When I left off we were on the way to the airport. We live in Corpus Christi, a relatively small city on the Texas coast. We were running late, but luckily we only live a little over 15 minutes from the airport. On that day, it was cold and raining. James decides to drop us off in the drop off lane and then go park. So we start unloading, we ended up with five bags to check and seven carryons plus an umbrella stroller. As I jump out I turn to tell the kids to unbuckle, and I realize that Christopher has fallen asleep. Which I wouldnt normally mind, but he is usually pretty grumpy when you wake him up after a short nap, and now I have to open up the stroller and get one of the girls to push him. Now, dont get me wrong getting the girls to push him is no problem they LOVE doing this. The problem is that Christopher hates having the girls push him when he is tired.
So I start wheeling the bags inside with the kids and James takes off to go park. We are flying out on a Wednesday evening, but I was still surprised that there was absolutely no line at the Southwest counter. I pull out my boarding passes (all As Yippee!) and realize that the bar codes have not printed on them so I pull up our reservation and have the boarding passes reprinted. I got a very nice Southwest CSM. She is extremely helpful and the kids are talking her ear off about the trip. James comes back in after parking the car and helps get all the luggage, kids, carryons to their appropriate places. At our airport, once you get all your luggage tagged, you then have to move it over to the security area to hand it off to the TSA people. We finally get all six bags to the TSA area and head for the security check point.
In advance, a big apology is owed to anyone behind us in line this evening at the security checkpoint. CC only has one security line, so when a family like ours with small kids who dont fly very often goes through the line to say we bog it down is an understatement. We let everyone we can go in front of us and then start the arduous task of getting through the security screening.
Shoes off check Pressed Penny Money out check Pins out check Epipens and asthma inhalers out for Haley check My asthma inhalers out check Cell phones out check Hand Sanitizer out check Video Camera out check Laptop out check CPAP out check Umbrella Stroller closed up and put through scanner check
I know it is for our safety, and I am happy to do it. But I did feel very sorry for everyone behind us that night. Once we retrieve everything from the bins and get it repacked and wait for the CPAP to be checked we are finally through to the gates. We quickly find our gates and I go off in search of some dinner. I picked up two grilled cheese sandwiches for the kids to split, along with some chips, cookies, and a coke. I grab two fajita tacos for myself. And head back, James has decided he isnt hungry and will grab something later on (dont ask me where I tried explaining it to him that the food court will be closed when we get to the hotel, but he isnt listening). We all eat and then the kids break open their backpacks. I had taken the backpacks we got at baseball game this summer and packed one for each of the kids. They have coloring books, crayons, stickers, sticker books, books, tick-tac-toe boards, etc for them to do. They have a lot of fun with them and they keep them distracted and busy while we wait for our plane to arrive. Oh, I think I forgot to mention that when we checked in we were told our plane was running 30 minutes late and that it was a full flight. So instead of leaving at 6:35 p.m. we are now scheduled to leave at 7:00 p.m. I am worried about making our connection. We only have a hour between the flights, but they assure me we will make it.
The plane finally arrives and we start lining up to board. Luckily, we all are in the A boarding pass group. James and the girls take one row and Christopher and myself take the row in front of them. Haley picks the window, Ashley is in the middle, and James takes the aisle. I put Christopher in the window seat and I take the middle seat in our row. We have a nice older woman sit with us. The last time we flew Chris was only 16 months old and Haley was just three so they dont really remember flying. We start to take off and Christopher is giving me a running commentary on what is going on outside his window. He is truly fascinated in it and talks non-stop on our 45 minute flight into Houston. I had hoped to catch a cat-nap, but every time I closed my eyes the bugger woke me up.
We land in Houston with no problems. I grab a new gate check tag for our stroller and go looking for my mom. My father is very over protective of her and since we werent there yet, and he couldnt go past security with her they waited until we got there to go through security. I also have strict instructions not to come back without a soda for Haley. See we had told them that they would have drinks on the plane, well because of the weather they didnt have drink service so my Miss Haley was very upset. Dying of thirst and simply wouldnt make it a minute longer without a drink, granted we passed a water fountain when we were switching gates but she didnt want water. Did I mention my middle child is highly dramatic?
