Disney 2016- Day 3

Boy oh boy- I can assure you that one of the worst sounds I have heard in a long time was the sound of my alarm going off at 6 am on Thursday! There were tears involved in getting up that day...but luckily the kids didn't cry..
BUT we had a surprise for the girls that morning- We had booked breakfast with the princesses!!! I had asked on facebook if the kids should wear princess dresses or not, and almost everyone said YES! So I packed their Elsa and Anna dresses for them to wear to breakfast. Let's just say...they were not thrilled about my desire for them to wear these itchy dresses to our undisclosed location. Both kids complained. The. Whole. Morning. Looking back...why didn't I just say OK, and let them wear regular clothes? We were all too tired to deal with itchy dresses. I knew this! But my fear was that every other kid at the breakfast would be wearing princess dresses, and if I didn't make the girls wear them, then they would be upset when they didn't have them on. We shall call this "Mom fail #1" for the day. Oh well- lesson learned! And my advice....if your kid doesn't want to wear princess dresses...don't make them! Everyone will be happier if they are comfortable and not complaining. And there were several other kids there not wearing princess dresses, so they would not have felt left out.
Back to our day...
We headed out about 7:30 in our itchy princess dresses to catch the shuttle. This is how Macie Claire felt about getting her day started.

She eventually perked up, but it took a while!
We got to Epcot just in time and got in line for our breakfast reservations. The girls still had no idea what we were doing. I will add- that next time we will just tell them what we are going to do and not make it a surprise. I think that the anticipation of knowing where we were headed would have made it more fun for them. But Brenna finally figured it out as we were standing in line what we were doing, and they were both excited!
As we got in the door, Belle was standing there for a photo op for everyone. The girls informed us that they had already seen her the day before when they stared in her play. But I told them that we didn't have her autograph in our book, so we should probably get it! And I did some serious explaining that since she sees so many kids in one day, that she wouldn't remember them from the day before....

From there they took us to our table and told us we could go to the fruit and muffin bar. Josh and I enjoyed it, but the girls just picked at it a little. We eventually got a plate of eggs, sausages, and bacon. Once again, the girls picked at it. It wasn't great food, but it was good.
As we ate, the princesses came around one by one to sign autographs and pose for a picture. The lighting was awful, so our pictures aren't great. But we did check some princesses off of our list!

Cinderella!

Snow White!

Aurora!

And the highlight for Macie...Ariel!

They even had a "parade" that the kids cold walk around in.

Can't you just feel their excitement??? See it in their eyes?? Me neither.

While I am very glad we went and experienced the princess breakfast- I can safely say that it isn't something we would do a second time if we were to go back. The girls enjoyed it, but not to the extent that I thought they would.
From there, we went back to the hotel to change out of our princess attire. We were then ready to go to Hollywood studios!

Miss Hollywood herself was ready to go! Thanks Aunt Bit for her cute shirt!

 Josh had done some research and had us fast passes for the Toy Story ride and the Frozen Sing along show. The Toy story ride was broken down when we got in line, but we waited it out and it turned out to be so much fun! It was a 4D interactive ride, and the kids loved it as much as the adults did!
The Frozen Sing Along show proved to me just how great of a Daddy Josh is! It was a room full of little girls singing their hearts out to "Let it Go!" ok ok- It wasn't just the little girls singing... I may have been joining in too. I can't help it!

The actors were so good.

And at the end of the show- it SNOWED!! Technically it was just bubbles, but it was so neat!

And after a Frozen sing along, the logical thing to do next was meet Olaf!

Warm hugs!!

We rode a few more things at Hollywood and talked with the girls about our afternoon plans. We had booked them an appointment at the Bippity Boppity Boutique for that afternoon. But it was at the one at Downtown Disney, the shopping area. So we would have to leave, go change back into the itchy dress up dresses, and go over to the boutique pretty quickly. We gave them the choice of keeping that appointment or staying at Hollywood studios. They chose the boutique! So we made plans to leave early enough to go do that.
But first there were a few characters there that we hadn't seen yet!

Pluto! He had to hold his ears out so that they didn't cover the girl's faces!

Macie was so excited to see Doc McStuffins! But this is when I realized that my Brenna is growing up... She was a little too "big" to have her picture made with Doc. 

The first thing she told me was to send this to Maylee and show her that she met Doc McStuffins!

Brenna did deem Princess Sofia worthy of a picture though! 

From there we headed straight to the hotel to get ready for the Boutique! Once again- I had heard that kids needed to wear their princess dresses to the boutique. But this time I did give them the option of wearing them- they decided to take them with us so that they didn't have to wear it there! So we did just that!
We found this in our room upon our return! Our cleaning ladies loved to leave the kids toys in different lay outs! The girls thought it was way too cool. I felt like I was back on a cruise ship!

