We had a very low key Thanksgiving this year, but it's just what we needed! I feel like our lives have been crazy since we got back from vacation, and the week before Thanksgiving was especially unexpected and chaotic, so a simple Thanksgiving break is what we all needed, and we enjoyed it so much.
My grandparents came into town Tuesday afternoon, and since they were able to stay with Samuel and Elisabeth, I headed to Nathan's school to help his teacher with his class Thanksgiving feast. He was so excited to eat pumpkin pie, and I enjoyed the opportunity to help his teacher and spend some time with him and the kids in his class. It was a fun afternoon.
Whenever we visit my grandparents, Nathan loves playing this game called Fast Track. Granny surprised him and brought it, so at night we put Samuel and Elisabeth to bed, and then the five of us played it. He's big enough to play without any help really (a little advice here or there, but that's it), and he gets so excited about wining or "getting" somebody. We played two games each night they were here. Fun memories!
Nathan was excited about a break from school for Thanksgiving. He said he wanted to stay in his jammies all day on Wednesday and play Legos, and that's pretty much what he did!
My Little Turkeys were ready to celebrate Thanksgiving! We had a lazy morning in our jammies watching the parade and then got dressed and headed to my parents' house for lunch.
While we waited for lunch, Nathan and Matt looked over the Christmas catalogs.
Elisabeth was so cute with her Grandaddy. She'd just randomly hop up in his lap for a quick snuggle and then hop down again. She did it several times while he was here. They love each other.
Lunch was yummy!
Thursday afternoon these two bonded over their love of puzzles. They spent close to an hour putting puzzles together.
After Thanksgiving, we were excited to still have three more days at home with Daddy and Nathan. Friday morning, we asked the kids what they wanted to do for the day, and they all said they wanted to put up the Christmas tree, so we spent the morning decorating.
Nathan was super excited to hang our new ornament from Disney World.
We had a lazy day at home. Finally about 4:30 that afternoon we got dressed and left the house. ha! We took the kids to McDonalds for dinner and let them burn off some energy on the play place. They had a blast playing, and Matt and I got a chance to visit in peace for a few minutes while they played. I needed that time with him!
Saturday we had another lazy morning, but managed to get dressed by about 10:30 and headed to Wal Mart. Nathan needed to pick out a birthday present for a friend, and I needed a couple of things. And we ended up coming home with a new TV. ha! We had been casually (very casually) talking about wishing we had a bigger TV in the Living Room for a couple of months, but nothing serious at all. Matt saw a great price from Black Friday while we were at Wal Mart though, and decided not to pass it up. We usually are not impulse buyers, so I'm still a little shocked he did that! But it's been fun to have a bigger TV, and now we have a TV upstairs in the play room. Nathan has been thrilled about that. They play "movie theater" upstairs now.
And a bigger TV was perfect for binge watching the new Gilmore Girls all weekend. Matt and I spent nap times and our evenings after the kids were in bed catching up on the all the new things in Lorelai and Rory's lives. We finished Sunday night, and I LOVED it. For some reason, I didn't have super high expectations, and it way exceeded them. I hope they do another season.
Saturday afternoon we met the Millers at the park to play. We all had a great time playing and visiting.
Sunday was another typical day. Church, lunch, naps, playtime and my Cutie ready for church Sunday morning in her "Missy coat"
Nathan wanted to have a game night Sunday night, so we played Monopoly Jr. and his Thomas the Train game. Elisabeth is about the worst game player around, but it was still fun!
I'm so thankful for my family and spending some uninterrupted quality time with them for four straight days was the perfect ending to our crazy November!
Thursday was our last Disney day, and we were back at Hollywood Studios for the morning. After our crazy, unexpected day on Sunday, Thursday was so much smoother. Pretty much everything went as planned, which is always how I like it :). We made it early enough for rope drop Thursday, and our first stop was Toy Story Mania. We were able to pretty much walk right on the ride, and I beat my score from Sunday, so that was fun. On the way off the ride, the kids were excited to say hi to the army man.
After Toy Story Mania, we headed to the Star Wars Launch Bay to meet Kylo Ren and Chewbacca. Nathan ran right up to Kylo Ren and grabbed his hand before he was told that the Dark One didn't like to be touched. Ha! He was really the only villain we met during all our days at Disney, and my kids didn't know how to respond!
Nathan was a little anxious, but so excited at the same time to meet him. When we left Kylo Ren told the boys to enjoy their remaining time in the light.
