Does this mean we aren’t going to the mountains? ** 3/6 Link to new PTR**

[praisehisname]

So cute!

We made our way onto Main Street USA and I got a picture of Hannah’s face when she saw the castle for the first time:

She put her hands to her cheeks and said “it’s beautiful, so beautiful”.

Adorable!

Can't wait to hear about your dinner with Kathy!

 

[pipersmom]

I've been lurking and figured it was time to post The kids are so sweet..their expressions in almost every picture are just glowing, you can tell they're really appreciating the trip. It was so sweet of Bill to get the flowers for you. I'm sorry Josh decided to show his butt..and so early on in the trip! You absolutely did the right thing, hoping you didn't have to do it again toooo many times during the trip. It is awesome though, how great he seems to be with Bill. Now to get a picture of him smiling! Looking forward to the next installment...

 

[DisneyJo]

Hannah turned to him her letting hands going and said "Christian it's Disney World not DisneySTAND". That completely cracked me up, she was so serious

Awww so cute

I love how Christian has his arms wrapped round Bill

[/SIZE][/FONT]

So cute!!!!

The kids look so happy to meet the characters

 

[dillydilly]

Cute outfit on Hannah! The look on her face when she sees the castle is priceless. Love the pic of you all at Epcot. Enjoying your TR, more please!

 

[mrsksomeday]

Okay....

Everything Pop has surprisingly good food.

1pm! Man was I off. I like your attitude Easy peasy.

The combination of your pix and Josh's pics give us all a sense of what the day was like through different eyes. For you it's about family, about these kids who are in your life, about making them happy. For Josh, it's experiencing the detailing of the park. He's loving it and you can tell in his pix.

The whole Hannah story about Ohana....so nice...made me mist up a bit!

I can tell Abbey, Josh and the kids love Bill. Like you said, it makes the heart swell.

I love how you talked about the combination of the pictures, that explains it perfectly. It was a great day.

Thank you so much for sharing this story. It gave me goose bumps and had me tearing up.

Thanks for reading.

I love the expression on Hannah's face when she saw the Castle, priceless. Isn't that what we as parents live for, seeing the World through their eyes, although I myself would have tears so I wouldn't be able to see their reaction anywayBTW: you have a beautiful family

It was a beautiful gift to be able to see her reaction to the Castle.

Another great update Tracy! Christian and Hannah are just adorable. I love how Christian has his arm draped around Bill in the first photopass picture and how Hannah played bumper chairs with Bill. It's great to see you in some picture too!

I'm enjoying Josh's pictures, he got some good ones.

Looking forward to hearing all about Ohana!

It really touched me that the kids embraced Bill, he was so happy.

Looks like a fun afternoon at MK! Hannah's reaction to the castle is priceless!!

Can't wait to hear about your dinner with Kathy & family!

It was a great afternoon.

Enjoying the TR!

Glad you are enjoying it.

Looks like your first park day was a hit! I love that Minnie outfit, it is adorable!

Hannah loved it too, she kept twirling.

Great start Tracy! Hannah's outfit is adorable. Did you make that?

I didn't make any of the customs you will see in our report, a lovely, wonderful, giving DISer named Piper made them.

Can't wait to hear about your dinner with Kathy!

I will probably post that late this weekend or Monday.

I've been lurking and figured it was time to post The kids are so sweet..their expressions in almost every picture are just glowing, you can tell they're really appreciating the trip. It was so sweet of Bill to get the flowers for you. I'm sorry Josh decided to show his butt..and so early on in the trip! You absolutely did the right thing, hoping you didn't have to do it again toooo many times during the trip. It is awesome though, how great he seems to be with Bill. Now to get a picture of him smiling! Looking forward to the next installment...

Welcome to our PTR. You might just see a pic of Josh smiling somewhat later in the report .

Awww so cute

I love how Christian has his arms wrapped round Bill

So cute!!!!

The kids look so happy to meet the characters

It was wonderful how close Bill and Christian became. The kids loved meeting characters.

Cute outfit on Hannah! The look on her face when she sees the castle is priceless. Love the pic of you all at Epcot. Enjoying your TR, more please!

