Did You Miss Me?

Wow! Was That FUN!

We had a great time on our vacation to Walt Disney World! I’ll blog about it throughout the week or so. If you’re not interested, just skip down to the bottom part of my posts, called “Today” (original, huh?)

Sun, Feb. 18 – Day 1 (sort of).
It was Son #3’s 5th birthday and he spent ten hours of it in the minivan. He was a trooper, though. We left the house before dawn (around 5:45 a.m.) . It was the first time that Son #3 saw the sun come up so he sang the following – over and over and over:

“Who can make the sunrise? (Who can make the sunrise?)
Who can make the sunrise? (Who can make the sunrise?)
The Candy Man can (The Candy Man can)”

That’s apparently the only verse he knows. Only he kept singing it as if the Candy Man is Jamaican (“the candy mon can”). The drive, while long, was pleasant enough. No real traffic, very little highway construction. We stopped every three hours to top off the gas tank, use the restroom, and switch drivers. We arrived at the resort, Port Orleans Riverside, around 5:00 (we crossed a time line, losing one hour). The weather was a little cool – it dipped down to the 40’s at night.

I checked into the hotel while Dear Hubby and the kids waited in the van. They had two personalized Happy Birthday pins for Son #3 and me – we wore them all week. (My birthday is actually today, Feb. 26th.)

We settled into our hotel room, which was functional but nothing spectacular. That’s fine with us, though, because we knew we wouldn’t be spending many waking hours there. Two full beds – one for Dear Hubby and me, the other for Sons #1& 2. Son #3 slept in the trundle bed that pulled out from underneath his brothers’ bed. The décor was interesting. Very rustic. The head board and foot boards were made of logs and thick sticks. I wonder if it was recycled from the Fort Wilderness resorts?

After unpacking, we took the river taxi (everyone on board sang “Happy Birthday” to Son #3 and me) from our hotel to the Downtown Disney area, where there are a lot of restaurants and shops. We had a late dinner reservation at Rainforest Café. We used to take Sons #1&2 to the one in Virginia when we lived there so we thought they’d enjoy it. We did.

After dinner, we browsed the Downtown Disney shops – there is this Lego store there that’s amazing. Every Lego set you could imagine, plus there’s an entire wall of bins containing individual Lego pieces of every size, shape and type. You can take a cup and fill it with whatever pieces you want and as long as the lid fits, you can buy it. It was Nirvana for Son #1. Each of the boys was given $40 spending money by their Grammy (my mother), but we told them they could not buy anything until Friday, our “free day.” I wanted to be sure they saw all their other options at the various theme parks we’d be visiting.

We took the bus back to the hotel and slept like babies.

Today...

Feb. 26th. My birthday. Son #2 stayed home from school, recovering from his stomach bug (more on that later). Son #3 is having trouble readjusting to our regular routine ("I'm bored."). We made a quick trip to the post office to pick up the mail that was on hold while we were on vacation. A couple of minor bills, a Victoria's Secret catalog order (sweaters), Dear Hubby's medicine (mail order pharmacy), and our state income tax refund. I more or less spent the rest of the day trying to upload my vacation photos to Snapfish or Shutterfly - unsuccessfully, I might add. Dear Hubby picked up Chinese take-out for dinner, and brought home a chocolate cake with chocolate icing (my favorite). Son #3 is having a relapse of his bug. Not the bday I planned, but not horrible...