And the kids LOVED Chewbacca. Big hugs all around! And Nathan talked like a Wookie the whole time. After we met him, Nathan said, "You didn't even know I could talk Wookie, did you Mommy?"
They had some other fun characters and things at the Launch Bay, so we explored a bit. These Jawas thought Samuel was a droid and tried to buy him from Nathan. The boys both got a kick out of that, and at one point during the trip, both said the Jawas were their favorite characters they saw at Disney.
We had fast passes for Tower of Terror for me and Nathan, so we headed there next. At the last minute, Matt and I talked about it and decided to let Samuel ride it too. We figured after the Rainforest Cafe debacle that he would be way too scared, but he was adamant that he wanted to ride it. When we thought it through, the things that were scary to Samuel were always just loud noises, and this was different, so we decided to try it. Matt stayed close in case he chickened out. I even told Samuel not to wear his boots that morning because he wouldn't need them, but he was ATTACHED to those boots and what they meant for him at Disney, so he wore them anyways thankfully.
And it was a success for all of us! Yay! Tower of Terror is probably my favorite Disney Ride. I love the rides where I lose my stomach with big drops, and add in the Disney magic and ambiance, and it's just perfect for me!
The boys were a little scared at first of the "Thunder People" (what they called the Twilight Zone special effects of the people trapped in the elevator). They held on tight to me, but the drop was pure fun for them. And as soon as it was over, they were both begging to ride again.
We had rider swap, so they could ride one more time, but we also needed to get to the Disney Jr. show on time, so we saved our rider swap for later in the day, and got in line for the show.
I was looking forward to the Disney Jr show, because at the ages of our kids, they actually know a lot more about the Disney Jr characters than other classic Disney things. They watch Disney Jr. all the time, and it's also something that all three of them enjoy together right now, so we couldn't miss the show (Matt and I happily skipped it the last time we were there, ha!).
It was a super cute show geared exactly to the ages of our kids. The kids got to dance and sing along, and they had special effects like snow, bubbles, and gold doubloons that came down from the ceiling. It was a great time seeing how much the kids loved it. Even Nathan, who I feel is on the verge of starting to outgrow things like that, still asks if we can see the show again when we go back to Disney World.
After the show, Elisabeth and I sent the boys back to Tower of Terror, while we shopped for a few gifts at the Disney Jr. gift shop.
The boys were brave enough to hold their hands up the second time around. I love how much they enjoyed that ride!!
Whenever we were walking around the park, we always ran into some sort of Star Wars play or parade or march or something. It was pretty much Nathan's dream come true.
We had lunch reservations at Hollywood Play and Dine for lunch with the Disney Jr. characters. When I booked our dining, I actually was most excited about this meal, because of how much my kids love Disney Jr, but I guess my expectations were too high, because it was disappointing for me. I had read that the characters do little dances and get the kids involved in a simple show every few minutes, and I also thought there would be more (or at least different characters). I had talked to the kids that we didn't know who they would get to meet, but it might be Handy Manny or Special Agent Oso, Little Einsteins, or even Sheriff Callie. They did get to meet Handy Manny which was fun, because they like that show a lot, but the rest of the characters were ones we had already met (multiple times already), which was a bummer for me. I was hoping they'd get to see some other favorites, and there was no show or anything at all, just normal character greets.
The cool thing about my kids though is that they were not disappointed at all. It didn't matter that Elisabeth had already met Doc Mcstuffins two times already, she squealed with joy, the moment she saw her come around the corner, and the boys' eyes lit up like they had never seen Jake before. They were not disappointed at all, so that's what I kept reminding myself, and they all three were pumped to get to meet Handy Manny.
And you can't go wrong with an all you can eat dessert buffet :).
After lunch, Matt was ready to head back to the hotel to rest, but the boys and I convinced him to see the Beauty and the Beast play before we left. Good thing he loves us. I'm glad we stayed and watched it. Matt and I had seen it before, but it was as good (if not better) than I remembered. I loved the costumes and songs and magic, it was great. And Elisabeth did awesome right in the middle of nap time too. And I know it was the most recent show in their minds at the end of the week, but both boys named it as their favorite show of the week. Nathan has a soft spot for anything Beauty and the Beast now after Enchanted Tales with Belle.
We headed back to our hotel around 2:30. We had early dinner reservations, so we didn't have much of a break at the hotel, but we did managed to take a couple of pictures around the resort.
The boys were obsessed with this tire and playing in the steam. They asked to play in it every time we walked to our room.
