Life is a Highway

Welcome to our 2016 trip to Disney!  This is the first trip we have ever taken on our own, and the first time we have ever driven down here.  Two days, 12 states (plus DC) and a lot of pit stops and we finally made it to Orlando today!!

We actually arrived mid afternoon (but the night photo was prettier!) and we headed over to Disney Springs first.   My kids still hold hands when they walk together.  I love it so much....

Since our Disney tickets start tomorrow, we thought we would go hang out in Disney Springs (formerly known as Downtown Disney, Pleasure Island and I'm sure something else) and have dinner at one of our favorite restaurants T-Rex.

I'm not sure if the food was amazing or we were excited and hungry but everything we had was fantastic!

Although I'm sure this helped :)

We had pretty cool seats, right by fire cooking AND ice caves.

Although the best part is the meteor shower that happens every half hour.... Because you know....  Disney and all....

 Ally made me take her picture with the baby wooly mammoth before we headed off to my favorite store.

 the Lego store!  

We wandered around for 45 minutes and honestly I could have stayed longer.  The kids too.  

I want to build everything in there...  And because someone had just returned it and I was in the right place at the right time, I SCORED THE VERY LAST DR. WHO set!!!!!!

Isn't she cute?  She thinks I'm gonna share!!!!  

So we kinda forgot that it is a Saturday night and the last big weekend night for the Christmas/New Years crowd.  Around this time we started to notice that the whole area was PACKED.  And there was music coming from the stage area.  We took a quick photo near the Lego serpent and then ran over to check it out.

There was one super talented guy on stage singing and dancing and getting the crowd up and moving and for the first time EVER my son was too shy to play along! My baby is growing up....  After Ally and I were done making fools of ourselves we went into the World of Disney to shop a bit.  

I love that the Christmas lights are still up.  The kids have to try on all the ears/hats because that's just what they do....

And as you can see, this years stuff is dominated by Stat Wars...

EXPENSIVE Star Wars!

Seriously, would you spend $75 on a kids backpack?????

Evan started complaining of a stomach ache (and frankly all the price tags were giving me one too...) so we started heading back.  It still took 45 minutes to get to the car walking like cattle in the massive herd that was still there.  Glad it should be thinning out for the rest of the week!

Tomorrow we start off in EPCOT!  Thanks for reading!