So I find my mom, grab a soda for Haley and a hamburger and some fries for James and the kids and head back to our gate. We are supposed to be leaving Houston at 8:20 p.m. Our flight is delayed out of Houston, so we arent going to be leaving until after 9:00 p.m. putting us in after midnight in Orlando. We sit and catch up. The kids are thrilled to see Nana since we hadnt told them she was coming and we wait for our plane. It finally arrives and we board. This time we again take two rows, one right behind the other. In the first row Christopher is in the window seat, I have the middle seat, and DH has the aisle seat. Behind us Haley has the aisle seat, Nana has the middle seat, and Ashley has the window seat. The flight is thankfully uneventful. Christopher falls asleep as soon as we are in the air and the girls crash out about 30 minutes outside of Orlando. The flight attendants on this flight are great! The best I have had in a long time
.friendly and entertaining!
So we get in and make the long haul across the airport to get our luggage and then to the first floor to check into Magical Express. We get a lovely ME employee that gives the kids each a button. We are loaded on to a waiting bus that is almost full. We only have to wait another 10 minutes before we are off for Walt Disney World. We are told on the way we are making three stops, Contemporary/BLT, Wilderness Lodge, and Port Orleans. I was happy to find out that we were the first stop! We grabbed our bags and headed into the lobby to check in.
At check-in we find we have connecting rooms (requested!!
) on the 2nd floor (requested!!
) in Alligator Bayou, Building 38. They also hand me the box I had mailed down. I request baggage help to our room and she calls a very nice baggage person to come help us. He manages, somehow, to get all of us and all of our bags on to his golf cat and away we go. He was so nice and chatty which kind of surprised me since it was so late. The kids, my mother, and me head up the stairs with as much as we can carry, leaving the rest for James and the baggage helper. We find our room and rush in, thankful to finally be here. I am a little sad to find out they had granted me my finally request, a corner room, but had given it to my mother and not us. Oh well, we still loved our room and maybe next time we would get one. We got the kids in pajamas, teeth brushed and into bed. I glanced at the clock as I lay down 2:10 am. Yikes! Good thing we were planning to sleep in tomorrow.
Here are a few pictures of our room and location I took later in the week.
Our building sign
Our rooms
Our room
The view from our room
Some more questions for the next update...... What park did we end up going to on our first full day at Disney? Did we make the trek to the South Depot every day or did we find the closest bus stop? Did we get rained on today?
I came back from our Disney trip exhausted, a good kind of exhausted, but still exhausted and then we had a late Christmas and family come down so I am just now finally getting back into the swing of things. School starts tomorrow for the girls. 
I am looking forward to a nice quiet day with Christopher.
While waiting in line, we decide we are starving so we head out to Chick-Fil-A for a quick lunch. I love Chick-Fil-A! We don't eat there very much because dd#2, Haley, has a severe allergy to peanuts and Chick-Fil-A cooks in peanut oil. Since Haley was safely at school we enjoyed a treat today.
James made it home just as I put dinner on the table. 
I am a little nervous about telling our story well. Thanks for the encouragement!
We end up pulling out of our driveway at 4:20 p.m. oh well; we should still have plenty of time. Of course, as soon as we enter the freeway I remember I forgot to mail the car payment. 
Oh well, it is too late now. It will just have to wait until we get home. If I mail it as soon as we get home it should still get there within our grace period.
Thanks for stopping by! It was a lot of fun to surprise the kids, but it was so hard in a way too. I was so excited about the trip I wanted to share it with them! I am glad we were able to keep the secret though. It ended up being a great memory! I'm not sure if we will surprise them next time or not. When are you all planning to go? The Christmas season is my favorite time to go!
