Where Dreams are Made

We had a fabulous, wonderful, laugh-a-minute, love fest trip to Disney World this month. We are so grateful to G-dawg for setting us all up and helping us live the dream. The cousins loved spending 8 days 24/7 together and the grown-ups--not to be outdone--laughed probably more than the kids. We created a lot of perfect memories.


We spent four perfect-weather days at Disney World in Orlando. The latest and greatest at the Animal Kingdom is "Everest"--a thrilling (I mean it) ride through the mountain. My kids wanted to go again and again, and found that using the "single rider" line got them on the ride quicker. However, I wasn't too sure about it when my baby went off as a single rider on this scary ride (OK, OK, I know my baby is almost 9).
While lining up in the morning to get into the Animal Kingdom, we made friends with a worker who let us into the park 30 minutes early and put us on the first safari ride of the morning. It was so fun to be almost all alone in the park.

We spent a day at Disney's Hollywood Studios (formerly MGM). The new ride here is the Toy Story ride, which is like being in an amazing video game. The idea is to shoot 3-D targets and get the most points. The wait for the ride was often 90 minutes, but we rode it a few times using fast passes.

We stayed at the Animal Kingdom Lodge, which cozies up to the savannah at the Animal Kingdom, so this is the view from the lobby. We had the same view from our room, only higher.

The Magic Kingdom is still magic. It was fun to ride some of the rides with our family. We hooked up in the afternoon to hit "The Haunted Mansion". We only had one crier (Henry).

We also spent a day at Epcot, my favorite. We rode the big rides like Test Track and Mission to Space, but then spent several hours walking through the World Showcase. We ate dinner in "England" where we enjoyed fish & chips and pot pies.

I highly recommend a cruise to somewhere warm in January when you live in Utah. The Disney Wonder is an amazing ship. We spent four wonderful days cruising to the Bahamas and back to Port Canaveral. Every evening, the 30 of us gathered for a riotous dinner. We probably (cross fingers) lauged all our calories off. Craig and I had it pretty easy because our kids are a little older. We let our kids go anywhere on the ship and do whatever they wanted, with the exception of Isaac. He had to carry his medication in a fanny pack and he had to have someone older with him if he was eating. Thankfully there were no health incidents.

We went to lots of movies on the ship, the spa, tried every eating spot, swam, played games in G-dawg's suite, played in the kids' clubs, and the arcade. The age for the spa was 18 and over, so we had everyone confused when we sent Jake and Evan and Craig in all under Craig's ID. They were in and out throughout the day. When Jake got a massage from the same person who gave Evan a massage, she asked Jake if he and his brother were both named Douglas. I would say that towards the top of the list for the boys was the ice cream machine on Deck 9. So much fun.

Pirate night on the ship:

One of our stops on the ship was Castaway Cay, a private Disney Island in the Caribbean. We mostly sunned on the beautiful white sand beach, burried Jake in the sand, pushed people in the water, built sandcastles, laughed and ate. Craig, Sam and Isaac went jet-skiing in the ocean, Isaac and Caroline went on a sting ray adventure and snorkeled, Jake, Evan, Becky and Uncle Rye all went para-sailing, which was super scary but so much fun.

Ryan and Jake had to "steal" the Monopoly game from the Oceaneer's Lab. Jake was amazed at Ryan's confidence as he walked into the lab, picked up the game, put it under his arm and walked right out with it. On the way out a worker asked him if he needed to check out his kids or if he was just visiting, to which Ryan replied, "just visiting" and they just kept walking. Jake took the game back to Grandma's to set it up while Ryan went for a soda run. When Ryan returned, Jake said, "un problema"... they had stolen a Spanish Monopoly game, which we played several times. It was a funny moment.

The ship also stopped in Nassau. Everyone except me, Mandy and Sophia went to the water slides at Atlantis. The three of us went to the straw market and shopped around town for a few hours. Mandy has a back injury and because of my surgery, I was still feeling really tired. But everyone had a great time and the water slides were number one on some lists for the whole trip.

This pictured ended up last, but it should have been the first. This is our shuttle from our Orlando hotel back to the hotel where we needed to catch our Disney Cruise Line bus. You can see that we had fun from the very beginning.

THANKS GRANDMA. We had a blast.