A Trip to Remember for Four Foodies

[saralexander97]

Our trip is only 39 days away and we are getting really excited, I think my husband and I are more pumped than the kids. We have had a busy year and really need a break. I graduated college last August and in the past year my husband got laid off, we had a baby, and now my husband is working full time and going to school full time, and not to mention homework everynight with the two boys. We were planning a Disney trip in November last year but I was just toooo pregnant so we post-poned it to June. We are a family of foodies, food is our life. I love to cook and my boys have grown up with a variety of foods placed in front of them.

DS 9 who will be 10 when we are down there is a meat lover, he will eat anything meat, he is does not get excited about veggies, but he will take a few bites. His is a very shy boy but once he warms up to a situation he will talk your ear off.

DS 6 loves veggies but is not into meat that much, he hates anything potatoe (he is the only person I have met that dosen't like potatoes) I think when he grows up he will be a vegetarian. This is my crazy man, he makes friends everywhere we go. He is so silly just like his dad.

DD 3 months loves anything milk she will be at grandma's for the 10 days we are gone, which the closer we get to the trip the worse I feel about leaving her at home. I have three reasons for leaving her at home #1 I don't want to have her in the Florida heat all day #2 I want to focus on my boys #3 my mother wants some quality time with her grandaughter. She is the love of my life, what can I say she is my baby girl. She is a fiesty little thing, just like her mama, only three months old and the boss of the house.

DH 31 will eat anything you set in front of him, when I met him he was a junk food eater but after 10 years I turned him around. He is a sweetheart and a big kid. Sometimes I feel like I have three boys.

Me 29 I like everyhing except for lima beans and fishy tasting fish. I am outgoing and love to have a good time. I love to travel especially with the kids, it is so cool to see them experience new things.

We will be leaving on Sunday June 7th staying five nights at Boardwalk and five nights at Hard Rock in Universal. When my husband and I discussed this trip two years ago, he said this time we must experience Universal and a Florida beach. I am not much of a planner I am kinda a fly by the seat of my pants kind of girl but I decided to have a list of must do's (thanks to all of you disers). DH and I agreed that since we are not morning people we would plan our five days in Disney around parks that are open late for EMH.

Sunday arrival day We will be flying into MCO from St. Louis on Southwest, I chose SW because there are no extra fees for baggage (not yet at least). We will check into the BW and head over to DD to shop and check out Disney Quest because the last time we were @ Disney we did not go to Disney Quest and my DH says this is a must this time. We have reservations at T-rex that evening for dinner, unfortunately it is not on the DDP but DS 6 is a Dinosaur addict. If the kiddoz are up for it we may head over to MK for EMH.

Monday day two This is our AK day, I love this park, I am a wilderness girl and just love the animals and the lushness of this park. I do not have any plans for breakfast, so we will either eat at BW or at AK, any suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Lunch at Yak & Yetis and dinner at Bomas. I have never seen Finding Nemo the Musical or the Festival of the Lion King so they are must do's, the rest is up to the boys. I know they will want to ride Mt. Everest and Kali River Rapids. I have heard the Chia Tea's are great at the Royal Anandapur so I will be Chia'in it up.

Stay tuned for the rest of the trip of my pre-trip report......

 

[saralexander97]

WOW writing this is alot of fun, sorry if the pics were a little too big in my previous post. I am going to use the pre-trip report to figure out Dis, that is my main goal in life. I had so much fun writing that I could not wait to add a few more things so here it goes. I will also be sharing some pics from our previous trip, for your viewing pleasure.
We took our two boys to Disney for the first time in June 2007, we had the best time of our lives. My DMIL and DFIL joined us down there, we were down for 6 nights and stayed at PORFQ. (Arn't they adorable, they are a blast to be around to!!!)

I loved it, it was bueatiful, especially all of the magnolia trees. We do not have them in MO so I was in love. Here is a pic of the courtyard.

You gotta love those palm trees

This is what happens in your room when you wear your kids out too much at Disney. I kept them high on soda and sugar, I know that's not a good thing, but we were at Disney.

I will start off with some of my DD disney pics since that is were we will be spending our first day. This pic cracks me up everytime I look, does the song Bad to the Bone come to mind for anybody else?

These leggo sculptures really amazed me, it had to take alot of leggos!!! Are they still there???

A few of my favorite pics from AK, I bet you guys can guess what we are getting ready to watch here.

The water around him is not even moving, such a stealth.

Just playing around.

Just lovin the hidden things in the Jungle, it kind of reminded me of being an explorer seraching for ancient artifacts.

Jammin on the drums

Up close and personal with the tree of life.

AK see you in June!!!!!!!!

 

[shordiebecka]

love your pics so far, your family is beautiful! You must be so excited to go. The idea of the hard rock intrigues me....I can't wait to hear how you like it!

