Christmas @ Disney World

Santa's Surprise!

At Thanksgiving after staying the night with my cousin and her family our boys received a huge package postmarked the North Pole.  The boys opened the package and found a large mickey mouse balloon with a note attached to the bottom.  The note told them that Santa was looking forward to seeing them at Mickey Mouse's House at Christmas this year.  After some deep thought L put it all together and realized that this meant they would be going to Disney World for Christmas.  Needless to say all three boys were quite excited! 

To top this off when the boys visited Santa at the mall he told them how excited he was to visit them in a few weeks at Disney.

The boys waited and waited for the letter from Santa about what we would be doing on our trip and finally, the day we were set to leave A. found a letter in our Christmas Tree.  Here is the photos that tell the story of what it said.

Day 1:  Adventures in Epcot!

The boys worked hard to help Perry the Platypus from "Phineas and Ferb" stop Dr. D's evil plans all through the world showcase.

Santa planned for us to have dinner at the Coral Reef.  Disney does such a fantastic job with allergies.  Do you think A. was excited to have a brownie!!

Crush's Adventure was as fun as ever 

followed by a quick stop at the shark.

We ended our evening at Epcot with an AMAZING Candlelight Christmas performance hosted by Trace Adkins.  It was like Christmas Eve Services Walt Disney Style.  So beautiful and wonderful to see thousands hearing the story of Jesus' birth and the real meaning behind Christmas.  A. was singing along at the top of his lungs to each Christmas carol.  

Day 2: Magical Moments

     We hit the Magical Kingdom early and had a wonderful day.  The longest line we waited in was 10 minutes to drive the cars.  Gotta love those fast passes!  The Very Merry Christmas Parade was wonderful but this years big hit is the new interactive adventure called Sorcerer's of the Magic Kingdom.  The boys LOVE this.  Basically they travel through 4 different parts of the Magic Kingdom in search of the bad guys where they they cast magic spells on them using special cards they collected upon entry to the park.  Be looking for future posts about this because they are definitely coming back for more of this fun later this week. 

Be careful people L. is behind the wheel!

They took the win AGAIN!

The one and only time these 2 are ever behind bars. 

Honey for Pooh!

Silly Tigger drank A. lemonade and tried to eat his ice cream.             

Our allergy guys LOVE the food at Disney!

Riding Dumbo in the Green one!

Do you think he is tired??

Day 3: Hollywood Stars

Today started with breakfast with the stars of Disney Junior.  Little, Little loves the characters and they love him!  The boys has wonderful adventures today from Indiana Jones to high speed races!  Their hollywood moments came when they entered Jedi training and took on Darth Vader and Darth Mal!

Day 4:  Merry Christmas!!

Today was basically a normal Christmas, just away from home.  Our boys woke up at a decent time, played all day, watched some Christmas movies, called our families, and had a pajama day!!!  We hope you each have enjoyed your family and friends today and will share more adventures as we have them. 

Day 17: Final day of The Great American Road Trip

You know how the saying goes, All good things must come to an end.  Today was our final day and we started it off with a trip up the Gateway Arch in St. Louis.  If you have never done this you should know you get to the top in a tiny circle shaped car that has 5 seats and 6 if you have a child on a lap.  The door is about 2 feet by 4 feet and you will bump your head.  Talk about close quarters!  Good thing we are all still friends!

It was pretty much straight driving from there.  The boys have been absolutely amazing on this trip and enjoyed watching a final movie on the road while Mommy took a nap.  I sat in between the boys in the way back of the van for the entire trip and I am so glad that I did.  I will have memories of funny faces, silly games, and fun times to treasure forever.  

As we neared our final destination of Nana's house I asked some questions to each person and I thought you might enjoy some of their responses.

When asked what their favorite thing about the trip was:
A replied "Getting all the badges."
L replied "Spending time with my family"
N replied "Las Vegas"
J replied "Yellowstone because of the Elk fighting, geysers, buffalo- we got to see all kinds of crazy stuff"
Grandpa replied " Traveling with my grand kids and family and seeing Zion National Park"
Papa replied "Being with the whole family and having a great time, especially when my grandsons tried to drown me in the pool"
And for me the best thing has been being with the people that I love and seeing the many wonders that God has blessed us with in this country.  The activity that I most enjoyed was swimming in the waterfall with the boys!


All of us agreed that we will remember forever the fun that we had and all the wonderful things we saw with our family.  I am so thankful for the family that the Lord has blessed me with and the safe travels He provided for us.  My boys has such amazing men in their lives to teach them how to be men of character that is truly my best memory and biggest blessing. 

17 days + 15 States + 5,201.6 Miles Traveled + 114 hours and 4 minutes in the car = The Trip of a Lifetime

Thanks for joining us for our journey their will be many more to come!

Day 16: The Great American Road Trip

We're in St. Louis!  I had no idea there were so many things to do here until last night when I started researching it.  We arrived to the city around 3:30 and decided to divide and conquer to make the most of our time here.  The kids, Papa, Nitka, and I went to the The City Museum.  It was AMAZING!  Basically it is a giant jungle gym made out of trucks, planes, trolleys, etc.  They also have a ferris wheel and crazy high slide on the roof.  This is not for the faint of heart- my boys loved it!  Inside they have a skateless skate park so that the kids can run, jump, and slide the ramps.  We will definitely be coming back to St. Louis again. 

