Disney Day 2: Halloween Party

On Friday, we were finally heading to the parks for Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party!  We walked over around 3:30 so we would be in by the unofficial party start time of 4 p.m. and get a full 8 hours of party fun!  The beauty of being near the Magic Kingdom was also a curse.  All of that walking (18-24k steps per day according to my Fitbit) was tough on little boy legs.  This was our first non-stroller trip, and although the boys kept up, we certainly didn't power through as late in the evening as if they were ride-alongs!

 

I'll have to post some of our Photopass photos once I download them, but here are some from my camera.  Aiden was a Navy Seal Team 6 member and William was Commander Fox from Star Wars Clone Wars.

 

We rode a lot of rides since the lines were short.  We didn't do any trick-or-treating or characters (except Magician Mickey with a Fastpass before the official party start) since those lines were atrocious.   The parade and fireworks were both great!  The weather was super hot, so the candy corn soft serve ice cream I bought to eat during the parade had melted all over me by the time I got it back to William. 

I couldn't resist some pictures of It's a Small World, which John thinks is the "creepiest ride."   I'd never noticed there were clown dolls!   But, it truly is a small world. . . .the next day we would run into one of William's schoolmates at Animal Kingdom!

William had his own single bed pullout chair in the living room of our condo, but it was easiest to have him fall asleep in our king bed first and then move him when we were ready to vacate the living room for the evening. 

Disney Day 1: Chef Mickey's

As often as we "do Disney" it has actually been nearly two years since we were at Walt Disney World as a family.   This time we brought our extended family:  Keith, Desiree and Aiden joined us for Aiden's first trip to the Most Magical Place on Earth!  Since we had a group of six, we stayed in a villa at Bay Lake Tower, the Disney Vacation Club arm of the Contemporary Resort.  It was so convenient to have all of us in one condo and to be walking distance to the Magic Kingdom!

 

On arrival day the only event we had planned was the character buffet at Chef Mickey's.  While we were waiting for our table, we saw these two aspiring Minnie Mouses.   It's always fun to people watch at Disney!  And then Mickey and Friends made the rounds at our table for autographs and pictures with the boys. 

 

 

 

Aiden's awesome aviators deserve a special shout out.  Before dinner we rode the monorail to the ticket center to activate William's annual pass. From there we made the quick walk to the Polynesian Resort for a welcome beverage (Lapu Lapu anyone?!) and a spin through the gift shops.  He decided to spend his own money on those glasses and proudly wore them the entire trip.

Epcot Food & Wine Festival

Since I had to be in Orlando for a conference starting on Sunday, I decided to go up a day early to check out the Epcot Food & Wine Festival.   Lucky girl that I am, John asked his mom to come stay with William and joined me!   We have a fun two-days exploring with "adult Disney."  We stayed at the Boardwalk Villas which are right behind the Epcot International Gateway, so it was a quick walk from our hotel to start drinking and tasting our way around the world! 

Crowds were pretty bad on Saturday mid-afternoon when we arrived, so after just a few stops, we took the monorail and then the ferry to get to Magic Kingdom.  It was already decked out in its Halloween finest.  

I FINALLY got to have the spicy chicken waffle sandwich I had been coveting for years.   Verdict: it was only ok.  But the view!  Afterwards John and I split up because I had a date with Elsa and Anna!  They signed a Christmas ornament with their likeness for William.  He was *mostly* impressed with this as a souvenir from Mommy's business trip.

 

For dinner we retired to California Grill's lounge and enjoyed cocktails and delicious entrees with this view.

After dinner, we walked back to the Magic Kingdom for the fireworks show since we had Fastpasses for the viewing area.  It wasn't super crowded that day, but it was nice to not have to stake out a space early.

Sunday we got up bright and early and headed to Epcot.  Ok, not really.  For the first time ever at Disney, we slept in!  We headed to France when it opened at 11 and enjoyed a slushy and crème brulee as our breakfast of champions!

We returned to the Magic Kingdom in the afternoon for our Fastpass for the Festival of Fantasy parade which was new since our last WDW trip.  As with all plans on this trip, John was good to humor me since he was joining my already scheduled itinerary.  He hates parades but he sat with me in the beating sun to watch this one! 

 

We had a late dinner back at our hotel before sadly transferring to the conference center hotel off property to grab a little sleep before beginning a week of training - or in John's case, to catch a 6 a.m. flight home!

 

Cub Scouts

Our family has joined Cub Scouts this year, because for the little guys it really is a family commitment.   The first event was a recruiting round-up a few weeks after school started.  The big draw was an entertainer who did magic tricks and made balloon swords (and other fun stuff) for the boys.   We've also been out to sell popcorn for fundraising for fun stuff like their upcoming camping trip.   Looking forward to watching the boys and all their fun and joining in when I can.

Rachel

Our beautiful Rachel went to heaven this week.    She was 14 1/2 years old, and has been with us since the week we got home from our honeymoon.  We had a family evening on Monday night to reminisce and share memories about Rachel and talk about what heaven might be like.  It has been a really sad few weeks as we've come to the realization that her body had worn out as she lost most of the use of her back legs.   But we're happy she's at peace.

 

End of Summer

August and September is when we transition back to school, get rid of the hot weather, and wrap up the September 15th tax deadline and enjoy a few days off.

Labor Day weekend we took advantage of being home and not having any specific plans by spreading mulch, which we hadn't done in a few years. A GIANT pile of mulch was delivered on Friday afternoon and it was gone by Monday afternoon after much hard work, heavy lifting, scooping and spreading.   And of course like any fun weekend project, we attracted the neighbors to "help."

 

My little buddy was helping me work at home one evening, and since I wouldn't let him type on my laptop, he drew me a beautiful picture in my notepad.  Love, love, love.

Several of us with young Marvel fans shared the Deloitte suite for Marvel LIVE at United Center.  The boys all dressed up in their super hero finest. 

 

We made homemade biscuits one night after school.  My big 1st grader doesn't choose to wear collared shirts anymore, so I know this was picture day.  I took the day off work and spent the morning volunteering at pictures.  It was a lot of fun making sure the hair was in place, crumbs brushed off the shirts and collars in place.  Although William doesn't like to "dress up" in collared shirts, he does like dress up for battles.  He now has two Halloween costumes to choose between in the year of Star Wars:  Clone Commander Fox and Boba Fett. 

We made our annual trip to Six Flags for corporate day.   This year we took our neighbor friends and had a lot of fun riding rides together.   Since Uncle Ryan wasn't there, William didn't get to play any of the carnival games, but he did get his annual 7-11 slushie!   The big excitement was that he was tall enough to ride of several non-kid rides by himself.  He must have the strongest stomach of all of us, because he rode those spinning rides over and over and over with a smile on his face.  I rode each once and then enjoyed watching!