It's Friday, Friday, Gotta Fly Down on Friday...

Welcome to our 2012 Disney trip!!!  I've actually listed the blog in a few places, so for the first time I'm making this really public.  We are so excited to share our adventures with you all!  Those of you who know me know I'm long winded and take a lot of pictures, so if you are easily bored you might want to go elsewhere.  I do this so that I have a record of what went down - which means you are reading my diary.  Please please please leave comments if you enjoy it - I love that stuff.  But please keep it nice - the audience for this is actually just me and I'm just sharing the view.  :)

Ok, with that out of the way....  We started today EARLY.  Like the early bird heard us getting ready and wondered what on earth we were doing up kind of early.  Evan was the first one ready?  So weird.  When I asked him if he was ready for the flight, he said "yep, I'm flapping my arms ALREADY!!!"  And despite the early, the morning was as easy as it's ever been!  We were on time, the flight went smoothly and the kids were good!  Here are the kids with Grampy and their new bags.  Love this:

We took the Magical Express (also know to most people as a bus) since we were staying at a Disney resort - specifically Coronado Springs.  The kids wanted to sit right in the front row and became the driver's "co-pillot".   Our bus driver was Joan, although when he pronounced it he made it sound nothing like Joan.....  And Joan had a huge gap between his teeth.  Joan is making the announcements when Evan yells "hey buddy, you lost a tooth!" loud enough to make sure the whole bus heard it....  Betty and I were mortified, and Joan stopped talking to us all after that!

But they are cute.

Since we were now starving, we went to Evan's favorite restaurant - IHOP.  Yep, we traveled 3 hours and 1300 miles to get the same funny face pancakes we could get at home.  That's my kids idea of vacation!

It was time to inject some Disney into this vacation.  After a quick change we headed over to Downtown Disney to get in the mood.  At this point we had seen 3 or 4 fountains and Evan was obsessed with them.  I told him I would only take more pictures if he was actually in them.  Tadah - fountain!

Hello old friend!  The water dragon can mean only 1 thing - the Lego Store!  I have had a fascination with this dragon for years - every year I take a different picture of it trying to recreate the first beautiful picture I ever took of this guy, back in 1998!  So far, it hasn't worked.... At least this year I tried from a different side!

This is Arron's heaven.  He LOVES Legos, and here he is working on Legos with his babies.  Exactly how a vacation should be!

Evan is very intent.

Ally is just happy to show off what she made!

After they played outside long enough for me to start melting like a popsicle on a hot sidewalk, I finally convinced them to come inside and play in there for a while.  Buzz helped me convince them, although only Ally would pose with him.

Easy there, Evan... You might want to watch where you are putting your hands.... on Woody and all...

After we finally dragged Arron the kids away from the Lego store, we decided to go see T-Rex. Keep in mind it is a restaurant (by the same people that brought you the Rainforest Cafe) and it's been only a few hours since IHOP filled us to the brim.....  But the place is cool enough to try to eat again anyway.   For those of you who have never been, it looks crazy inside like this:

plus it is loud and there is a meteor shower every 20 minutes or so.  We ended up at the bar because it meant we could sit down right away and it glows a pretty blue :)  And yes, I took my 8 and 4 year old to a bar.  And let them order weird sweet drinks.  Gotta teach them sometime, right?

On the way out, Ally literally made me stop to smell the flowers.  Pretty flower for a pretty girl.  :)

We headed back to the hotel, and when we got back there was a sky writer writing the following message:

Awww.... thanks up there.  We love you too! 

So number one on the kids agenda was head to the pool.  They tolerated shopping, mostly because they could spend the money we helped them save that was burning right through their little pants pockets.  Since we had bought stuff and fed them, we really had to take them to the pool.  Go and check it out here - it is AMAZING.

Before the trip I picked up a cheap waterproof camera.  BEST IDEA EVER!  It is super slow to take pictures, probably because it was cheap, but hot damn did I get some fun shots!

The pool also has a kick butt waterside.  Ally LOVED it from the first run

Evan got dunked at the bottom.  It's a serious slide!  Check it out, but keep the sound off.  No need to hear my giggle like an idiot....

Evan was fine though - he found his own kiddie pool!

Eventually we talked him into trying again, but only if I was right at the bottom to catch him before he went under!  Not an easy feat....

I think I'm going to have a lot of tongue out pictures this year.  I already have a million of them today and we've been here 1 day!

This one is sweeter....

But he is not as brave at Allison is!

The site at night. We swam until 8:30 at night!  And with the lights it really is beautiful...

But not as beautiful as this little girl right here!

Tomorrow:  Magic Kingdom!