 

[saralexander97]

love your pics so far, your family is beautiful! You must be so excited to go. The idea of the hard rock intrigues me....I can't wait to hear how you like it!

Thanks for the compliment, I just realized that in my trip report I spelled beautiful wrong. Well as you can tell I am not the best speller, but I do try.
I am really pumped about the Hard Rock, its funny I am so engrossed in Disney planning that I haven't even thought about the last half of our vacation. I better get on it. Thanks for joining in my journey, you are my first. I am new at posting so it feels good to have a friend!

 

[shordiebecka]

I can't spell either

I love being at pre trip reports from the beginning, so I'm excited to follow along with yours!!

 

[saralexander97]

WOOHOO, I have a friend following me so I figured I better get to posting on our next fabulous day in Disney. Our second day wil be a Tuesday we plan on going to Epcot, will be having a lovely breakfast at Spoodles, hopefully it will be good, we decided on this place because it is convinently located at our resort. For lunch we will be having Tutto Italia, we love Italian food. It was a toss up between Tony's, Mama Melrose, and Tutto Italia after reading the reviews we decied on TI. Must do's that we have never experienced at Epcot are Soarin, our previous trip the line was too long and my DFIL did not feel like waiting in the line, I was a little bummed, but oh well thats what happens when you are in a group. I really want to go to the soda shop, I am not sure what the name of it is (I must have not done my homework very well). This foodie must have a funnel cake from American Adventure, nothing says summer like a funnel cake (at least in our family). I really want to see Illuminations also, I have no idea why we missed it the last trip, but I as god as my witness I will not miss it this year!!! In-between all of that eating and snacking we will travel around the world showcase, ride test track, Misson Space, and whatever else the kiddoz want to do.
Side note: Do you guys think that Honey I Shrunk the Audience is worth it?
Here are a couple of pics to make things interesting.

DS 6 (he was 4 at the time) with Figment, this is the first Character we see at Disney

DS 9 (he was 8 at the time) playing in the water, he is totally lovin it.

This is us getting ready to ride Mission Space, I have a funny story about this ride, well for one thing, DS 6 was about 1/2 cm too short but they let us on anyway. When we got into our capsule (or whatever you call it). DS6 started to scream and cry at the top of his lungs "I DON"T WANT TO GO TO SPACE, I'M SCARED, I'M TO LITTLE TO BE AN ASTROONANT." It was in an enclosed space and my ears were ringing, he was so loud, I kept trying to calm him down, but he cried the whole time, and finally at the end when I got him to believe me that we were really not going to space he said "WOW that was fun"

We went during the Flower and Garden Festival, lots of pretty flowers everywhere. DMIL & DFIL:

This was right before out dinner at Coral Reef, it was an awsome dinner.

DS 6 Dancing in Mexico

DS 6 with his friends, he loves posing with the Characters, DS 9 refused he would only pose with statues.

These girls are amazing, I just do not understand how they balance like that, it baffles me.

Well I will leave you with the ball.

If any of the pros have any suggetions that we have to do in Epcot we would love to hear them, I better get off here, have to get the kids ready for bed.

 

[blue_river]

You have a lovely family

I can certainly understand not wanting to bring you DD this year...she's adorable BTW

 

[shordiebecka]

ohhh I love Epcot! Epcot is A LOT of walking, the most out of any park, so take frequent breaks! One idea I always share for illuminations is to try to get a reservation at Rose & Crown for between 7-8, you can watch illuminations from their patio, and it's an amazing view and no waiting time! my favorite thing EVER to do there.

My other suggestion from the boardwalk is to the time to walk the path to Epcot. It's really a beautiful path, it's not too long. I enjoyed the path.

 

[saralexander97]

ohhh I love Epcot! Epcot is A LOT of walking, the most out of any park, so take frequent breaks! One idea I always share for illuminations is to try to get a reservation at Rose & Crown for between 7-8, you can watch illuminations from their patio, and it's an amazing view and no waiting time! my favorite thing EVER to do there.

My other suggestion from the boardwalk is to the time to walk the path to Epcot. It's really a beautiful path, it's not too long. I enjoyed the path.

I love Epcot to, thanks for the tip about Rose & Crown, sounds like I need to start conditioning my kiddoz for all the walking we will be doing. I am going to order them some Teva's today, DS 9 I am not worried about but DS 6 he is just not as active. Can you see Illuminations from the path as you are walking over?

