Teaching Our Children Healthy Eating Habits
We are a fast paced society dependent on fast and convenient food. We have alternatives to this in our children's school lunches that may be beneficial to the health of our society.
http://www.associatedcontent.comarticle/2089933/teaching_our_children_healthy_eating.html

Grandpa and Grandma are great!!

I will come back to the Disney trip later. Right now I want to say my appreciation to my In-laws for taking my kids for a week. As hard as it was to let them go as Brookelyn went this time too, it has been great to get some things done without them.
It is a lot easier to go through their things and re arrange their rooms when they are not in them trying to keep everything that you put aside. I am trying not to let them become pack rats like their Mom (who is getting better about that). I am actually going to be able to clean my own room and get rid of some of the stuff that I have packed away.
I was able to go to the JCPenney outlet without kids to keep track of.
I will be able to go to the grocery store without having kids tagging along wanting everything in sight.
I am looking forward to getting my kids back, as I do not like to see their beds empty; but for now, I am happy to be without them for a few days.

The next chapter...

After seeing the princesses and Mickey/Minnie Mouse', we then explored the park and rode some rides. There is a little area in the back of the Magic Kingdom where your kids can play on slides, and explore a play house. The kids really enjoyed it. The kids really enjoyed Pirates of the Caribbean (of course who wouldn't), Peter Pan's flight, Its a Small World (not my favorite, but great for kids, especially young ones). I can't say enough about Disney parks as they are very family friendly that even kids as young as newborn can ride many of the rides. The cast members are so helpful to the guests.

We are not even fans of parades, but their "Celebrate a Dream Come True parade" was great. It really captured our kids, especially the 2 year old. She just loved it.

The evening of our first day there, we enjoyed the "extra magic hours" at EPCOT --those are hours that only guests of Disney Resorts can enjoy, so the lines are much shorter and the characters that come out are hilarious. One of the evenings had Goofy chasing Donald and Donald hiding from Goofy.

Our second day we joined my parents and went back to EPCOT. That is where the more technological advanced rides are. This was considered the park of the future at its inception. There are a couple of space themed rides there. One of those is Mission:Space which gives you the sensation of lift off in a rocket. The G forces are quite amazing. Go orange!!

Another one is Spaceship:Earth. It is a slow moving ride that takes you through the technology of the past 2oo years to present/future. It is an interactive ride. Brookelyn fell asleep on it.

There is also a ride there called Test Track where you ride a car through a testing ground like landscape with it ending with a 70 mph curve (it broke down while we were on the ride the first time--so they gave us another ride).

There is another one about the movie: Finding Nemo. Mykids just LOVED that one as Nemo is one of their favorite characters.

Finally, the ride that my kids and husband keep mentioning is SOARIN'. It is a simulation ride of a hang glider that flies over California and it almost feels like the real thing as you can feel wind in your face, turbulance from airplanes, etc... . I won't tell all as I don't want to give it away.

EPCOT also has the best fireworks and we could see those from our hotel balcony.

more to come.......

To continue.....

We hadn't even made it to the house of mouse yet, so after our enjoyment with the princesses, it was time to move on to Mickey, the world's most famous Mouse. The bonus was that Mickey and Minnie were together. Once again --SCORE-- one less line to wait in.

Again, I will say that despite being with children all day, they seemed thrilled to see three more.

Here they are signing our girls autograph books. We would send Brianna and Bethany in first to get their books signed, then we would send Brookelyn in since she did not have an autograph book this trip ( we are saying this trip because one day we do hope to go back when she is a little older).

A cute thing that happened with Minnie and Mickey is that both characters would get down to eye level with Brookelyn and wiggle their noses at her. She thought that was so cute. So, not only do they cater to those kids that are in between, but also to the very young.

Brookelyn had a ball with all the characters.

Once again, I applaud Disney for finding great people to work in the character costumes for the enjoyment of little kids of the world.

My Dream Come True...

Finally, the moment had arrived. I was there, with my family, at THE Walt Disney World Theme park in Orlando Florida (actually Lake Buena Vista). For our first day in the parks we chose the Magic Kingdom, of course. It is the most kid friendly as far as I could tell. The night before we tried to plan a strategy as our daughters wanted to see the princesses, so we studied the map and in the morning after a leisurely ride on the monorail we arrived at the gate. As soon as our bags were searched and our tickets were read by the ticket eating machine, we made a beeline for ToonTown where a certain Mouse pair are rumored to hang out. On our way to the House of Mouse, we stopped at the venue where we saw a sign for princesses and fairies. We found out that the wait was about 60 minutes (princesses) and 100 minutes (fairies)and there were three princesses at the end of the line. Well, kill three birds with one stone means two less lines to stand in, so we got in line for the princesses

We decided to do something special for them and bought them autograph books for their character sightings, so autograph books and three daughters in hand, we got in the princess line. The actual wait was closer to about 40 minutes and at the end of the lines were the three princesses that they wanted to see the most -- Cinderella, Belle, and Aurora (Sleeping Beauty for those of you non-princess people). I had tears in my eyes as I looked at my 5 year old daughters' faces. They were faces of awe. I will never forget that reaction as a mom, seeing it all through their eyes was so amazing. I was so impressed how each princess treated each little girl like she was the only one in the room. She spent time with them and made each one feel special.

I do have a funny story to tell relating to the princesses. My youngest visited Cinderella and when she was done, she was ready to move on to Belle, though there was another family with her at the time. We removed our child from the other family's photo and when it was her turn to visit Belle, she brought her sisters with her and Belle made the comment that "oh, hello again, and you brought your sisters with you.". By the time that we got to Princess Aurora, they were calling My daughter by name.
Cinderella was the first princess that they were able to see.

Better Late than Never

I know, I know it has been over three weeks since we have returned from the happiest place on earth . Can I go back now? We had a wonderful time as a family and it truly was a happy time for all of us. I will spend the next few blog posts sharing our experiences and a few of our pictures.

We checked into our resort, yes we spent the extra money to stay in the Disney resorts, and it was well worth it. We checked into the Caribbean Beach Resort and were immediatly immersed into the laid back Disney life and Disney hospitality that I had only read about in books. As a resort guest, you get free parking and VIP treatment at the parks when you enter. You get the "friendly wave" at the parking gates. That was one of the best things of all.

The view from our room was better than I expected (see picture) and the room itself was awesome. Not only was I not expecting a corner room, but I was not expecting a room overlooking the garden courtyard. Since we chose a standard view room, I thought I would probably get parking lot view, not the garden view as shown in the above picture. This was taken from our balcony outside our room. We also had more windows because we were on a corner as well.

The resort is made up of three "islands" --Jamaica, Aruba, Barbados, Martinique, Trinidad North and Trinidad South. These islands all surround a man made water inlet which has beaches by each island. Each island also has a pool and you are not allowed to swim in the lake water. There is a main pool and food court between the islands of Martinique and Trinidad North which has a gift shop, restaurant, concierge services, and several food selections including pizza, salads, sandwiches, etc... . We stayed on the "island" of Aruba.

Stay Tuned for more of our trip of a lifetime.

3 more days