So we packed up and headed to the front to catch the bus to Disney Springs. This is where the day went south....
We waited for a while and no Disney Springs bus had shown up, and our appointment was approaching. So we decided our best option was to just pay for a taxi to get us there so that we wouldn't be late. Sounds simple enough, right? That's what I thought.
Our taxi drops us off at Disney Springs (aka- Downtown Disney), which was an area I hadn't really studied and knew nothing about. It looked like a big outlet mall. We started walking and looking for a map. None to be found. So we walked some more- except faster because we only had about 15 minutes until our appointment. Finally we stopped and pulled it up on our phones on google maps. It turns out this place is a long strip with no way to get from one side to the other without walking straight through.

See the big parking lot on the top left of the picture? By the West side? That's where our cab dropped us off. See the buildings on the top right of the picture? Past the Marketplace? The furthest one is where the Boutique was located! It was a bazillion degrees. We were already tired and our feet hurt. And we were running late. BUT BY GOLLY THIS IS GONNA BE FUN! My oh my. It wasn't pretty. Our phones were telling us that it was a good 2 miles to the boutique from where we were. Tempers were short. Kids were whining. I considered passing out from the heat and humidity so that I could ride in an AIR CONDITIONED ambulance, but decided the time I would have to lay on the hot concrete wasn't worth it. So I forged on. I only wish I was exaggerating.
But by the grace of the Lord above, we made it! Only a couple minutes late, still married, and with 2 living children. I was sweating so bad that I was 100% miserable and not in the mood for a "fun" experience. Lucky for our kids, we love them. So Josh and I both put on our happy faces and pretended to be excited.
I got the girls dressed in their oh so comfy princess dresses (insert sarcasm) while we were all still pouring sweat. Jealous yet?? But it did brighten our mood when the Fairy God Mother appeared like magic in our dressing room mirror! This was a definite turning point in this experience. And then we waited for it to be our turn...

Smiles had returned to all of our faces by this point. Mainly because our internal temperatures had fallen somewhere below the boiling point.
Finally they called both girls back and led them to their chairs where their princess transformations would soon take place!

Each girl got to pick their hair style from a list. And the styles they chose fit their personalities perfectly. Josh and I got to sit on a couch an watch as they both enjoyed the pampering of getting their hair, makeup, and nails done! It really was the neatest experience!!
Watching these sweet smiles almost made us completely forget the chaos of getting here! I said almost.

See that hair sticking up like Alfalfa from The Little Rascals? That is a good visual of how much GOOP they put on Macie's hair. I've never seen anything like it in my life. I had no idea how I was going to get it all out!

In true Macie fashion, she picked a hair style that included a crown.

Brenna chatted it up with her stylist the entire time. Go figure.

My sweet princess

After they were done with their pampering, the stylist sprinkled magic fairy dust all over their hair. (also known as glitter dust). And then they paraded them around....

And took them into the special photo spot....

To say that they enjoyed this was an understatement!!!! I am so glad that we made this appointment and kept it. If I could give advice on the Bippity Boppity Boutique it would be to book EARLY and make sure you can get into the one inside the Magic Kingdom- which is located inside Cinderella's castle. That would have been ideal. But since we didn't know about it in time, we had to do this one. The experience was the same, I have been told. But it would have been nice to do it inside the Magic Kingdom. My second tip would be to make the appointment for first thing in the day. That way they get to enjoy being "made up" for the entire day as they go around the park. Because we had to take what we could get, ours was at 3:30 in the afternoon. So they really didn't get to enjoy it as much as I would have liked for the price we paid. Yes- it is a hit to the ole' pocket book. But it is so worth it to watch them be pampered! I would cut somewhere else to do this. It's kind of a once in a lifetime thing. I don't think we would do it a second time, just because they have already experienced it. But I do think that every little girl that goes to Disney should get to experience it at least once!!
Our princesses and their Prince Charming!

Princess close-ups:

I would expect nothing less than for Brenna Grace to choose a hair style that involved crazy hair colors. The teenage years frighten me with this one, y'all.

See how shinny her hair is?? GOOP! So. Much. GOOP! But I honestly don't know how they would have done it otherwise. And it did look SO adorable on her!

