Disney World!!!

We moved into our new house on a Saturday and we left for a previously planned trip to Orlando the next Monday - it was crazy trying to pack, unpack, and pack again for our trip. I had a conference on social media and public relations hosted by Disney, so you have to bring your family along for something like that! It was a splurge we had planned when we took our house off the market, and got a decent tax return to boot. We had no idea that less than a week later, we would get the offer on our house that would finally stick.

We decided to not tell the kids about the trip, mainly because once they know about something fun coming up - a trip, a birthday, a visit - they do not stop asking about it. Like every day, every hour - are we leaving yet?? So, we tried to keep it a secret from them, even though it slipped out in bits and pieces over the weeks and Claire pieced it together... Miles was still surprised. We stopped by our house in the southwest one last time to leave our keys, and then Aaron drove us to the airport. We told the kids about the trip as we were driving to the drop off area for Southwest. I said - I think we should go somewhere today... Miles, do you want to go on a plane? YES! So we did. :) They were excited, though not that crazy freak out moment that we had hoped for... but it was still a fun moment!

Penelope, just a month shy of turning 2, was a lap child. I probably wouldn't have gone on the trip if we had to pay for her flight since they were pretty expensive, but in hind sight, it may have been worth the extra dough. She. Was. Awful. If she had her own seat, she was happy. But she wanted to go up and down the isles and switch back and forth all the time, and of course our four hour flight out there was completely full so there weren't any extra seats for us to snag. I held Miles part of the trip so P could have her own seat, until my legs started falling asleep. Claire and Miles were awesome though - I think we will only fly again if Penelope is closer to Miles' age now. Or if the flight is like an hour :)

A major perk of going to Disney World is to see Becky Baird -best friend/roomie/actress/comedian/best aunt who isn't related to you/owner of Becky Baird's B&B aka her apartment/cast member at the Magic Kingdom. She wears a lot of hats. : )

We stayed with Becky for three nights, split between the two nights we stayed in the Disney Beach Club Resort (where the conference was). She was so great to let us stay there - PLUS she got three of us in for free to the parks on FOUR different days. My rough calculations show that she saved us at least $2,000. We never could have made the trip if it wasn't for her, and frankly we wouldn't have gone except we got the chance to see Becky. Our last failed attempt at visiting her in Orlando was seven years ago when I was pregnant with Claire - both Matt and I had a violent stomach flu that lasted for days and made us miss our flight. So it's been a long time comin'!

Here are a few of my phone pictures and then I will have Disney photo overload pretty soon. We had some pretty great moments that outweighed the craziness getting there, for sure! I thought the whole trip was a bit like raising children - sometimes it is so, so hard and you wonder why you are doing this, and then you have a flash of something amazing that melts your heart and it makes it all worth it.

Butterfly Garden at Epcot