Thursday, January 31, 2013

Can you keep a secret?

I've nearly made it through January without any major/life altering events.  Whew.  I am so thankful for an uneventful January.

Life has been full the past few weeks.  Its mostly been full of volunteering at the kids' school.  When I have not been at the school I've been running around getting things together for our trip to DISNEY WORLD!!!!

Thanks to Steve's parents (grandma and papa) generosity, the 5 of us are packing our bags, boarding a plane and heading down to warm (yep... I'm incessantly checking the forecast and it seems as though it is actually going to be warm while we are there) Orlando, FL on Tuesday afternoon.

I've never been there before.  Truth be told, I was having a hard time gearing up for this.  The blogs out there sent me into pure panic.  How to navigate?  How to plan?  I procrastinated and how would I  make reservations only 2 weeks out when apparently you need 180 days?  I was swimming in a sea of hints, tips and *insider advice* (thankyouverymuch, Pinterest!)

Well, our vacation week must not be a super hot time (trust me, I'm NOT complaining) or else, don't believe the hype on the 180 day thing.  I was able to make a reservation for us to ride a pirate ride with characters to watch the evening fireworks, eat at two pretty cool restaurants and have Olivia experience the Bibitybobity Boutique (as her 7th birthday gift which is Feb. 19th.)  Now I didn't have my heart set on anything anything except go to the theme parks; so my motto was, "We won't know what we're missing if we don't get to do it." Which goes along well with my life motto of, "If you wait 'til the last minute, it only takes a minute." (Which, PS, really hacks Steve off.  But that is for a different blog post.)

The trip is a surprise for the kids (so... shhh if you happen to see my kids between now and Tuesday.)  Not because I'm into drama (well at least that's not my reason for this surprise) but more because I don't think I could stand the "Is Disney today, mom?" 5,000 times before we leave.  So thus my scurrying around.  I have been getting stuff done while the kids are at school.  Which isn't a lot of time considering.

Our plan is to have the kids go to school Tuesday morning.  We will pull them out before lunch and head to the airport.  I have a goody bag packed for each kid for the airplane which includes Mickey Ears.   I suppose they will be able to guess from there. 

The icing on the cake?  When we arrive in Florida, there will be grandma and papa waiting at the end of the rainbow.  It really will be a grand surprise.

With the kids being 5, 5 and nearly 7 I think this is going to be the trip of a lifetime.  If you have any tried and true Disney tips, feel free to pass them along. Although I'm obviously down to the wire here.  So if it takes a minute, I'm in! 

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Awesome! Have a great time!

Michele Braceros

Unknown said...

Queeners love the Wave restuarant. The chef even sent out a recipe for me, because I enjoyed my meal so much. The menu is American. we were seated without reservations when we went early, had a nice booth. It is in the basement of the contemporary hotel. It is dark and quiet after a day of chaos. It is only one stop on the monorail from Magic Kingdom.

peppa pig theme park tickets said...

Elizabeth Koproski have a great time there. You must visit Disney Resort there for your kids.

betseykerr said...

WOW! I am so excited for all of you! What fun! They are going to be so very surprised. What a great memory for them! Have a great time!

Unknown said...

oh, sounds so exciting and a great winter getaway!! My one bit of advice - do the park backwards. Start by Space mountain and go counterclockwise around the circle. Saved us TONS of waiting in lines. But, we did whole park in a day, essentially, so we were all about saving time. you may have luxury of more leisurely schedule. I actually love Disney - I think you will too! :)