Disney trip - Wednesday

At first we had thought that we wouldn't go to Hollywood Studios at all - none of the attractions sounded like the boys would be excited about them anyway. But as we looked a little more, we realized that some characters that our boys would really like to see were only at Hollywood Studios so we got there right as they were opening on Wednesday morning.

First up was seeing Lightning McQueen and Mater. The boys were really excited to see them, but I think Jacob was trying to figure out why they weren't talking or moving.

After seeing our Cars friends, we headed over to see Sheriff Woody and Buzz Lightyear. We had to wait in line for a while and the kids got really restless, but they were really excited once they finally got to see Woody and Buzz.

Next we headed over to see Mike and Sully from Monsters, Inc. We were a little worried about how Jacob would react because at home he cries and screams when we try to watch Monsters, Inc when he is home. He kept saying "no" when we said anything about Mike or Sully, but he seemed okay when we finally got to see Mike. We never got to see Sully because even though he was scheduled to be there with Mike, they said he was "taking an exam".

After visiting with Mike, we headed over to see Ralph and Vanelope from Wreck It Ralph. We were happy that they were there because around this point in time Wreck it Ralph was definitely a favorite movie for the boys.

We had contemplated riding some rides, and we tried to get some fast passes while waiting in line to see Buzz and Woody, but by that time the fast pass times were hours away and the lines themselves were a little ridiculous, especially considering the fact that we weren't even sure if the kids would like the rides.

This is where my memory gets fuzzy - you know, since all this happened over a year ago. But I'm pretty sure that we headed straight over to Epcot. We knew that there wasn't a lot at Epcot that would entertain our boys either. One thing I know they liked was seeing Pluto just inside. There was no line to see him, but also no photographer (even though there was supposed to be).

At Epcot we rode Spaceship Earth, which was way too slow moving for Grandpa Mac, and we rode the Gran Fiesta Tour. We went to Turtle Talk with Crush, and I really thought we did something else too, but can't remember for sure. I always think of Epcot as being more for grown ups, walking around to all the countries, etc. But the kids had reached their limit and we decided to call it quits.

We had the twins nap a little later thinking that they might be able to handle going to Magic Kingdom that night since it would be open late again, but we could tell after they woke up from their naps that they would not be very fun to take back. Add in the fact that Jacob doesn't nap, and has serious behavior issues when he stays up late and we decided that going back to the park wasn't the best thing to do.

Once again, Grandma Mac offered to stay with the kids and Grandpa Mac went back with me, Justin and Justin's dad. This time we decided to ride rides instead of watching all the fireworks and parades. We timed it very well - we got in line for Space Mountain in the middle of one of the fireworks shows and we only had to be in line for about 20 minutes. We contemplated riding it again but the fireworks had ended and the wait for the line was now over an hour long.

We went around riding all the rides that seemed more like grown-up rides, but of course since we were at Disney everything seems tame compared to the roller coasters of Six Flags Over Texas. Justin and I also worked on a plan for the next day as we went through Magic Kingdom this time. We knew we were bringing the kids back here in the morning and we wanted it to go smoother than it did our first day.

Disney trip - Tuesday

Tuesday we took the day off from parks. We decided that it might be good for our kids to have a break anyway - they are easily overstimulated and have (a lot of) trouble handling too much excitement sometimes.

We went to see Santa since we hadn't done that yet and played for a little while at Bass Pro Shop (seriously the best place to see Santa if you want a good deal and don't want to spend a lot of money for Santa pictures - you get one picture for free, can take pictures with your own camera if you want and they have all kinds of free activities set up for the kids - this one even had a little carousel in the store!)

Jeremy was scared to ride on one of the animals, but he wanted Grandma Mac to hold him so he could ride

After seeing Santa we went to the pool at our resort. It was still chilly from the cold front that came through, but the kids loved swimming anyway.

The resort has an indoor/outdoor pool. It was a little strange to us because it was all connected as one pool and you could swim from inside to outside (and vice versa) and there was a sort of wall of windows about 6 inches or so above the surface of the water that separated the inside from the outside. The strange part to us was that the inside half of the pool was not heated, so the air was warmer inside, but the water was really cold. The outside half of the pool was heated so the water was warmer here, but any part of you that was outside the water (especially if it was wet) was going to get really cold because of the chilly weather. The inside should have been heated as well - swimming would have been much more enjoyable that way!

