Disney World - Monday

We had a fantastic time at Disney World last week!  The girls were the perfect ages to enjoy most of the rides, be excited about meeting princesses and other characters, and wait (mostly) patiently in lines.  We went to the Magic Kingdom on both Monday and Wednesday, and I'm glad that I was talked into going two days.  I thought Monday was pretty crowded (for the off-season at least), and we were glad to be able to use five fast passes throughout the day.  Wednesday was a much nicer day; it wasn't nearly as crowded, and we were able to do a lot of rides with minimal waiting.

We used fast passes to meet Ariel, Rapunzel and Cinderella on Monday, then Tinkerbell and Belle on Wednesday.  I ended up buying the girls an autograph book so they could get the princesses to sign it; the girls thought that was fun, and it helped to break the ice when they met a princess.  The girls were pretty shy and slow to warm up at first.

We rode the carousel quite a few times, since the wait was generally short.  Megan especially loved the carousel; she picked out the specific horse she wanted to ride.

Megan was a little crabby both days; I'm sure she was tired, but she also had an ear infection that was diagnosed on Tuesday evening at Urgent Care.  (So in the last ten weeks, I've taken kids to the ER in Glen Carbon, a take care clinic in McHenry, and an urgent care in Kissimmee.  Lucky me.)   I think she just wasn't feeling quite herself for most of our vacation.  It was hard to get her to smile for pictures at first, but after a lot of snacks, she felt more like smiling.

We ended up riding Dumbo twice:

and the people mover in Tomorrowland three times, because it never had a wait, it was in the shade, and Megan especially thought it was really fun to go through Space Mountain.  The last time Jane, Amelia, Megan, Nathaniel and I rode it on Wednesday evening, we were hoping that Ben and Jeff would be riding Space Mountain while we were going through it.  The girls yelled "Daddy" a few times but no one answered.  Ben said he thought they were riding it after we had gone through.

We got a fastpass for Pirates of the Caribbean, so we took the girls on it.  I told Megan that there was going to be a little waterfall, but it still freaked her out when we went down it.  Plus, we were sitting in the front row, so she got a little splashed.  While we were on the ride, she seemed interested in looking at all the pirate things (Megan loves pirates right now), but after we got out, she and Amelia both said they didn't like it at all.  Until Wednesday night, they said it was their least favorite thing at Disney World.  Now, though, Megan claims that she liked it the whole time.  It's funny how her memory works!  Next, Jane took the girls on Aladdin's Magic Carpet ride while Ben went to get us another fastpass and Nathaniel was napping in the stroller:

The girls say that the Jungle Cruise was their favorite thing we did at Disney World, because they thought the tour guides jokes were hilariously funny.  They are still quoting them a week later.  Their favorite jokes are:

• "If you liked this ride, my name is Rob.  If you didn't like this ride, my name is Samantha."  (They thought it was very funny when we ran across a Cast Member named Samantha at the storytime with Belle.  They told her all about what Rob said, and she pretended to be indignant.  It was cute.)
• "I made up a poem for you, it goes like this:

                     Giraffes are tall
                     Hippos don't float
                     This ride is over
                     So get off my boat"

• (as we were entering a cave)  "Since we're in Disney World, this is probably a gift shop."

Here's everyone waving to the people waiting in line.  Even Nathaniel was waving!

Nathaniel did very well both days at the park.  He slept in the stroller a few times and he also fell asleep being held while waiting in line.  He got carried a lot, too, so that Megan could sit in the stroller.  It was really nice to have four adults taking turns carrying him.

People have asked me about Nathaniel's hair, because at home the back gets all matted and sticky-outy no matter how much I comb it or wet it down.  Well, turns out, it's curly!  All three of the kids' hair curled up in the heat and humidity of Florida.

We got ice cream treats both days at the park.  Here's Megan enjoying a Mickey Mouse ice cream wearing her fancy new princess hat that Grandma bought her:

Nathaniel made sure that he got some ice cream, too:

Grandma also bought Amelia a visor, which she clearly knows how to wear the right way:

The kids all loved riding the monorail, especially when we were leaving the park and had the car mostly to ourselves.  

I had brought a journal along for Amelia to write in every day.  She made a list of all the things we did at the park, and then she talked in detail about a few of her favorite things.  I wish I had made her write more, but we were so busy that there just wasn't time.