Happy Easter!

Hope you are all enjoying the day!!  We kind of did our Easter celebration last night with my family and are having a lazy day today.  We dyed eggs at my aunts house with Owen's 5 cousins and new baby cousin (close enough to be a cousin anyway).  It's funny how an only child slides into a room with 6 other kiddos as if he spends every day with them...he absolutely loves Sherry's kids and honestly, you wouldn't really know he wasn't one of hers to look at them.  He's right between the 2 youngest and gets along with all of them.  Of course, he still wants to take baby Makenna home with us every time we leave!  ;O)

This morning we found a basket full of goodies from the Easter Bunny and lots of hidden eggs, although, Owen seems to think it was us.  He doesn't seem to have any thought that there's such a thing as an Easter Bunny.  Not sure how we blew that one.  Oh well, one less thing to confess as he gets older! ;O)

Souveniers!

I have lots more photos to go through of our trip, but, I just haven't had the motivation.  I thought I'd post a couple pictures of the "loot" Owen came home with in the mean time.  

So, these cars were more my thing than his I think, I told him he could pick 3 initially, but, they weren't the ones I wanted him to pick! ;O)  So, I sent him back for 3 more later...still, not exactly my top choices, but I had to let it go!  I'd never seen cars like these before.  They had a car for every Disney character you could imagine, they even have a Star Wars line!  From the left, Owen chose Pluto, Wall-E, the pig from Toy Story (I think anyway), Nemo, and scale size models of the monorail and the shuttle bus we took to the parks.  There were SO many to choose from and I can tell you, only 2 of the 6 he picked were on my favorites list!!  I really wanted him to get a Mickey car, but, he wasn't having it...I didn't think we needed the monorail or shuttle bus for sure!!

We of course got him some ears with his name embroidered on the back and a Mickey sweatshirt..."Shampu" he picked himself.  He's usually into little stuffdies and I told him he could pick one Shamu to take home, I didn't expect him to pick the biggest one in the store!!  What can you do!  We'd already planned to bring home a second piece of luggage, so, it wasn't the end of the world, but, definitely not convenient!! ;O)

Character Parade...

Owen was so funny about the characters he'd take pictures with and who he would refuse to get close to!    But, he was thrilled with the ones he visited!

Disney's Coronado Springs Resort

For the first 7 nights, we stayed at Disney's Coronado Springs Resort a Mexican/Mayan themed resort right between the Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios/Epcot.  Shawn was really disappointed in the room size for the price, but having stayed in the Animal Kingdom Lodge during our previous trip, Dave and I knew what to expect and were pleased.  The room itself was tiny, outdated, and could have been cleaner.  But, the grounds were amazing and I would definitely stay here again.  Plus, you're really paying for the bus service to and from all the parks (which is just SUPER convenient), the early openings/late closings just for resort guests, and most importantly during peak season...Fast Passes!!  The fast passes saved our whole trip, it would have been miserable to stand in the lines...some of the wait times were as much as 90 minutes, but with our passes, we'd wait no more than 5 or 10 minutes.

Here's some pictures of the hotel grounds....

 

I love how the Disney hotels are kind of an "experience", they definitely go the extra mile customer service wise and all the details of their resorts are amazing!

Owen LOVED the pool area...I didn't take too many pictures there, but, it was pretty amazing.  They had a playground off to the left of this Mayan temple and a water slide that wrapped around the temple and emptied right on the right side of the picture.  To the right of the pool was an area for the little ones where they had water that squirted out of the ground to run around in...know what I am talking about?  There was also a hot tub and a bar as well as two additional pools on the grounds.  We could have just spent our vacation at the pool!

This is just a random extra...there were lizards EVERYWHERE!!  I counted 7 between the hotel and the car one day.  Owen really enjoyed them.  You should have heard the croaking at night, there must have been hundreds or even thousands of frogs there too, although, we only ever saw one!  We also saw 2 hummingbirds while we were there, I just LOVE them!

We're Back from Disney World!!

We survived the trip and are glad to be back home!  We had SO much fun and I don't know about Dave and Shawnie, but I know I didn't realize how much I needed a vacation until we got there!  

We went down on the red-eye and had I known what I know now, I would have come back on the red-eye as well.  We had just one plane change in Seattle and then direct from there to Orlando...that leg of the flight was just 5 hours on the way down, but, 6 hours on the way back with a 6 hour layover in Seattle!!!  Owen did awesome as expected on the flights, but, that layover in Seattle on the way back about did him in...of course, he was sound asleep before the plane ever hit the runway (literally!!) in Seattle and slept the entire 4 hour flight home.  In fact, he was mad we woke him up for the landing!

Here he is in Orlando when we arrived...so many people commented about him as he walked around the airports in his monster jammies, it was funny!  He was SO excited and so were we...it was high 70s when we landed around 7pm there and the weather only got better!  We had one rainy day, but, I think the temps were in the upper 80s to lower 90s the rest of the time.  It was beautiful!!

We hit the Animal Kingdom first...big mistake, I thought it would be nice to take it easy the first day, but, Owen thought he'd been ripped off when "the castle" wasn't there.  We had fun, but, definitely shouldn't have started there.  We made it through the park pretty quickly and then back to the room for a nap and thankfully, with the park hopper tickets...we were off to the Magic Kingdom later that night.  Did you know that Magic Kingdom is open until midnight regularly!!!  It worked out great considering that was just 8pm our time!

Owen got a huge kick out of the rides at all the parks and thankfully, was just barely the 42" required for most of the rides.  We couldn't talk him into the Bug's Life 3D movie at Animal Kingdom or Splash Mountain at Magic Kingdom, but, he pretty much did everything else he was tall enough to ride.

For a long time he was telling us that the TriceraTop Spin was his favorite ride of them all...its like Dumbo where it goes up in the air and spins in a slow circle.  Not too exciting if you ask me...of course, that was taken care of after we road Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin where you shoot aliens as you ride in a space cruiser.

We blew it and missed the Dinosaur ride at Animal Kingdom, but, Owen loved all the other activities in Dinoland.

This tree with all the animals carved in it always fascinates me!  Owen was less than impressed however!

 I think we all enjoyed the Kilimanjaro Safari...of course, by then, our feet were killing us!!