaurant was great! The food was fancy-ish and we didn't like all of it, but it was good.  It wasn't our taste, but we know that many, many would like it.  We would order something a little different if we were to go again.  But the castle was beautiful!

One of our daughter's roommates was working at the Christmas store that day, so we went by to visit her.  What a fun job to say "Merry Christmas" every day! :)

That night we ate at "Whispering Canyon" at the Fort Wilderness Lodge.  It was great and lots of fun!!  This huge mason jar was the biggest water glass my husband has ever had. He was sooooooo happy!!

The "skillet" was great, too!  Served family style and in a never-ending fashion, this meal really fills you up!

They had a few fun photo props to take pictures.  I really liked this jail!

If you need ketchup at this restaurant, you don't just ask for it, you YELL it!  'WE NEED KETCHUP!"  And then the table with the ketchup takes it to that table!  There were 15 bottles on a table at some times! It was definitely a play on words for this place to be called "whispering".  There's NO whispering! Ha ha!!  Such fun!

You can't beat seeing "Wishes" at Magic Kingdom.  Our daughter told us the story behind the song the little girl sings at the beginning and end of the fireworks show. She had cancer and her wish was to be a part of MK in some way. It's her song that plays and may be her even singing it.  She passed away, but she did get her wish.  What a beautiful song and story!

The most beautiful part of the trip was seeing the annual International Flower and Garden Festival going on at EPCOT.  It was truly amazing!

God made beautiful flowers and man finds a great way to share them all with us!  Especially at EPCOT!

We ate at "Canada" on EPCOT day.  It was a delicious steak!  And great desserts!

Our daughter works in the American Adventure as part of the staff at the Liberty Inn.  What great memories she will have!

In Germany I found the best dessert ever - a caramel bar! It's in the Werther's store, but it's not Werther's caramel (or if it is, it doesn't say it).  It was so good, I got it two days in a row!

They couldn't leave Elsa and Anna out of the flower festival!  Elsa can't freeze the flowers now!

I had always wanted to go to this festival. It was beautiful, but also educational.  We learned so many things about plants and how to plant them that we didn't know!  But mostly, we got to enjoy the unique way Disney does things!

Another treat was this violet lemonade made with real violets! I talked our daughter into eating the flower.  She wasn't impressed, but it was just strange, too!  But, the lemonade was delicious!

We ended the day with Illuminations.

The last night we ate at Cape May in the Beach Club Resort. It was a lot more seafood than we like, but the food was delicious! They gave us a special birthday cupcake, as well.

The sandcastle they have displayed is so neat! We sat right by it!

That day we were at Hollywood Studios. We took the time to go to drawing class. Can you tell what we drew?  I thought we all did pretty well!

My husband and I sat in the old car replica for a quick photo. It was fun getting lots of pictures of just us together! We never do that!

We ended the evening with "Fantastic"...a wonderful ending to a great trip!

Animal Kingdom Lodge is a great place to visit!  It is expensive, so it was especially good to get a great discount on the stay.  In fact, that's the ONLY way we will be staying there!

But the perks of staying on Disney property is really worth a little extra money.

Our trip home started early.  We had to leave the resort at 3:30 a.m. (Florida time) and arrived in Dallas at 8:05 (Texas time).  After stopping for Bible class, worship, and lunch at Babe's Chicken, we arrived home at 4:00 p.m.  The boys were glad to see us, and we were glad to see them!

It was a very special trip and we had a great time celebrating many things: Our birthdays (a month apart, but celebrating in-between the two), our anniversary (early for 27th, but a late 25th), and our daughter being a Disney CastMember (CP).  Another of our daughter's roommates gave us a special welcome packet for celebrating our birthdays and anniversary when we visited her at the Boardwalk Resort.  

And now we're celebrating being home! :)

(I'm adding this photo after posting this, so it's just tagged on to the end. This carriage is from the movie "Cinderella". It's the real carriage that was in the movie! So cool!!)

YES, YOU CAN GO TO DISNEY WITHOUT VISITING ANY PARKS!

(Port Orleans Resort - New Orleans)

When my daughter and I drove to Walt Disney World a few weeks ago so that she could begin the College Internship Program, we had just gotten home from a family Christmas vacation there a few weeks earlier. 

Because we had gone to the four main parks (Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Hollywood Studios, and Animal Kingdom) during that visit, I wasn't going to buy a ticket to go to one during this visit.  Not that I didn't want to, but I didn't think I should spend the money on it since we already had weeks before.  Lauren will get a discount and even a few free tickets, but that wasn't going into effect until I was gone.

We stayed on Disney property during this trip, which usually our family doesn't do.  Lauren and I even got the dining plan, just for a fun way to be able to try a few different restaurants, so the room and meals were paid for in advance.  But I was determined to not spend any - or much - money at all after I arrived.  I made it a challenge to NOT spend, actually! I wanted to prove that it was possible!  And I did!!

If  you're staying at a Disney resort, you can ride the buses everywhere. Actually, even if you're not staying on property, you can ride the buses, boats, and monorails.  So transportation isn't an issue.  It may take you awhile to get to where you want to go, but you easily can do it.  We spent time around our resort pool (pictured on top), visited the amazing Boardwalk (FREE!), which provides beautiful scenes, fun shopping (without spending!)...

...and funny sidewalk entertainment!  You could literally spend hours down at the Boardwalk just walking around and looking - or even sitting and watching!  Such a neat place that we had never been to!

Another free thing to do is to watch the Wishes fireworks show at Magic Kingdom from a distant location.  This view is of the Grand Floridian as we sat on the Polynesian Resort beach.

It was a great place to watch Wishes!

When Lauren was busy with training one day, I spend the day riding boats and buses going to Downtown Disney and other resorts.

Included WITH our resort package were FREE tickets to Disney Quest!  It's an arcade, game, food, and fun place that's five stories high!!  I actually did some of the things, even though I was all alone!

It was fun, but I was also determined to use up that FREE ticket well! I made my own roller coaster, then got to ride it in a simulator that went upside down!  The kids thought it was hilarious that I did that all alone :).

I toured Pop Century Resort, which was amazing!!  I had seen pictures of it, but never in person.

Art of Imagination Resort may have been my favorite, though.  I love how they designed the movies within the hotel rooms.

Aren't these amazing places to stay??!  How fun to spend the afternoon in a Cozy Cone!

One thing about the resorts:  You can only swim in the pool at your OWN resort. You can't go to all of them just because you're a Disney guest.  But you CAN go around and visit them!  And you can also take your refillable Disney mug and use it at every resort.  I just snapped mine on my camera bag and used it whenever I needed something!

The Disney transportation system is very well organized.  Over 250 buses transport guests over the 30,500 acres!!

So, yes, you CAN visit Walt Disney World without going to the theme parks!  It was possible!  I wouldn't recommend it if it's your first visit to WDW, or maybe even your 2nd or 3rd, BUT if you want to experience Disney at a more relaxed pace, or if you want to splurge a little to stay on property, but not spend too much, you can still experience Disney just by being there.  

There's no more magical place on earth!  That's why WDW is called the happiest place on earth!  Of course, it's happier when your whole family is there, but you can make it happy just on your own....or even when telling your oldest child bye and you won't be seeing her for four months!

No matter how you experience WDW, that last picture, "See Ya Real Soon", will be the saddest one you see!