Disney

Disclaimer, this will be a long post because a lot happened! First off, let me say I love my family! Not just my mom and dad, who are fabulous and I love them with all my heart, but I have been blessed with a wonderful mother in law and father in law who are just soooo good to me! Case in point: my mother in law has a time share and got it into her head that it would be a good idea to get away and take K on a trip to Disney, especially with all the drama surrounding me lately with this whole Asherman's thing. Unfortunately, T wasn't able to go because of work obligations so we turned it into a girls trip! 

We stayed in this amazing hotel called Harbour Lakes, of which you can see pictures of here. This hotel was a child's paradise! You can see the pirate ship in the back with slides and K just loved it. The pace of our vacation was great because we went to Magic kingdom two days and then the rest of the time we spent at the pool or going to a show.

This was our first day in Florida and it didn't take her long to turn into a water baby! And because she is so social, she had no problem finding some other child who was in the pool and playing with them the whole time. The hotel gym is the building on the left and I got to workout most days which was super nice!

That afternoon after K's nap, we got ready for our first time in Disney. We had bought tickets to Mickey's very merry Christmas party, so K was excited to dress like a princess and happily waited  while we did her hair.

When you get to Disney, you have to take a trolley to the ferry or train because it is situated on an island...

 If you had tickets for the Merry Christmas party, you were allowed in the park as early as 4pm. Then those that do not have tickets for the Mickey party were kicked out of the park at 7pm. I was wondering how they were going to implement this but it was like a well oiled machine. I think we got stopped at least three times by Disney workers checking to see if we had a wristband (which was the distinguishing factor for those that had admission to the party). Because we came early for the parade, it was not that crowded and we got to jump on a few of the kiddie rides: Peter Pan, It's a Small World and Dumbo. Then we hurried over to catch the parade.

 This is just a shot of Magic Kingdom when you first get off the ferry and through the gates...

 Town Square

 Carousel ride

 Here's the castle! We saw this show with all the characters which was really cute, even though I found the Disney propaganda message of "just believe in yourself and all your dreams will come true" quite funny!

 Mickey even had the audience chanting "dreams come true" to help good overcome evil in this little story.

 And here's the start of the parade!

The next day was Saturday which we spent at the pool and then decided to make a trip to the Gaylord Palms hotel for their free Christmas shows. The inside of the hotel was amazing, lots of things to look at and see, including a pond with koi fish and another one filled with alligators!

 Waiting for the show to start inside the hotel...

 This is what her face looked like for most of the night! Haha!

 The group that performed was really good, and it was nice to hear some really good musicians. You can check them out here if you're curious...

 Drummer up in the air! Not for the faint of heart!

K in a trance watching the show!

 Here's a pic of the alligators...

 Pic with the Edge Effect...

Sunday was another pool day, since we planned to spend all day Monday in Disney, we wanted to make sure K was rested up!

 Making friends...

Monday we got up early and went to Disney! There was a meet and greet right as you walked into the Town Square with Pluto and the Cheshire Cat so we did that first. I think she wasn't too keen on Pluto!

 She LOVED the cat though!

 The Magic kingdom has five fingers or branches. Each branch has different activities for the kids to do. The castle is at the center of the fingers so you have to walk through the town to get to the castle. Well, the town, as pictured below is basically a bunch of shops, real marketing genius!

 Everything seemed to be set up for you to spend money. Even the barnstormers, when you take pictures with the Disney characters, they have professional photographers there for you to buy the pictures they take. Also, most of the rides have a store associated with that ride attached to it. When you get off each individual ride, most times you have to walk through the store to get outside! Again, marketing genius!

 Grammie got K a minnie dress!

 Meeting Tinkerbell

Another random fairy! She really did love this part! She hasn't seen any of the Disney movies so I didn't know if she would even care about this but she had wonder in her eyes and loved every minute!

 Safari ride!

 Watching the street parade!

 One of the floats from the street parade...

Meeting cinderella

 Sleeping beauty, ie Princess Aurora

 Tuesday we had breakfast with Disney characters scheduled. As everyone knows, K is not a big eater, even though there was abundant food to choose from, she wanted yogurt and grapes.

Minnie and K

After breakfast, we spent our last day at the amazing pool! A fitting end to an amazing vacation!