This is one of the few nights that I (or anyone else with us) didn't prepare a meal. When Justin and I were picking what we wanted to do and see, he really wanted to go to the Luau at the Polynesian Resort (after living in Samoa for two years of course he would want to go to the luau). At first I said that it was too expensive, but then we decided that since we weren't paying for a place to stay and we got 2 kids into the parks for free and mine and Justin's tickets were half price, we could splurge on a few things. My parents chose not to go because they get to go to luaus occasionally for much less than the Disney one, so again we left the kids with them and we went with Justin's dad and step-mom and we met up with Justin's brother and his wife as well as Justin's step-sister and her two children (quite a bit older than our kids).

The food was good and the entertainment was good as far as the dancing, but they had the people acting out a really cheesy skit in between all the dances that we thought was a little lame. It wasn't so easy to get good pictures of the dancing, but we especially liked the fire and knife dance.

Disney Trip - Monday - night

Animal Kingdom closed early (I want to say at 6pm) every night, but the other parks had some nights when they were open late - and Magic Kingdom had some nights they were open *really* late. On Sunday, Magic Kingdom closed earlier (maybe 7 or 8pm), but Monday night they were open until midnight or later. We when saw that the park was going to be open later some nights, we contemplated taking the kids to see the park at night including the fireworks and electrical parade. But our kids really don't cope well with staying up late and they were so tired that we knew it wouldn't be a very good idea to take them back to the park. If you noticed in the post before this, my mom was in a wheelchair; her hip and sciatic nerve give her lots of issues and all the walking was really causing her some pain. She did not want to go back to the park so she volunteered to stay with the kids so we could go back.

We all had dinner, let the kids play a little bit (run around our condo like crazy) and then we bathed them and put them to bed. After getting them to bed we headed back up to the park. It was actually really cold (for Florida) and I had wished that I had something warmer than a sweatshirt.

It was really nice to be able to be at the park without the kids. We didn't ride anything, but we got to go through the shops on Main Street without worrying about what our kids might break. We got to watch the fireworks and the electrical parade and not worry about our kids running off or fighting with each other. It was so nice.

The Christmas lights on Cinderella's castle were amazing! And the electrical parade was pretty cool too. 

We stayed up way, way too late but we were glad to get a chance to enjoy the night festivities!

Disney Trip - Monday - day

Monday we headed to Animal Kingdom in the morning and we got there right after they opened - we planned a little bit better because of the chaos of the morning before. Justin's step-mom didn't join us at Animal Kingdom because she wasn't feeling well, and a cool front had come through that made it a little chilly at the park this day.

I guess I took this picture, since I'm not in this picture

We caught a few shows - one was a 3D attraction that was using characters from A Bug's Life and the other was a live action version of Finding Nemo. I think the shows were only kind of interesting to my kids - they would rather be riding rides!

As far as rides, there aren't a whole lot at Animal Kingdom - we rode the Triceratop Spin (just like the Flying Dumbo ride at Magic Kingdom) and we were the first to get to see Winnie the Pooh and Tigger (who the boys LOVED). 

Jeremy just loved every character he saw

Joel was a little more apprehensive

Jeremy was all ready to run see Tigger

My kids really don't understand posing for pictures

Jacob was tall enough to ride the DINOSAURS ride so he went with Justin, my dad, and Justin's dad while my mom and I let the twins play on a playground area and then my mom and I rode while all the guys stayed at the playground.

Outside the DINOSAUR ride

The guys on the front row

Ladies on back row

After playing, riding a couple rides, seeing a couple shows and seeing Pooh and Tigger the twins really needed naps and everyone was hungry for lunch. We headed back to the resort and hung out for a couple hours.

Because the twins took later naps than usual, we were rushing back to Animal Kingdom to try go on the Safari ride. Animal Kingdom was closing kind of early and we didn't want to miss that but we also didn't really want to go back to Animal Kingdom another day just for that one ride.

We got stuck because of a parade in the park and we weren't sure if we would make it before the last safari run, but luckily we made it just in time. The sun was already starting to set and it appears that we left our camera (or the battery on it had died) so we only had a cellphone camera to get pictures on the safari so sadly our pictures didn't turn out all that great.

Speaking of pictures - there are a number of things that I KNOW we took pictures of, or had the Disney photographers take pictures of, but we don't have now. We've checked our cellphones pics (which automatically upload to our Google accounts), the Memory Maker pictures and our personal camera pictures. Sadness that it seems like we lost some pictures somewhere along the way.