From there we decided that we would cancel our reservations for dinner that we had and get reservations at a restaurant in Disney Springs since we were already there (and did I mention hot and tired? Yes? Just checking!)
So we made reservations at Paradiso 37, Taste of the Americas. It was on the water, and looked like a neat atmosphere. In my opinion, it was "ok". Not bad but not amazing either. I think my opinion of it had something to do with it not being very cool inside and the sun shining in my eyes through the whole meal. Man- I sound like I had a horrible time... I really didn't! But after you put your feet and legs through 8+ miles a day for 2 days in the June heat, you need simple things like good air conditioning to fully enjoy a meal! We were all just thankful to be sitting down and relaxing. 
We discussed the remainder of the night while we were sitting at dinner. I think it was a unanimous vote to call it a day in the theme park department. We just needed some DOWN time if we had any desire to keep going the next day. So we voted to spend some time in the hotel pool that evening!
Now- here is why I suggested that you make your Boutique appointment for early in the day.... we spent money on this experience (which I don't regret at all!!) and 3 hours later, they were about to jump in the pool and wash it all out. Poor planning on our part. But the thought of floating in the pool and relaxing for a while made me totally ok with it!
The kids had seen the pool on the day we got there, and had wanted to go down the slide they saw since. And my feet and legs were very happy with me for the break!

It turned out to be a great evening- just what we needed to revive us and get us ready to do it again one last day!

Disney 2016- Day 2

The alarm came pretty early on that second day! I will admit to hitting the snooze button several times before I finally dragged myself out from under the covers.
It was Magic Kingdom day!!!! I think I was more excited than the kids!! So hang on tight and prepare for picture overload! Like serious picture overload....
Everyone always gives me a hard time for dressing the girls alike. First of all- I like it when they match! And second of all- it sure makes it easier when you are in a large, crowded, unfamiliar place! All you have to look for is one outfit or color to spot your kiddos. I never let mine get too far away from me, but I could sure spot them quickly if they did!

Just walking into the Magic Kingdom had me all giddy! I knew Mickey had to be there somewhere!! And the castle was just as beautiful as I imagined it would be.

How appropriate that one of the first things we saw was this firetruck!

Which prompted us to go and check out the fire station!

It was way cool!

This horse pulled trolly was just going down the middle of the street.

We saw Mary Poppins, but she was just headed on break. So we didn't get to take our picture with her.
The girls were in awe of Cinderella's castle!

These pictures make it look like we had the park all to ourselves, but I assure you that was far from the case. We just happened to walk up to take pictures at the right time!

My big girl looks so small in front of the castle.

She was a little intimidated to stand there alone. This sweet girl is more comfortable when her Mama or Sister is beside her.

It's a small world after all.....

While we were on It's a Small World, the girls were not impressed. The ride hasn't been updated since it was built. So it isn't much in the way of an "awe" factor. To the adults it is neat to see how far Disney has come with their rides and such. To the kids- that whole concept is lost. After we had been on it for a while (it's a fairly long ride), Macie said "I don't think this is a small world. I think it's a big world with a lot of small people in it." And if you have ever ridden the ride and seen how small the "dolls" are in there, then you will understand the humor in her statement. I think her expression in the above picture sums up how she felt about it.
But, never fear my adventure loving Macie Claire, more exciting rides were in store!

The Aladdin ride was a little more her style...but still not adventurous enough.

We then stumbled upon some characters to add to our autograph book!! Some very important characters!

Daisy

Minnie Mouse!!!!!

I love how they are looking at her here.

All of the characters took time to not only say hi, but to hug the girls and make them feel special. Minnie loved that they had on Minnie Mouse bows!! She kept pointing at it and giggling.

Goofy

Donald

The girls cracked up that all of the characters put their autograph books up on their noses to write! ha!!

The look on Macie's face in this cracks me up!!!

Next up was the Belle show! We had no idea what this show had in store for us, but it turned out to be one of the best experiences!! We waited in line for a while, not really knowing what this show was all about, so the girls weren't completely thrilled. But eventually we made it inside. They started by choosing kids out of the audience to hold props. We figured it was just to pass time until we got into the show. Disney is GREAT about keeping you entertained while you are in line! 

They picked Brenna to be the Beast! ha! And Macie to be the tea pot!

I wasn't convinced that Macie would do it at first, but she surprised me and walked right up there! They did some little games with the kids getting them to interact, and finally the doors opened and we got to go inside and see Belle!!

They had each kid come up and play their part with Belle and paraded them across the stage. It was so sweet! And it was especially neat that Brenna got the main role of Beast.

The girls were on cloud 9! It was a great show!

From there we went and rode some rides. I do believe I was the only one excited about the Winnie the Pooh ride...but that's ok...I made them all ride it anyway. Because POOH!!!

You can't go to Disney and not ride the Tea Cups..

But they quickly informed me that they wished Daddy had gone on the ride with them, because he is way more fun to ride the tea cups with. He apparently spins them faster than I do. Ok then....

After that we caught the afternoon parade. And I only have one word to describe this parade...HOT. Oh My it was so hot!!! We didn't get there early because we didn't want to just stand around and waste time waiting for the parade, so we got there right before it started. Because of that, we didn't have the best of spots, but at least we weren't in the sun for an hour ahead of time!!

