Home!

Actually, we got home last Wednesday......but it has taken me a while to get on the blog again.  Whew.....we had a good time (overall), and I'm glad we went (for the most part), but I would not recommend taking (almost) one and (almost) three year old kids to Disney World!  Grant enjoyed the plane ride more than anything else on our trip.  And our hotel.....he loved the hotel pool and our hotel room (he played with his cars and chased lizards on the patio every chance he got).

We had quite a few mishaps (Dean always reminds me that it's impossible for the Sloan family to take a smooth vacation!).  Dean came down with a stomach virus on our first night there.  On another day, he smacked his head on a metal bar while we were waiting to take pictures with the Little Einsteins.  On the last day, he said "the only way this vacation could be any worse for me is if I burst into flames.  And it's not over yet." 

But we did have a lot of fun too......I want to post some pictures but first here are a few of our high and low points:

Memorable (fun) moments:

• Grant loved the airplane ride, especially taking off and landing.  He kept looking out the window before we took off, saying, "there's another plane!"  And we did "pat pat pat" from Little Einsteins as we were taking off.  He screamed "BLAST OFF!" (actually he says it "flast off") just as we were leaving the ground.
• Like I said before, he loved the hotel, and the boys actually had so much fun playing with each other while we sat through our timeshare sales presentation.  They chased each other around the room, laid on top of each other and had a blast. 
• Grant thought everything was real at Disney World.  We walked into Mickey's house at Magic Kingdom, and we saw Mickey's bed, living room, etc.  I said, "I wonder where Mickey is," and Grant said, "Maybe Mickey's at work."  And we met Handy Manny and June (from Little Einsteins)....he gave June a hug and gave Manny high-fives.  When we stood in line to meet June he said, "this is cool."  I asked, "what's cool?" and he said, "June is cool."  
• On Monday morning, we went to Animal Kingdom.  We got there at 8:30am (it opens at 9am) and we were all set to be some of the first ones in the gate.  As we were walking to the gate, I couldn't believe all the people who were there so early.  Then we realized that Animal Kingdom was the designated early-opening park that day.....but only for Disney Resort guests.  How frustrating.....it seemed like I kept picking the wrong park every day.  There was a nice lady who explained it all to me, and she could tell how frustrated I was.  A few minutes later, she came back and told us she wanted to "make some magic" for us.  She let us in the gate right then, and even gave us a "go to the front of the line" pass for any ride in the park.  That totally redeemed the day for us!
• The last day at Epcot, Grant was on top of the world watching a toy train display in the Germany area.  There was a sidewalk that went basically right through it, so he watched the trains go under his feet, then come out on the other side of the sidewalk.  He and a "gang" of a few other kids (as we referred to them) were screaming and yelling at each other with excitement, running from one end of it to the other.  He did this for probably 30 minutes and could have stayed another 30.  And at one point, a real bunny rabbit was sitting right on the tracks.....the kids were all gathered waiting to see if the train was going to hit it.  Sure enough, just about 5 inches before it came, the bunny jumped away.  The kids all got SUCH a huge kick out of it.
• My favorite ride on the entire trip was Soarin'.....oh my goodness.....what an amazing ride.  I would have done it ten times in a row if I could have.  You're basically sitting in a gondola, and you get lifted into the air with an enormous IMAX screen in front of you.  On the screen are videos taken by a plane flying over all of these California scenes.....San Fransisco, the ocean, wine country, mountains.  It was just so exhilarating because you feel like you're actually flying through them.  Wow....I think this is my favorite all-time ride anywhere.  I can't wait to go back to Disney World just for this!!

Memorable (not-so-fun) moments:

• We had to sit on the airplane for an hour before even taking off from Houston.  Drew was ready to get down and play before we even took off!  Made for a long plane ride (although he did sleep for 30 minutes on the flight).
• We got in the rental car and were leaving the airport when Drew started crying quite a bit.  I looked for his blanky, and couldn't find it anywhere.  We figured we must have left it on the airplane.  This is a Little Giraffe blanky that was a present for Grant (he never used a lovey, but now Drew is super attached to that thing).  So we went to our hotel, then drove to a mall to buy a new one (Dean saw that Nordstrom sells Little Giraffe).  Drew was screaming in the car the entire way, and the only Little Giraffe blankys they sold were $42!!!  But what else could I do?  So I bought it (plus another cheaper one, in case we lost another) and Drew was calm again.  Then......on the way back towards the hotel, I was looking for something else.....I opened up a small pocket in one of our bags, and what do I find?  Drew's blanky.  Dean had stuck it in a random side pocket that I never thought to check.  Hey....at least now I can take back $70 worth of blankets to Nordstrom!
• Literally the night we got there, Dean's tummy started hurting.  He came with us to Magic Kingdom the next day, but he didn't feel well at all on Sunday.  We had planned on going to RC Sproul's church in Orlando that day, so we were disappointed about that.  I ended up taking the boys by myself to Hollywood Studios.  Probably a mistake.....they were both screaming in the stroller as we were walking into the park.  We survived for about 5 hours, but I was totally exhausted by the time we left.  Definitely not our best day.  
• I lost my cell phone on Big Thunder Mountain.....but that's not really a huge deal, because I've had it for a year and I went today and got a new one for free (after a mail-in-rebate).  It just kinda stinks losing pictures and all of those phone numbers!
• The day we left, we pulled into a gas station close to the airport to fill up our rental car.  There were no signs saying the price of gas.....and we didn't even think about it.  As soon as Dean started filling it up, he realized it was $4.49 a gallon.  But we were starting to run out of time and we didn't see another gas station as far as we could see.  I was so mad.....it was $2.59 near our hotel.  What a scam.....they don't even post the prices, which just seems so dirty.  NEVER go to a Suncoast Energy gas station!!