A Royal Vacation - Disney World part 1

A few days ago my mom said to me, 'Do you know you haven't updated the blog since October?' Your last update was about the pumpkin patch.'
Oops. Let's just say I was taking a sabbatical. I am now ready to conquer catching up. I have a glass of ice water and the girls are playing happily together in the living room. That should give me at least 3 uninterrupted minutes to get an update started.

A LOT has happened in the Nortier family since our visit to the pumpkin patch. I'm going to post a few things out of order so that I don't forget the events that are fresh in my mind.
(3 minutes was overly optimistic, by the way. I wrote 2 sentences before the girls started squabbling and needed a little bit of discipline and help reconciling. And this is the reality of life right now :)  )

Our most exciting recent event was a trip to... Disney World!

Sometime last fall, our dear friend Sondrea told me that we should take the girls to Disney World. I brushed it off initially. I definitely wanted to take the girls on a Disney trip at some point but we needed time to save up some money. Besides, I felt like Julie was probably too young to really enjoy it and I  wanted both girls to get the most out of such a big trip.
A little later Sondrea mentioned that Julie would be free if we took her before her 3rd birthday. I'll admit, I enjoy getting a bargain. I checked out Disney's website and, when I realized the cost of park tickets, decided that going before Julie turned 3 sounded like a fabulous idea.
Daneel has made quite a few flights for work in the past months and we were able to use those airline miles to help us with our tickets.
So all things in order, we booked our trip for the end of April. Daneel stayed back home to work. He already had some things on his calendar that would use his vacation days and he was happy to stay back and enjoy some guy time while his girls were gone.

The girls knew that they would be going on a special trip with Mommy and Ms. Sondrea, but we waited until a week before we left to tell them exactly where we would be going.
I had never mentioned the existence of Disney World to the girls, so we shouldn't have been surprised when they seemed underwhelmed by the news. As much as they love the princesses, they had no concept of Disney World. In fact, Julie's exact response was, 'Can I have my paci back now?' ;)

The morning of the trip however, they were bouncing off the walls. And so begins the tale of our trip..

We left on a Tuesday morning. It was cold and rainy outside, but the girls could not have been more excited. Initially they were just excited to get on an airplane. This was Julie's first flight, and Avalon's first that she could remember. Ms. Sondrea made the airplane ride a blast by bringing along special treats and toys to entertain the girls.

We arrived at our hotel late afternoon. After checking into our room we went to grab dinner and took the bus to Magic Kingdom to catch the night time electrical parade. The girls, especially Julie, LOVED the parade.

It was a great way to kick off our time there. The parade was incredible. The light up floats and characters were so much fun to see. Any time Julie caught site of a character she recognized, she would yell at the top of her lungs, 'Hi Tinkerbell! Over here Tinkerbell!" She spent the entire parade grinning, yelling, and waving. She was over the top excited. I wish I could have captured her expression and joy in a picture. Avalon thoroughly enjoyed it as well, but she tends to take things in more quietly. 

After the parade the girls had quite a bit of energy and no desire to leave the park. We took advantage of their energy and decided to catch a couple of rides.

We started off with 'It's a Small World' - a hit with both girls. I believe we actually rode it twice that night. And then it was off to the carousel - another favorite for the trip. At 10:00 the fireworks over Cinderella's castle started going off. Again, they were incredible to see. Disney doesn't do anything halfway. 

The girls enjoyed the fireworks initially, but after awhile the noise really began to bother Avalon. It was pretty loud. Tiredness was setting in, and after a little detour to purchase some Minnie Mouse ears, we headed back to the hotel to get a good night of sleep before our first full day in the park.