FreezinRafiki
Cold enough for ya?
- Joined
- Apr 16, 2009
Greetings and Welcome to my third Trip Report!
I'll introduce the traveling party shortly, but first let's begin by getting a little bit of housekeeping out of the way. You can find my first trip report - 2 kids, 2 dogs, 1200 miles: 2 weeks and 2 birthdays in Florida - right here. In it, I tell the tail (yes, we had dogs along, so the pun is most definitely intended) of our first time driving from Wisconsin to Florida. We celebrated my daughter's 5th and my son's 2nd birthday at Walt Disney World in October of 2009.
You can find my second trip report - Cheese Ball Yak Attack: 2 kids, 2 dogs, 1200 miles - The Sequel - by clicking here. It's the sequel to my first trip report, since both adults, both kids and both dogs loaded up and drove to Disney World in March of 2010. What is a Cheese Ball Yak Attack? I don't usually do this, but I'll let you cheat and jump to this post and find out yourself. But don't say I didn't warn you.
Which brings us to this trip. In my second Trip Report, I mentioned that we were already planning this December Trip when we went on that one. I teased this Trip Report as being the third installment of a trilogy. Turns out I lied. This trip was so special and unique that it had to stand on its own.
The title of the TR comes from two facts.
One: My family is fortunate that we've been able to come to Walt Disney World almost every year since our daughter was born. We're seasoned veterans down here. We're DVC members and my wife's parents live 45 minutes away from WDW. We know what attractions to see and what to avoid.
Two: We were not alone on this trip. We have two traveling companions that have never been to Disney World before. (Again, I'll get to introductions in a minute.) They have never seen any of the sights, never experienced any of the attractions, never taken in any of the shows that we've begun to take for granted. Being there with them as they did it all for the first time really did make Everything Old, New Again.
So, with our title firmly establish, let's get to traveling party, shall we? Sticking to the theme of the report, introductory pictures will be from everyone's first Disney visit.
I'll start with your humble navigator, narrator, script writer, editor, director and tour guide - me. My name is Barry, and my first trip to Walt Disney World was in 1986 as a youngster with my parents and brother. That's me on the Skyway over Tomorrowland.
I went through all of the pictures I have on my computer from that trip, and didn't find one with my face. Thanks, mom and dad. I think I have some at home, and I'll put it in another post later if I can find one.
Up next is my beautiful, caring, and very, very patient wife, Bambi. Her parents took her and her brother to Disneyland in 1985.
Her first trip to Walt Disney World didn't happen until several years after we were married. That trip was in January of 2004.
We both fell in love with the place, and even had our next trip booked for that December. Well, that October, we got a call that a baby was given up a our local hospital. As foster parents, we were called and we brought home little Madison when she was 3 days old. We cleared it with everyone we needed to clear it with, and when she was 7 weeks old, Madison made her first trip to Walt Disney World. Here she is at Ohana's:
She also proved to be a big hit with the characters. Here she is getting some attention from Pooh, Piglet and Eeyore:
We adopted Madison that summer, and had plans to celebrate her 2nd birthday at Walt Disney World, but soon found out Bambi was pregnant. And due just days after Madison's birthday. Sure enough, the day after Madison turned 2, Evan was born. We just shifted everything back a year and celebrated Madison's 3rd and Evan's 1st birthday on his first trip in October of 2007. He did a lot of this on that trip:
He was awake for some of it, as seen here:
Well, we're all grown up now. Sort of.
Bambi's parents were there too. Their first trip to Disney World was back when it opened in 1971. If I come across a picture, I'll post it. But for now, here's Grandma & Grandpa with the grandkids and the #2 mouse:
Finally, we have the two Disney World Newbies. Kaylene has been a close friend of ours since high school. Her son, Kayden, is 5 and all three kids get alone wonderfully. Kaylene is a single parent and mentioned that she would love to take Kayden to Disney World, but didn't think she'd ever be able to do it. Bambi took that as a personal challenge, did the planning & budgeting, and invited them along. Here they are on their very first Monorail ride:
We've done it all. On this trip we did it all again, for the first time. In this Trip Report, I'll relive it again for the first time so you can experience it again. For the first time. I'll be back in a little while with the first installment. You can take that time to try and figure out that last sentence, because I sure don't know what I said.
Maybe one of these days I'll write my own.
Or should I say hi to 'The woman who single handily kept a whole Brazilian Tour Group at bay, so we could have a good spot for Wishes?' 
So cute!
I like the way you think!