Despite the heat (which was the motto of this whole trip), we had a great time and saw an amazing parade!

Snow White pointed out Macie's shirt with her name on it and called her by name. Macie thought that was the coolest thing ever!!

Next up, we got to meet Tiana and Rapunzel! Rapunzel was Brenna's number 1 request for the trip, and I am happy to say she did not disappoint! Just like all of the other characters, she made the girls feel so special! It was like we had a one on one scheduled time with her instead of standing in line like we did. 

She was inside, and as we got to the front of the line, Brenna spotted Cinderella's slipper on display! She requested that I take a picture and send it to Aunt Bit! So I did!

And then it was Rapunzel time! To say Brenna was in heaven is an understatement. And I tried to figure out which of these pictures to not post...but it was impossible! They were all so good, and told the whole story of how special Rapunzel made them feel.

She came over to the line and got the girls, took them by the hand and then walked back to where she was supposed to stand. It was like she had been waiting all day just to see Brenna and Macie Pool!

She asked them if they liked to twirl, and oh boy did that make them happy! This may have been my favorite picture of the whole trip.

Every character encounter ended with a hug. 

Tiana from the Princess and the Frog was standing next to Rapunzel, so we went to see her next. The girls weren't as excited about seeing her just because they weren't fans of that show. 

During the hot afternoons (oh who am I kidding- I was never NOT hot at Disney)- we took a stroll through a gift shop or two just to enjoy the air conditioning. During one of our strolls...we found this shirt that reminded us all of Graddy!

HAHAHAHA!!!!

Next up we found THE MAN!!! The number one dude! How can you go to Disney World and not meet MICKEY MOUSE himself??!! Well- you can't. I don't know where- but I am sure it is written as a rule or something.

To me- it was awesome! He talked and everything!! The girls enjoyed it, but not as much as they did the princesses.
We also got to meet Tinker Bell!

She was super cheerful! Like really cheerful. Like almost TOO cheerful! ha!! Didn't she know how HOT it was outside??
The girls loved her, and enjoyed talking about magic pixie dust.

We rode lots of rides that day, and saw many neat things! I enjoyed this statue of Walt Disney and Mickey. The girls- well- they pretended to be interested for a picture. I have trained them well.

We had dinner reservations that evening at the Crystal Palace. We didn't really know what to expect, other than it said "dining with character". Well- low and behold- it was a character dinner! ha! Yes- I fully realize that I should have put two and two together....but I didn't. So it was a great surprise to walk in and see that Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, Piglet, and Eeyore were there!!! This Pooh fanatic mama was in heaven!!!! All of the characters came around to the table and gave autographs and posed for pictures while you ate. It was a neat experience, and characters that we didn't see anywhere else!

 The food was pretty good, but as with all of the restaurants- nothing to write home about. It was a buffet, which worked great for us. The kids could get exactly what they wanted, and Josh and I were able to add some salad and vegetables to our current vacation diet of fried and greasy everything. 

From there we rode some more rides...

Notice that Macie is riding with her Daddy.... that was a bid deal. Girlfriend needs her Mommy. At all times. But once convinced to ride with Daddy, she hangs on to him like there is no tomorrow.

Finally it was time for the light parade! We got there a little earlier than we did for the afternoon one, so we had some time to wait. Our aching feet were talking to us loud and clear by this time, so we took turns going to sit down and holding our place. But it was worth it! The parade was beautiful!

One of these days- she will realize she has this man wrapped around her little finger. They both will.

Next up was the fireworks show! We were all SO tired, but we had heard that you just can't miss the fireworks show at Magic Kingdom. So we didn't. We walked, along with the other 6 million people at Magic Kingdom, to the front of the park and waited for the show.

Here is a view of what it looked like between where we were standing and the front exit.....

I considered having a panic attack. but then I realized it would take too long for the medics to get to me and get me out of there. So I decided to just deal with it and wait for the fireworks.

And once again...it was totally worth it!! The show was amazing!!!!!!!!!! They lit up the castle, had images projected in the air as well as on the castle and all was set to music. 

To sum up our day...yes, I complained about the heat. But it was so worth it!! On the way back to the hotel, I looked at my phone and realized that we had walked 8.31 miles that day. WHOA!! No wonder my feet and legs hurt. But then I felt a HUGE sense of pride....because my kids had taken every step I took. They walked 8.31 miles as well, and with very minimal complaining! Everyone told me that we would end up renting a stroller while we were there. And I was ok with that. I already had it in my head that as soon as the whining and complaining got too bad, we would just rent the $30 stroller for the day. But I am proud to say...that never happened. My kids are champs I tell ya!

Once we got to the room, we showered, all took a dose of ibuprofen for our aching feet and legs, and went straight to sleep.