Thanks for reading.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As for not crying when Hannah saw the Castle, Bill reminded me that I got all teary eyed, Abbey looked at me and said "please don't cry, if you do I will and we won't stop", so I sucked it up, dried my eyes and we walked up Main Street.

 

[dlwharp]

I can't get over how much Hannah looks like Abby!

 

[dlwharp]

Our lazy butts slept until 10:30am then we were slow to get around. Hannah was dressed in her Minnie outfit today and she also got to keep my Minnie ears, Christian was wearing the Pirates t-shirt I bought him:

I LOVE Hannah's outfit!!

She put her hands to her cheeks and said “it’s beautiful, so beautiful”. I almost started crying. We turned to go in front of the Crystal Palace. The castle show was going on so we stopped for a minute.

That is SO sweet!

I told them we were going to the Polynesian Resort to have dinner at ‘Ohana. Hannah piped up and said “Ohana means family. Family means no one is left behind”. I said you are very right!! Then we headed for the monorail.

Awwwww!

 

[mrsksomeday]

I can't get over how much Hannah looks like Abby!

I know it is like someone shrunk Abbey. She acts just like her Mommy too, it's adorable.

I LOVE Hannah's outfit!!

I loved all the outfits Piper made, I can't pick a favorite they are all gorgeous!

 

[RunningGirl]

I got so excited when I read your chapter title! I missed the comma and read
"Sleeping in Magic Kingdom". I thought you got to stay in the castle! Glad you're getting to share your love of Disney. (Good of you to be patient with the smoking - I'm so commando that would drive me crazy!)

 

[mrsksomeday]

I got so excited when I read your chapter title! I missed the comma and read
"Sleeping in Magic Kingdom". I thought you got to stay in the castle! Glad you're getting to share your love of Disney. (Good of you to be patient with the smoking - I'm so commando that would drive me crazy!)

So sorry about you getting excited about the chapter title, I would freak out if we ever got to stay in the Castle . This is the second time we have taken a smoker to Disney. I swear I might tell them if you want to go back you have to quit smoking .

 

[mousescrapper]

Sounds like a wonderful to start to the trip and I love how laid back you are w/ getting to the parks...Hannah looks so sweet in her Minnie dress

That sounds so wonderful how sweet the kids are and just every little thing is so special to them and I love how it sounds like they are having a blast being there w/ you and Bill!

love the taking their helmets off thing...

Can't wait for more!

Scrappie J~

 

[mrsksomeday]

Sounds like a wonderful to start to the trip and I love how laid back you are w/ getting to the parks...Hannah looks so sweet in her Minnie dress

That sounds so wonderful how sweet the kids are and just every little thing is so special to them and I love how it sounds like they are having a blast being there w/ you and Bill!

love the taking their helmets off thing...

Can't wait for more!

Scrappie J~

I really did take everyones advice from my PTR to heart. With 5 different personalities we needed to just go with the flow. The kids really did have fun.

When Hannah said that about the helmuts I was stunned, but she let it go and had a great time with the characters.

Thanks for reading.

 

[mrsksomeday]

It was rather warm that day, the reason I had for ushering all of us to the monorail at that point was to make it to the Poly and go into the restroom to freshen up. TMI – As a big girl in hot Florida I tend to sweat a bit, I wanted to wash my face. We walked up the big incline and they ushered us to where Bill would need to be. We weren’t there for 2 minutes when something caught my eye. It was KATHY heading straight for us. I was hugged and she kissed my sweaty cheek before I knew it. OMG the horror

, I was so embarrassed. She went straight for Bill and hugged and kissed him too. He was grinning from ear to ear, we both adore her and her family. Kathy and I had texted earlier in the day and Billy hadn’t been feeling well. The back up plan was to have Ed stay at the resort with Billy and the girls would have come with Kathy. I was happy to see that Billy with them. We all introduced everyone to everyone and here is where I informed Josh we were eating dinner with them.

Why you ask did I wait until we were headed to the Poly to do this? Josh is like his father at times where he feels uncomfortable meeting strangers and even more uncomfortable eating with them. He had no where to go but the open monorail car, so in we all went. Kathy and family had to go to another car.

