Monday, April 23 Vow Renewal Day
I don't know why I can do this on vacation, but not at home, I am once again wide awake at 5:30 am! So, out of bed I roll and start the coffee. I decide to turn on the news and fold laundry! How romantic!!!
At 7:00, I begin to wake up the rest of the clan. After DH is awake and has had a cup of coffee, it is time for me to jump in the shower and get ready. I had set out the boys clothes the evening before, so DH can help them get dressed. The girls and I are getting ready in their room, which has a bathroom right off of it! I lock the doors, so we won't be disturbed. We need to leave the condo by 8:45, since the girls have an appointment to get their hair done at the BBB.
Once we are dressed, we unlock the doors and let the boys see how we look. They approve! So, out the door we go. It takes a few minutes to load 6 children and to get myself in the van without getting my gown dirty! DH has put a sheet on my seat to make sure that I don't get dirty. I had considered getting a limo, but decided to spend the money on a Wishes Cruise instead!
We arrive at DTD and get the girls to their appointment with time to spare. The BBB is packed! The girls are both called within minutes and "Yeah" they are seated next to one another! I let them pick whichever hair do they want. Weird, but they choose the same boring bun style hair do! I would have chosen the Pop Diva for myself!!! But hey, it is their hair! Maybe next time!!!
When the girls are done we head over to the photo center. I have a coupon for a free 5x7 from our BBB sitting, that I printed off AP website. I pick out a photo of Ashleigh and then I let Savannah choose a picture for herself. After we get our photos, everyone is famished and we still have time. The kids vote for where else... Mc Donald's of course! The looks that we received walking into Mc D's al dressed up were priceless! Ok everyone, please manage to eat without wearing your food!!! At least until the VR is over! They all do a great job!
We ar supposed to be at the chapel by 11:45. It is only 10:45, so we alk around and take some pictures around DTD. We head out at about 11:15 am. I have an idea of where we are headed, but not exactly sure. We arrive at the chapel in about 20 minutes. We are a little early, but they are ready for us!
The girls and I choose our bouquets and Dh gets a boutenierre. The children are assigned their jobs for the ceremony! Dakota will be the best man, Dalton and Cameron will be the ring bearers, Savannah and Ashleigh will be flower girls and Brandon gets to give me away. It is all sooo perfect! As a family we have had a rough couple of years due to Ashleigh's illness and continuing therapy, but today everything is about all of us as a family, not just DH and myself. It affirms to the children not only how much we still love one another, but how much we love each and every one of them!
When the ceremony is over, our oldest DD has tears in her eyes. she goes on about how romantic it is that we still love one another. Bless her little heart!! We all high 5 one another and give hugs and kisses! Now the fun part, taking pictures with 6 kids!!! I am sure that all you parents out there know what I am talking about, especially if you have more than one child... trying to get everyone to smile and look at the camera at the same time is almost impossible!!! It was fun though!!!
When everything is over, we bid our farewells to Barb and Jay who own the chapel and to Heidi (their office assistant, whom by the way use to work for Disney , huh hmm, can anyone say Mickey Mouse...that is all I can write with children in the room!!!
We have decided to rest for the afternoon at the condo before the evening activities. We get back to Windsor Hills and the girls and I take our gowns off, so they won't get wrinkled or dirty. The kids want to play video games. OK. DH and I sit out on the verandah and you guessed it have a cocktail! We have to drive later so only one! I just love sitting out there and relaxing!!! I wish I was there right now!!!
We start to get dressed once again at 3pm. We have an ADR for 1900 Park Fare at 4:30. We arrive at the Grand Floridian at 4:15. I tell DH to valet the van, since I have DDE card it is free. What a riot this is with an 89 Chevy Van from the north! Anyone who lives in snow country knows what I am talking about! The salt that is used during the winter eats metal! The van is in decent shape, but it does have rust! Dh drops us off in front of the GF and tells the valet attendant not to chip the rust!He is sooo weird sometimes!
We check in for our ADR and I make sure that they have marked on our ADR that I ordered a cake. They have, all is good! The fairy godmother hasn't arrived yet, the cildren are wondering where she is. They remember her in the foyer from last year. We are seated in a few minutes. OOpps they try to put us at a table for 6, uuummm hello, there are 8 of us! Not a probmel they pull over a couple more chairs and place settings. The children love the mac and cheese here! They could eat a boat load of it! The food is good as usual. The charcters, especiall the mice, are great! This is Ashleigh's first big test with the characters! She would not let them within 3 feet of her last year. We are all cringing when they walkup...but guess what, she loves them this year!!!! YEAH!!! I have scheduled a few characters meals and was prepared to cancel if she was going to flip! We get to go to them!!!
After dinner,our server, I believe her name was Carol, brings out our cake. It is very cute. I thought that it was a little dry, but everyone else loves it! The only problem is, for some reason the bakery didn't put it on the gold cardboad that they normally do, but instead they placed it right on the silver platter. It made it quite difficult for poor Carol to put it in the box, sdo we could take the rest of it with us!
We pay our bill and get ready to leave . The Fairy Godmother has arrived in the foyer, so we stop for a visit with her. We decide to drive the cake back to the condo, so our Mickey and Minnie won't melt in the van. It is only 6:30 and we don't need to be on the dock at the Polynesian until 9pm, for our Wishes Cruise. After we drop the cake off, we head to the Polynesian to explore the hotel and to have a cocktail at the Tambu Lounge. Can you say Lapu Lapu?! OOHHH so YUMMY! The kids bed to look in the gift shops so we roam around and explore, before we head down to the dock.
We meet up with the others from our party. Hi Renee and Lindsey, if you are reading this!!!! Our driver arrives about 15 min. after we get to the dock. He has towls set on the seats, which is great, since I was worried about getting my gown dirty. He needs to drive the boat back to the Contemporary to pick up our snacks, since they weren't ready when he left. We saw Smee and Captain Hook on the Grand Gatherings boat as we pull up to the Contemporary! It looked as if all were having a blast. Our driver was fabulous! My husband was all riled up ( I think it was the sugar from the cake!), and they were both goofing off and just haveing an all around good time. Poor Renee and Lindsey were seated up front with my 2 oldest sons. Lets just say, my oldest son, can talk and talk and TALK!!! Renee has assured me that they both still can hear though! I was worried that he may have damaged their ear drums with all of his talking!
We were driven around the Seven Seas Lagoon before Wishes began. This cruise is sooo much fun and sooo worth the extra cost. We had a blast! I managed to get the boat with the music piped in. The sound system was awesome! Once we parked and Wishes began,it was unbelievable!!! The show was great!!! Words can't describe it! It is of course soo magical to be in the parks watching it, but to be able to enjoy it without the crowds and to reallly watch the looks on our childrens faces... it was priceless!!! I loved watching as Savannah closed her eyes to make a wish!!! IT WAS AWESOME!!! Can you tell that I liked it!
When we got back to the Polynesian, we bid Renee and Lindsey farewell, and off we went, back to our rusty van, and back to our home from home! It was a wonderful and magical day!!!! It turned out better than I could have expected!!!
As we were approaching the condo though,DH mentions that he feels something sticking on the van??!! I get out when we get to the condo, uumm dear, I smell brakes burning! Well at least the problem didn't occur until the end of the evening! More on theat in the next installment!
I can't wait to read all about the adventures your family surley had. 
Also DH was a little wound up from the whole day!!!! I thought he was having a little too much fun with the driver of the boat!
