A few months back, I registered to run the Princess Half Marathon, figuring that a trip to Florida would be right up our ally about 3 months in to Ronnie's deployment. It's also been a year since my brother-in-law passed, so visiting Grammy and Papa would be a welcome diversion for them as well.
We left the PNW for sunny Florida last week. When we landed, my best partner in crime, Kim, greeted us at the airport and shuttled us to her house for the night. We spent all day Friday with Kim and her littlest, Ashley. The girls had so much fun playing with their new friend, while I had a much needed catch up session with Kim. We wound up at Downtown Disney after we checked into our hotel so we could play and get some supper. Eventually, Erica and my nieces and Darren, Kim's hubby, and Sydney joined us for some pizza and playtime. Can I just say it was so nice to eat outdoors and it not be cold and rainy out. Eventually we said our goodbyes and the girls and I headed back to our hotel.
Hey, how'd they get a mini-me in there?
Bright and early Saturday morning, Grammy and Papa arrived! I gave them instructions to not knock on our door until 9 am -- being that it would be 6 am in our West coast brains. Once they got in and the girls properly greeted Papa, we headed over to the Expo to pick up my stuff. Soon, I got a text from some friends of mine that were in town for the race too. And lucky for me, we all met up at the Expo!!! And yay for Grammy and Papa being in town, I got to go to lunch with them :) While I was at lunch, my mom made it to town. It was an early night for me because Sunday was going to be an early morning.
Sunday was spent running and celebrating!!! I did a post about that...
Monday morning we got up bright and early and headed to the Magic Kingdom. My sister, brother in law, and my two oldest nieces joined us for the day.
We had a great time bumming around the park and showing Grammy and Papa all the fun to be had with little girls at the Magic Kingdom. We went on rides. Sarah even decided to give Space Mountain another try -- it's a hesitant good and she didn't cry this time. That's progress, right?
Early in the afternoon, we headed back to our hotel for some rest and pool time. After dinner, we headed back to the park for fireworks. This time we took the ferry over. Our lollygagging cost us a good spot for fireworks, but it was so pretty.
Rather than closing the park down, we went back to the room to relax for the next day. And I had some writing to do for my Thesis. Yes, have Master's program, will travel...
Tuesday brought some rain but more fun. We started our day hanging out with the princesses and fairies. And my FAVORITE fairy was out. Seriously, how cool is Vidia?!?
We dodged more thunderstorms by hanging out at the Tiki Room and Pirates.
Eventually, we just needed to go for it and ride some rides. After all, Sarah thought she maybe might wanted to ride another roller coaster and Big Thunder Mountain was up and running! I think she had a good time... what do you think?
We spent the rest of our day riding more rides... but eventually it was time to leave. And say goodbye to Grammy and Papa and get packing for our trip home.