We got off the monorail and were all talking, Bill and Ed were talking about baseball, Ed was so happy that the Yankees had won the World Series. When Ed found out Bill liked the Dodgers I thought he was going to walk out

, just kidding. Ed is a really great guy. We got to meet Catie, Kathy’s niece, she is adorable, sweet, kind, and hilarious, her and Tricia had Bill and I laughing throughout the meal. They were so funny.

We got a group picture, Kathy has it on her camera, then we were seated at a very big table, even though Kathy and I weren’t that close to one another we still got to chat. I gave the kids some Disney Dollars and Kathy handed me a bag. It was too cute, it had suckers and pens for the kids and Christmas ornaments for them. I am a horrible trip report writer because I didn’t get pictures of them. She got Hannah a pink Mickey ears hat ornament that said “Princess” and Christian’s was a Pirate one, they were adorable. She also got me a set of ornaments with the park icons. I hadn’t asked about us exchanging anything so I didn’t have anything for her, but I did pay for the Lapu Lapu she said we needed to get because it was DIS tradition

. We had to take goofy pictures with it so here is the one I took of Kathy (goodness knows what I look like in my pic)

.

Hannah loved the entertainment and when they asked for kids to join in she was all for it. Abbey and Josh went with her.

Abbey said at one point they asked for the Daddy’s to dance with the daughters and Josh danced with Hannah. Abbey said it was all she could do not to cry.

When the kids were marching Josh came back to the table and I can’t believe it but he was wearing this:

I got up to get a picture of Hannah and Josh sat by Bill to talk:

I love to see those moments between Bill and Josh. The conversation seemed to flow well. Abbey and Josh were on edge, see the smokers had lost their cigarettes somewhere this day and were DYING for a smoke. They decided to go see if the store at the Poly had any so the kids stayed with us. Christian was enjoying the food and Hannah was so happy to talk to everyone. She is shy but once she gets to know you watch out. Before I knew it she was under the table and popped up right by Tricia, she surprised us. I asked her to sit back down.

Dinner was over, we wanted to try to see some of Spectro before Wishes and it took the server a little while to figure out the bill even thought Kathy and I had both told him there was separate bills and how many in each room. At one point I didn’t even have my key card and panicked a bit. Come to find out the server had it in his pocket

. We all took potty breaks, went back on the monorail and over to MK.

On the way in to the park Josh got an attitude all the sudden thinking that they could just walk in and go ride some rides. Ummm son, Spectro is going on, in fact it is right on Main Street, there is NO WAY you are going to get to any rides now. Well it seems a trend started that night “I am an adult and if we want to go we will”. I said “go for it, I am staying with our friends”. Bill and I went with Kathy and family. I know she could tell there was a situation with Josh and I wasn’t going to let him ruin my night.

We made our way up onto the porch in front of the Exposition Hall to try to see the parade and about 5 or 10 minutes later, who walks up but Abbey and family. Seems they couldn’t get through the crowds and decided to hang out with us. Christian and Hannah liked the parade. Poor Tricia and Catie, Christian kept wanting to trade pins with them. He became a real pin trader this trip. Josh and Abbey had paid out the nose for cigarettes at the Poly and went to the smoking area.

After Spectro, all of us were trying to find out a spot for Wishes and we decided to head down Main Street. Josh and family wanted to look in the Exposition Hall and said they would catch up. I had told Kathy that after we decided where to go, I would go back and tell the where we were. We ended up not far from Walt’s statue to the right. I was getting ready to go back up the street when Josh and Abbey came out of the crowd. What luck was that, I couldn’t believe that they found us in all those people. I fibbed a bit and told Josh the lines would be really long for the rides and they might as well just watch the fireworks

.

This was the view we had:

Josh and Abbey started taking pictures of the Castle, you know you get near it and you just have to. I was talking to Ed and Kathy and said this time I am going to try to just watch it and not take pictures. Hannah was in awe of the fireworks, she just kept saying “wow”. She loved seeing Tink fly.

The not taking pictures lasted about 5 minutes, I got the camera out and Ed laughed at me and said “you just can’t help it can you?” I said “no” and giggled then started taking pictures.

After the fireworks, Kathy and family decided it was time to go, we hugged, I was so thankful that she shared a bit of her vacation with us. I really can not express how wonderful this lady is, she is kind, caring, funny, and just wonderful. Ed is a great guy, they are just fantastic people and their kids are amazing, so was Catie.

