DisneyWorld!

One of my favorite pics of my silly son...nice face, huh?

Jonathan, Elliott and I recently returned from a week-long trip to sunny Florida. We took 2 charter buses down with about 45 of Jonathan's choir students and 20 family members. The bus ride took 24 hours each way...very interesting! We watched lots of movies and thought it wasn't going too bad until about 3 am when the bus driver pulled over in rural Georgia because of a blown tire!!! We sat at shady gas station for 3 hours waiting for someone to come and fix it! This delayed our arrival time at Hollywood Studios (formerly MGM). But, it ended up that we still had a decent amount of time there.

Posing with Mickey!

Pic with Quincy and June from the Little Einsteins

We didn't check into our hotel until after our first day was nearly over to allow as much time as possible at Hollywood Studios. We stayed at Lake Buena Vista Embassy Suites, which was the same hotel Jonathan and I stayed at for our honeymoon...awww...!

Tuesday was the Magic Kingdom. It was so fun and exciting to see Elliott react to seeing the castle and all the surroundings. He was a bit skeptical to go on some of the rides and meet the characters, but we did convince him to go on Thunder Mountain which is a pretty fast train/coaster. He says now that he had fun, but he did cry some while on the ride! Jonathan's choir performed at downtown Disney that evening and then we headed back to the Magic Kingdom for the fireworks.

Elliott posing in front of the castle with his silly Mickey sunglasses!

Elliott and daddy driving a racecar!
Meeting Mickey and Minnie (notice his scared face-are you kidding me?!?)

Wednesday was Animal Kingdom where we saw the Finding Nemo show and a show about bugs, which was really cool. There was a huge coaster called Everest there but the line was too long and we didn't have time to ride it...bummer. That evening we went to a Pirates dinner theater. It was pretty cool and Elliott only cried once, during the fake gunshot.

Getting ready to watch the bug show with the 3-D glasses on!

Us at the Pirates dinner theater.

Thursday and Friday were Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure. We got more of a chance to go on rides we wanted to go on as Jonathan's co-teacher took Elliott part of Friday afternoon. Thursday morning we went down the coast and did airboat rides and saw an alligator and I got to hold a baby alligator! Their skin feels like a marshmallow! Elliott was, of course, too scared to hold it! Friday morning we went down to Cocoa Beach to see the ocean and shop at Ron Jon's surf shop! That was pretty cool even though Elliott was pretty scared of the water-I think it was just so big he didn't know what to think. That is always a breath-taking view!
Daddy and Elliott posing with Jr's car at the NASCAR cafe on Universal Studios Citywalk
(Above) on the airboats
(Below)Me holding the little alligator with his owner standing by (who looks a lot like my cousin, Curt, I might add!)

The ocean as our background-beautiful!
Before we went on the ET ride, Elliott and daddy with ET looking on!

We really had a great time and couldn't have asked for better weather...about 80 all week with the perfect mix of clouds and sun and NO RAIN! It rained the whole next week after we left!

Our trip back was interesting. We got delayed for one hour (dead-stop) in Georgia (it was almost the exact same spot as we blew the tire) because of a fatality accident. It rained pretty much the entire way through Georgia. We were hoping to get through Tennessee and/or Kentucky to see the beautiful landscape, but it was too late. On the way to Florida, we saw a TON of trees that had been destroyed by all of the ice they had down there earlier in the winter. What devastation it was...miles and miles. We ended up going through Illinois and Iowa to try and avoid the huge snowstorm moving through MO and KS. When I woke up around 6 am and saw the bus driver white-knuckling it on the unplowed interstate with snow blowing sideways, I thought it would be best to just close my eyes and go back to sleep!

We finally made it home around 2:15 (4 hours later than originally planned), but nevertheless home safe! My mom and dad had to leave to go back home before we could see them so that was disappointing (they kept Alana for the week).

Enjoy the pics! Take care and God Bless!