Disney Trip - Sunday

We had 6 full days in Orlando (got there on Saturday night and left the next Saturday morning). We had 4 day park hopper passes for Disney so we decided to do parks on Sunday and Monday, take a break from parks on Tuesday and then do parks again Wednesday and Thursday.

Christmas time at Disney

We started at Magic Kingdom on Sunday. We knew that would probably be a favorite with the kids and that we would probably head back there a few more times.

The original plan was to get to the park right as it was opening, but due to everyone being tired from traveling the couple days before we got a little bit of a late start. We were already about a half hour past park opening time when everyone started making sandwiches and getting other lunch items together to take with us. Once we got there we were at least an hour after park opening time and we spent about half an hour or longer transferring our military discount passes for actual Disney passes, fingerprints, etc. We weren't in the park very long before the kids were already hungry for lunch.

We took a little time out to eat sandwiches and ride another ride or two, but the lines were starting to get really long and we got word from Justin's brother (who lives in Orlando) that they were there to meet us. We met up with them and chatted for a bit, but our kids didn't want to just be standing around chatting - they were there to have fun! And the twins had reached their limit and really needed to take naps. My mom and dad volunteered to take the twins back to the resort and let them nap while Justin and I stayed with Jacob.

Jacob was just barely tall enough to ride Big Thunder Mountain Railroad but I think it is safe to say that he LOVED it! He also liked running into Woody and Jessie after taking a bathroom break while we waited to ride.

We called it quits around 4pm or 5pm that day to head back to the resort and have some dinner.

The first day was a little rough since we started out later than planned, the park was the most crowded this day because it was a weekend day and we were all kind of feeling out what worked best. One thing was certain though - the kids really liked the rides and any characters they saw!

Jacob was actually a little obsessed with Ariel's belly button and kept trying to touch it

The big Anderson boys wanted a picture with Ariel too

Our new car

When Justin got into a little fender bender the day before we were leaving for our vacation, we were glad he wasn't driving our van since we needed to drive that to Florida! But it meant that he got into a little accident with the car that we'd only had for about 2 months. It was kind of crazy getting the car situated at a body shop and making sure everything of value had been removed from it the day before we left.

The damage didn't look too bad, but since the car was 14 years old we knew there was a pretty good chance that it might be declared a total loss. Sure enough, we got a message either our first night on the road or the next night letting us know the cost to fix the car was too high a percentage of the value of the car and therefore they wouldn't be paying to fix it. 

As far as losing a car, the timing was pretty good. We didn't need the car while we were out of town, we got a good settlement amount from the insurance company, and Justin had just gotten a bonus from work.

When we got back from our Disney trip, we started some serious car shopping and on Christmas Eve we bought a new 2014 Honda CRV. It is the first time Justin has ever had a brand-new car (I bought my Civic brand new as my graduation present from BYU) but there really wasn't much selection on a used CRV with low miles and we got a better deal on a 2014 than a new 2013. 

We're hoping that we won't be buying any more cars for several more years!

Our first real family vacation

In December of 2013 we went on our first actual family vacation (you know, other than just vacation to visit family). We wanted to take advantage of the fact that kids under age 3 get into Disney for free and we took a trip to Orlando to go to Disney World before the twins 3rd birthday.

We tried really hard to save money, but still have a good time. We drove instead of flying for a few reasons, but one big one was the cost. It is far less expensive to drive your family of 5 than to fly them and then have to rent a vehicle. We stayed at a resort using my parents' time share points to also save money and my parents' joined us to help us out with our kiddos. I prepared most of our meals at the resort to save money on dining expenses. And Justin's dad and step-mom also joined us and he was able to get us super discounted tickets to Disney since he used to be in the Air Force.

Our plan was to leave at 4am on Friday morning the 13th of December, but instead we considered ourselves lucky that we left by 6am (and that was after Justin and I only got maybe 4 hours of sleep). I gave a final on Thursday morning the 12th and had to have all of them graded, final grades calculated and turn in my end of semester paperwork before we could leave (so I had to have it in before the offices closed at 5pm on Thursday since they wouldn't open again until 8am on Friday). And Justin ended up getting in a fender bender on Thursday morning that also took time that we meant to be packing, etc. to deal with.

We spent the 13th and 14th (Jacob's birthday) on the road driving there and then we drove back on the 21st and 22nd.. We ended up stopping at Chick-fil-a a lot since it is just about the only place that has a play area for the kids to go crazy and each day we got to our planned destination later than we would have liked. 

I want to write more (with pictures) about actually being at Disney - hopefully that won't take another whole year for me to post!