J and his dad went to the Budweiser plant for a tour.

After all of our fun we headed to Pappy's Smoke House for dinner.  People this is some amazing BBQ and what a well oiled machine this establishment is.  You wait in line to wait in line and then you order at a window are are seated with your food.  They have the BEST sweet potato fries- their secret sprinkle them with brown sugar.  Why have I never thought of that?

We then headed to the Gateway Arch and the tours to the top were sold out.  Yes that was a bit of a disappointment as I suggested we purchase our tickets last night.  So we visited the museum and the boys got another Jr Ranger badge. 


Tomorrow we head back to Indiana for the final count on hours in the car, miles driven, and best memories from each person.  What a trip!

Day 15: The Great American Road Trip

We are only two nights away from completing this journey and I am finding myself wishing we had made it longer.  The kids have been great.  The Grandpa's have been great.  The driving really hasn't bothered me.  I am sad to see us closing in on the end.  Tonight we are in Tulsa, OK pretty much just to sleep.  We spent some extra time in Amarillo shopping so we don't have time to really check out Tulsa. 

I know that my own husband doubted my ability to fit everything in the minivan without a car-top carrier so I thought I would show you how PERFECTLY it all fit!  Everyone was allowed to bring one carry- on size suitcase and the boys shared.  We should do a KIA commercial for how much their mini-van can fit.

I got my boots so now I need to go line dancing and to some more concerts!  Anyone want to go with me?  I went with a traditional style but they are so comfy!  I could easily have bought 5 pair, there are so many styles.   I LOVE the jeans that they had at the store but the shortest length as 30 inches and very few in that.  Most were 34 inches long- yeah not gonna work for me.  But I did find a real cute pair on sale. 

So when J and I returned with my treasures A started crying because he wanted Cowboy boots with stars.  He is so my child.  We added a second trip to the boot store where he tried on about 5 pairs and settled on his first pick while his brother who wanted black boots tried on one pair and was good to go.  Notice the stars and stripes so fitting since his career choices at age four are SWAT or in the Military- totally my All-American boy.    He rocked those boots all day as I am confident he will for a while.  We had some more Texas beef for lunch  and set off to Oklahoma.

As promised we watched the movie on the way!

Tomorrow we head to St. Louis, Missouri and there is way too much to do there in a day- so your guess is as good as mine as to what we will end up doing.

FYI : Currently all five of my guys are snoring, ear plugs anyone???

Day 14: The Great American Road Trip

After sleeping 5 hours the boys and I hit the pool this morning while J mailed back some lenses that he rented for his camera.  I taught the boys how to play Marco Polo, they are so much fun!  I just love how when you are on vacation nothing gets in the way of hanging out with your kids.  I really need to put this into practice in my everyday life more. 

J hasn't been feeling well and luckily we have an amazing doctor who called in a Z pack for him.  Hopefully he will feel better soon.  The good news is Dr. Mom is pretty confident that it is a sinus infection so no one else should get it.  Can you imagine 7 sick people driving in a mini-van- aghh not my idea of fun.

We ate an early lunch at the restaurant that had the amazing pie in Wyoming!!  Love it- but unfortunately I think this is the farthest east we will find the ol' Village Inn.

We traveled 5 hours east today to Amarillo, TX.  We ate at this ridiculous steak place that has a food challenge.  If you eat a 72 oz steak, baked potato, roll, salad and 3 fried shrimp you get your meal free.  It was pretty crazy.  There was a guy about 26 years old trying to do it.  They sit on a raised platform where the whole restaurant can see you and there are timers over the top.  He was not able to do it.  But the record was set a few years ago when someone ate it all in less that 9 minutes!!  Crazy and wrong. 

We are staying at the Country Inn and Suites (so nice) and I was able to finish my laundry.  Thank the Lord!  The boys had a blast in the pool until 11.

Tomorrow morning I will get my cowboy boots before we leave Texas and head to Tulsa, Oklahoma.  We are gonna watch the movie Oklahoma on the way there.  For those of you who knew me back in the day- I was in the musical in high school as Laurie

Day 13 : The Great American Road Trip

I am a bit delirious at the moment as I have been up for nearly 24 hours as it is fast approaching 4 am and I woke up this morning at 5 am to see the sunrise at the Grand Canyon.  It is such a quiet and peaceful place- I would relish a space like this in my life.  Calm is definitely good when you are a mom of 2 and a school counselor of hundreds. 

We stayed at the Canyon until a little after noon and then began our journey back east.  We decided to add the Petrified Forest National Park onto our trip as we were passing near it to get to Albuquerque, NM.  I would probably skip this if it were up to me next time but the grandpas liked it.  It is safe to say that I am pretty much full up on rocks or canyons for the moment.  But we did see a double rainbow on our journey there which was cool. 




















At the moment I am waiting for like 2.5 hours for our stinking clothes to dry in the laundry downstairs.  Yeah, I will not be doing all four loads at this hotel as it has turned into an all night task for just ONE load!!! 

Tomorrow we head 6.5 hours east to Amarillo, TX.  I have no idea what we will be doing there but I hope to get some real cowboy boots!!