 

[saralexander97]

You have a lovely family

I can certainly understand not wanting to bring you DD this year...she's adorable BTW

Thanks for joining, its nice to have you here. I have been reading your TR and am lovin it. My DD is a feisty little thing especially with my husband, I work during the weekends and he works during the week so that we do not have to send the kids to daycare and I went back to work three weeks ago. I always call him on my way home to see how his day went and everytime I call she is in the background screaming and he is saying "She won't let me put her down, I have been holding her for the past five hours, I can't go pee, I can't get a drink, everytime I set her down she starts to scream" as soon as I walk through the door she shuts up and is all smiles, its funny to me, I think that she is slowly wrapping him around her tiny little fingers.

 

[blue_river]

Thanks for joining, its nice to have you here. I have been reading your TR and am lovin it. My DD is a feisty little thing especially with my husband, I work during the weekends and he works during the week so that we do not have to send the kids to daycare and I went back to work three weeks ago. I always call him on my way home to see how his day went and everytime I call she is in the background screaming and he is saying "She won't let me put her down, I have been holding her for the past five hours, I can't go pee, I can't get a drink, everytime I set her down she starts to scream" as soon as I walk through the door she shuts up and is all smiles, its funny to me, I think that she is slowly wrapping him around her tiny little fingers.

Heh Heh Heh.......what a little stinker!!

Sounds like she's definately Daddy's little girl

 

[saralexander97]

I want to keep my two friends interested in my PTR so its time for another update. Only 33 days to go and I am in need of a vacation!!! I was off of work for twelve weeks for maternity leave but since I have been back to work, it has been crazy. I was glad to have yesterday over with and now I'm off for the next four days, yeah!!! So here goes with the plan:

Wednesday June 10th, we have reservations at 7:25 at Chef Mickeys, 7:25 WOW that is early, I am a little nervous about this because when I am on vacation I do not like getting up early. Hopefully we will be too excited to sleep and wake up without any difficulties, but I doubt it. When these reservations were made I was told by the CM that I need to find my own transportation, so my question is do I get a cab? Do the buses not run this early? Anywho, my DS 9 is so excited about Chef Mickeys, we had reservations made on our last trip but canceled, he was so upset. He loves breakfast, and when we told him it was a breakfast buffet I thought he was going to jump out of his skin. I love to have a kid that gets excited about food!!
After breakfast we might go to Typhoon Lagoon, we have never been there, we love water parks so we wanted to fit one in during this trip. My favorite thing to do at water parks is to float on a tube in the lazy river. We do alot of tubing on the rivers here in MO during the summer, I love it but it is alot of work because you have to paddle like a crazy person with your arms to get out of the way of trees and canoers. On the lazy river you can just lay there soak up the rays and relax knowing that the kiddoz are not going to get stuck in a tree or run over by a canoer. We have been to Blizzard Beach and had a blast, here are a few pics for your viewing enjoyment.
This is us waiting at the bus stop, for some reason, we have alot of pics waiting at the bus stop. I do not know why, I guess it was just something to do.

This is DH talking with the boys about the importance of saftey at the water parks, telling them that drowning is not an option. Since this trip the boys have had swimming lessons at the YMCA, last summer they went for two months worth, neither one moved up they are still both polliwogs, they were too busy talking with the other kids and not paying attention to instruction. My boys love the water but make me extremely nervous around it, thats why I paid for swimming lessons. OMG last November my brother got married out of town and we stayed in a hotel with an indoor swimming pool. We took the boys down to the pool one night, I was sitting in a chair by the pool reading a Cooking Light magazine, 8 months pregnant, and all dressed up from the rehersal dinner. My husband was sitting next to me doing homework and the boys were in the pool. DS 6 got in the pool and was swimming in the shallow end, occasionally I would look up from my magazine to check on the kids, next thing I see is DS 6 tredding water towards the deep end. He starts bobbing up and down under the water trying to touch the bottom but he was just not tall enough, he then appeared to be struggling, his face was turning red and he had fear in his eyes, so of course I freaked out and jumped in after him, brought him to the side of the pool and lifted him up. When I got out of the pool, he hugged me and said "Thanks for saving my life mom". My husband looked up from his homework at me like I was crazy, he feels like I overreacted. But the way I look at it, you can never be to careful. I was soaked after that so I went up to the room to change and on my way back down I see my DH and DS 9 walking up, my husband was soaked from head to toe. DS 9 did the exact same thing as DS 6. I really wanted to fit in some swimming lessons for the kids before vacation but I don't think that it will happen because of school . Okay back to the pics.

DS with goofy, acting goofy!

If you can believe it I went down this slide! I just remeber on my way up the stairs my heart was pounding, but it was sooooo fun and exciting. I am so proud of myself for going down, I thought I would chicken out, but I didn't.

