Disney Vacation Day Three : Magic Kingdom

Magic Kingdom was really that!  A very VERY magical kingdom!

 We got there in time to watch the opening show, which was great!  It was the only time Maida got to see her favorite princess, Tiana, and the first time we saw Mickey and Minnie Mouse!

 We enjoyed many of the rides (tea cups, Dumbo, racing cars, magic carpets, The Little Mermaid, Peter Pan, It's a Small World, Toy Story, Space Mountain... and maybe others that I'm missing).  We also really enjoyed meeting a lot of the Disney princesses!  Each of the princesses spent a ton of time with each girl and really made them feel special.  I was so impressed with the girls who played the parts of the princesses and how real they were!

 Maida had an autograph book that she had each princess sign, but Torsten got kisses on his face from the princesses!  It was very cute and super special of them to take time to say hi to him, too.  When he'd get a kiss, he's smile, and wave his arms up and down!  That night we went to a cool show at the castle.  They showed clips of Disney movies on the side of the castle and then had a fireworks show.

 After the fireworks, we had dinner with Piglet, Pooh, Eeyore, and Tigger!

 We were at the park until 11pm and all three girls were asleep by the time we got back to the hotel!

It was such a full, magical, amazing day!

Disney Vacation Day One & Two : Travel

The day started out like any other day of travel... last minute packing, kids running crazy-excited around the house, reading and rereading to-do and to-pack lists.  This morning was crazy!  On top of the crazy-excitedness, we got about ten inches of new snow!  I hadn't planned on spending an hour outside shoveling, but we had to be able to get the cars out of the driveway and I needed to get the snow off of the sidewalks (city policy).  Even with the shoveling, my mom got off on time with Skogen and Klaasen, and Maida, Torsten and I headed to the airport one minute before I had planned on leaving.  Perfect!  We quick grabbed lunch in the drive through of McDonalds and then gassed up the car.  We made it to the airport right on time.

We left the car in long term parking and the plan was for Erik to pick up the car when he flew into airport the next morning.  The only difficult part of this plan was the unexpected ten inches of snow that filled the unplowed parking lot and walkways, making it fairly difficult to get into the airport pushing a stroller!  However, we made it and our plane took off right on time.  When we landied in Minneapolis, we had 25 minutes to make it to our next plane.  Luckily for us, the next plane was only a couple gates away.  I celebrated by sending texts to family that we had made our next plane and five minutes later found out that our plane was delayed because we were waiting on the flight crew, who were on a flight that was delayed because of some mechanical problems.

We took off an hour and half after our scheduled time.  When we landed in New York City, we had ten minutes to make it to our next flight.  However, we were sitting in the very back row of the plane and had no chance on getting out of the plane anytime soon.  It was 8pm and we were exhausted.  The last thing I wanted to do is be stuck in New York City overnight with a baby and five-year-old who was anxious about getting to Disney World.  They tried to get us on another flight with a different airlines that night, but couldn't do it.  They promised me a flight out right away in the morning.  I was glad that we were going to eventually make it (and the rest of our family wasn't coming in until the next day, anyway), but I wanted to cry.  What was I going to do?!

Luckily, the lady helping me was very nice and understood my concerns about getting around the city, finding a place to stay, and getting enough diapers to last me all night (we didn't have any luggage because our luggage continued on without us).  She made a few phone calls and after a couple sweet smiles from baby T, Delta decided to pay for our hotel, transportation, food, and diapers!  The Delta lady made reservations for us at the Double Tree Hotel and gave me vouchers to pay for our food and taxi to the hotel.  They also brought me out a mini-pack of diapers and wipes!  I found our way out of the hotel and got a taxi.  As we approached the taxi to get in, I remembered I didn't have any car seats!  The taxi driver assured me that they were not required in a taxi in the state of New York.  I was a little hesitant to get in, but the Delta lady told me that the hotel was only minutes from the airport, so I assured myself that it would only be a few minutes and we got in.  Maida sat in the middle and I held Torsten on my lap.  We flew around the back of the taxi (Maida screaming in complete joy and me screaming in complete terror!).  With only a few horn honks, about ten minutes later, we arrived at our hotel.  After checking into our room, we went downstairs to the cafe and ordered dinner.  We had a great time playing Bible Trivia while we shared a house salad and chicken wrap.  Then we went right to bed since we had to be up at about 3:30am to make it to the shuttle by four. 

We actually missed the 4am shuttle, but it ran every 15 minutes, so we caught the next one.  We took it to terminal two and then had to go through checking in and security all over again.  Finally we were in the air again and on our way to Disney World!  We landed ten minutes early and had time to go locate our luggage that was there waiting for us and also find the place where we received our bus vouchers to ride the Disney's Magical Express to the Disney's Pop Century Hotel.  My cousins and their girls arrived about a half hour later, so we waited for them and all rode the shuttle to the Pop Century together.

After lunch in the resort hotel, we let the girls go swimming.  They had a blast swimming all over the pool!  Then we ventured to Disney for dinner.  My cousin Melody had made cute little shirts for the girls to wear and it was fun to see them all dressed alike!  We ate at Planet Hollywood and then went home to get some sleep before a big day the next day!

Girls' Weekend!!!

If you want to know where Maida and I'll be this weekend...

A Quick Picture Review of Our Week

T's first time in the big stroller!  We were shoe shopping at the mall. He loved it! Skogen thought he needed to be right beside him the entire time, so he wouldn't get scared.  :)  Love Skogen's sweet heart.

Playing the skateboard game on the Playstation - something they beg to do everyday, but have to earn with the new points system we've implemented (more to come on that later...).

This mess is a daily occurrence.   I think the boys are trying to cure Erik of his OCD tendencies toward having all the movies organized.  :)

The kids are just getting over colds.  Skogen was extra sleepy last week and passed out in the car on the way home from picking Maida up from school, which hasn't happened in a while.  (Yes, he's wearing shorts and it wasn't even 20 degrees! It was a battle not worth fighting.)

Someone finally got his toes to his mouth - his new favorite pastime.

Haircut to get cleaned up a little.  He loved making faces at himself in the mirror and yelled, "THANK YOU!" at the girl after she was done.

Skogen was excited to watch Sponge Bob while getting his hair cut (we don't watch that show at our house!)

All ready to go to Great-Grandma's 90th birthday party!

Picking out movies to watch on the way to Great Grandma's 90th birthday party (but of course the only one they actually watched was Cars I - it's their favorite, but I bet you wouldn't have guessed that!).

I love Maida's freshly washed hair - her curls are still there after all!

New shoes and a new carrier for a trip we're planning (more on that later...)!

Maida's artwork

Torsten pulled up (with mom's help) and stood alone for four minutes! Wow! He's growing up way too fast.

He thinks he's hott-stuff!

Klaasen made a race car out of a milk carton

Skogen's race car out of a milk carton

Torsten helped me pick out new carpet (which will be installed soon!!! Bye-bye pet and kid stains!)

New hat and sunglasses for our trip south next weekend!

Klaasen and Skogen ate 16 of these one morning while I was out of the room for only a few minutes. I had to call poison control and they assured me I could expect some explosive diarrhea!

Torsten learned how to shake his head YES and NO.  He doesn't know what they mean, but when he does it, it's so cute!  Here's a little video of him shaking his head...