No one actually ended up napping that afternoon at the hotel. The boys played, I packed and Matt started loading the car (so sad...), so at 3:45 when we got in line for the buses to head to dinner, Elisabeth finally gave up. She might have been a little grouchy at dinner.
I managed to get a last minute reservation at Ohana, and I had heard awesome things about it, so we were excited. Matt was wishing it could have been a date night, because although all things at Disney are kid friendly, this was definitely are least kids friendly meal. I don't think the kids knew what to do without characters. The did have coconut races though, which they thought was cool.
The food was definitely delicious. I just wish we would have been more hungry, and we had a lot of kids who needed potty breaks which made it less relaxing too. My favorite thing though was that during dinner we all five talked about our favorite things about our week. I was getting a little depressed about our huge, awesome trip that we had looked forward to for so long coming to an end, but to have the time to all talk about what a great week we had and all the memories we made together as a whole family was a really special moment.
Here's a list of all our favorites:
Favorite Character:
Nathan- Kylo Ren
Samuel- Winnie the Pooh
Elisabeth- Doc McStuffins
Matt- Magic Mickey
Angela- Belle
Favorite Meal
Nathan, Samuel, and Elisabeth- Chef Mickey's
Matt and Angela- Crystal Palace
Favorite Rides
Nathan- Tower of Terror, Space Mountain, Expedition Everest
Samuel- Splash Mountain, Tower of Terror, Winnie the Pooh
Elisabeth- It's a Small World, Winnie the Pooh, Frozen Ever After
Matt- Tower of Terror, Splash Mountain, Test Track
Angela- Tower of Terror, Splash Mountain, Frozen Ever After
Favorite Show
Nathan- Beauty and the Beast
Samuel- Beauty and the Beast
Elisabeth- Disney Junior
Matt- Festival of the Lion King
Angela- Finding Nemo, the Musical
All Time Favorite
Nathan- Jedi Training
Samuel- Splash Mountain
Elisabeth- It's a Small World and Playground at Splash Mountain
Matt- Splash Mountain
Angela- Enchanted Tales with Belle
After dinner, we took the longest way possible to get to Epcot, but the kids wanted to ride the ferry, so we let them. We didn't make it to Epcot until 7:00. I felt like we had to sacrifice time at Epcot to do other things during the week, and that was a bit of a bummer. We didn't get to explore the World Showcase at all really (except Norway), but we also felt like the kids were young anyway, so we'll have something to look forward to next time. Honestly, when Matt and I came last time, I don't remember being super impressed with Epcot, but maybe that's why I was okay skipping a lot of it to do other things. I do know Nathan was bummed to miss a few things. I felt bad when he wanted to spend more time at the aquarium and random play areas, but we still got to do a lot. I kept reminding myself that he much preferred doing Jedi Training and Mission Space and all those things much more than seeing the whales at the aquarium and playing in the shark's mouth.
When we got to Epcot, we used our rider swap to ride Test Track again. The kids got to design their own car before the ride, and they both thought that was cool.
Then we went to do Turtle Talk with Crush where there was an interactive Crush that answered all the kids questions. That was funny and super cute. After that, Matt took the boys to ride Soarin' again, and Elisabeth and I rode the Seas with Nemo. They had changed that ride a lot since we rode it last time, and it was much better. I liked it a lot actually! We had a chance to see a couple of fireworks on our way out, but the kids were beat, and we had an early morning of driving ahead of us, so we called it an early evening and said goodbye to Epcot.
Our vacation was awesome and something that I think all of us (except Elisabeth) will remember forever. Disney definitely lived up to all our expectations, but really what surprised me most, was just how much I genuinely appreciated spending ten straight days completely with my family without all the distractions of everyday life. It was A LOT of work, and there were certainly frustrating moments, but I loved being together for such an extended period of time way more than I thought I would. I realized that's why I love vacations so much, because I get to be with the people I love the most ALL the time.
We are still living on the Disney high, and I can't get enough of it. The boys have built a Tower of Terror out of Legos, they all dressed up as Disney characters for Halloween, anytime a Disney character is on TV Elisabeth announces that she met them at Disney World, the kids have played Chef Mickey's and pretended playgrounds are Splash Mountain. I hope it never goes away. It will be years before we can make it back to Disney, and that makes me sad, because the kids talk about going back again like we're going tomorrow, and they will change so much before we go back and be interested in completely different things. The whole experience will be different, but I'm so, so grateful we have these sweet memories, and for time with these people I love more than anything.