Here is a pic of the whole family

We will probably spend 3-4 hours at Typhoon Lagoon, then go back to the room for a nap because with breakfast ressies at 7:25, we will totally need a nap or at least do some relaxation at the Boardwalk.
After relaxing we are going to get all prettied up and go to Hollywood Studios in the afternoon to ride a few rides, hopefully we can ride TSM but if the line is too long we will wait for another day, I am sure that FP will be gone by then. We love ToT and RNRC so we will definatley try to ride these. We have dinner ressies at Whispering Canyon at 5:25 so we will eat dinner and head back to to HS for EMH fun.

Here is a pic of the kids in line for ToT

Getting ready to see the Muppet show, I love that show, I am in love with Kermit, he is so green and cute.

This is my DH favorite pic of the kids, I did not take this pic DS 9 took it while I was standing waiting for DMIL and DFIL to finish shopping. He loves it because he says they look like Starsky and Hutch, DS6 is holding his Star Wars gun and looking mean, and then you have the palm tree in the background.

This is us at the Sci-Fi resturant in our little car, I loved this place, the kids were so quite, I did not hear a peep from them throughout the whole meal. DS 6 has the gun.

DS riding the ant.

Mickey

The hat!!!

Here are a few pics of DD 3.5 months, because she is important to.

Well sorry for cutting this short, I need to make the kiddoz dinner. Have a happy Monday everybody!!!!

 

[shordiebecka]

that swimming story is super scary!! I would be worried also if I was you. Have you thought about private lessons? too pricey?

I'm not sure about seeing illuminations from the path. I am sure that at some points you can, but I don't think it would be anywhere close to the same as watching them from the WS. I'm sure you assumed that though

 

[saralexander97]

Happy late Mother's Day, I wish I could say that I enjoyed my Mothers Day, but I had to work. So today I am observing it, I am not cleaning house, I am not going to cook, and I am going to lay around all day in my PJs. So enough about that and time for some pics and Disney.
26 DAYS!!!!::))) DH and I just cannot believe it is soooooo close. Last week I recieved my luggage tags in the mail for Disney Magical Express, I was so excited Well lets get started on my plans:

Thursday June 11th we are going to Magic Kingdom for some morning EMH, we do not have any breakfast ressies for this day so plans are to go to the Boardwalk Bakery, this is tentative so if anybody has any other ideas let me know (maybe we will make rope drop). I love MK, the first time I visited MK was when I was 6 years old. My father took me and it was the best time I have ever had, I only remember a few things. I remember the jungle cruise, Swiss Family Treehouse, and trying on mask in some store. I also sort of remember going in a submarine but I do not know if that was at Disney. On our last trip I had to see the Treehouse, when I was walking through the rooms of the treehouse I got a little teary eyed because it brought back childhood memories. I love going to places I went as a child because it makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. When you are a child everything is so big, the tree house was just as I remembered it. Here are a few pics

This kids just loved going walking around here I am not sure what this part of Magic Kingdom is called, it was quite and there were not alot of people here.

DMIL putting her feet in the water, she's so silly.

The boys posing

The Jungle Cruise, which I had a blast on because it brought back so many memories with my father.

The boys really liked this ride.

The tea cups, boy was I dizzy after riding these!

This was the last day to ride Haunted Mansion, it closed the next day to be rehabbed, I am excited to see if I can tell what has been changed or added. I told the family that we must ride Haunted Mansion at night because I feel that it adds to the ambience.

We had a blast on this ride, I cannot remember who won, probably my DH, he always wins at games.

Unfortunately we do have a lot of pics of the castle, this time I'm taking lots of the castle, its way to pretty not to.

I need some help about what to do for lunch; I want to stay in the park, so I was thinking Pinocchio’s Village Hause or Liberty Tree Tavern. What’s a family of four foodies to do? Suggestions needed desperately. I know that we will get a Dole Whip, our last trip we had a pineapple Dole Whip from Poly, it was yummy.
I am a little sad that Space Mountain will be closed but I can deal, I'm sure when it opens it will be even better. In late afternoon we will go back to Boardwalk and get all dressed for a nice dinner at Ohana's, last trip we did the Ahola Dinner show and loved it. The boys were so worn out from MK DS 10 vomited all over himself, my husband had to go and buy him a new outfit at the gift shop and DS 6 passed out sitting up in his chair.

I hope you guys enjoyed the pics, I am going to stop right now because it is way to pretty outside to sit at the computer. So DD and I are going to sit on the back porch and read a book.

 

[saralexander97]

that swimming story is super scary!! I would be worried also if I was you. Have you thought about private lessons? too pricey?

I'm not sure about seeing illuminations from the path. I am sure that at some points you can, but I don't think it would be anywhere close to the same as watching them from the WS. I'm sure you assumed that though

Private swimming lessons are a good idea, I will check the YMCA out to see if they offer them. What area of the WS do you typically watch Illuminations from?