We waited a bit for the crowds to thin out, Josh said the fireworks were awesome, then started walking out. They wanted to smoke before we got on the bus and the kids, Bill, and I went to meet the Goofy statue.

This is from my Blackberry, I had posted it on Facebook:

We got back to Pop and Josh took this picture of Abbey while we were waiting for Bill to get unloaded:

She is so beautiful inside and out!

Hannah was a little tired don’t you think?

They went into Everything Pop and looked around. Hannah tried on some Mouse Ears:

She ended up with a friend that night:

She adores him and had to tuck him in every morning when we left for the parks, it was too cute. Bill and I went back to the room, they weren’t far behind.

Next installment…A full Epcot day, would we make rope drop?

 

[kayrosek]

Hi I followed your link over here from KathyRN's threads. Wow what a great surprise for the kids. Your son sounds a bit like my DH He has great traits but boy he can be stubborn. Looks like a good trip so far I can't wait to read more.

 

[jordanyosh]

Kathy looks great!

I'm glad you got to share a meal with them.

Josh, just being Josh. I'm thinking you're batting 2 for 2 not letting him get to you and I must say vice versa.

Great pix of Wishes. Thanks for taking them as I really haven't seen them from that close. I saw them in 08 but from the entrance of Main St.

I just noticed that there aren't that many pix of you yet. Does that change?

 

[Minniekins]

This post may be a bit random, my quotes got mixed up so I put my responses in color, but I'm enjoying reading your TR! Sounds like you all had such fun and they seem to be getting the magic!
Josh really likes being helpful with Bill, he is very protective of him.
That's so nice how Josh really cares for Bill!

... I think all of them are hooked on Disney now.

That is awesome! That must feel great that you two shared your love of Disney and they got it and share it!

Next installment… we didn’t make it to Magic Kingdom until when?????[/QUOTE]

Our lazy butts slept until 10:30am then we were slow to get around. Hannah was dressed in her Minnie outfit today and she also got to keep my Minnie ears, Christian was wearing the Pirates t-shirt I bought him:
Yep, you got there more like on my time, lol! Hannah looked so adorable in her Minnie dress!

We made our way onto Main Street USA and I got a picture of Hannah’s face when she saw the castle for the first time:
You could see Hannah was just in awe and amazement!

She put her hands to her cheeks and said “it’s beautiful, so beautiful”. I almost started crying. We turned to go in front of the Crystal Palace. The castle show was going on so we stopped for a minute.
Ohh, can really bring a tear at how beautiful!

While Christian and I were in line, Bill and Hannah were playing:

She was telling him to move his chair closer to the stroller then he would bump it then she would tell him to back away, they did this several times during the trip and every time he would bump the stroller she would just giggle like crazy. Bill loved this because the kids really involved him in everything, they included him, and it really made my heart swell.
It's so sweet how Hannah love to play with Bill in their "wheelchairs" lol! The kids both get along with Bill so well and really seem to have fun with him!

Hmm, more quotes but anyway, sounds like you had a lot of fun with Kathy and family, and that the two family's really got along and enjoyed the night together! How great that you got to spend a good chunk of time doing some really special things with dis friends!
Love the wishes pics and the pic of the kids with the Goofy statue!

Thanks for the updates, so fun to read. You are doing a great job! It's like I'm right there in disney and it's helping me get more excited for our trip coming Jan 2nd!(I'm anxious in these days leading up as time is going so fast, I'm not ready to go and we've got the holidays, and stuff and ahhhh!)

 

[Hedy]

Glad you had a good meet with Kathy et al!

 

[jkCT]

What a great trip report so far! I am usually just a lurker, but I had to point out that although Josh doesn't smile when you point a camera right at him, I'm lovin' his smile in the shot where he's talking to Bill! Thank you for sharing your trip with us!!

 

[Lifelong_Dreamer]

So glad you got to have dinner with Kathy and that everything went smoothly.

Good for you for not letting Josh get to you. I need to learn how to do that with my brothers.

 

[eandesmom]

You are doing a really impressive job of not letting Josh get to you so far. I'd have such a hard time with the smoking breaks!

Adorable pictures of everyone and what a lovely evening you had with Kathy and family!