Christmas Magic and Freezing Temps!

[francis6306]

Hello! I'm not promising a perfect report and timely updates, but HOPEFULLY this will be interesting to read none the less!

The Cast:
Well, this is where it gets slightly tricky! I'll introduce my family for now. We went with two other families (see my PTR in my siggy for the background!).


Christen (Thats ME) Cortlyn and Corey. This was taking on our trip! YAY

I'll try to make sure to add links, in case this gets long...

 

[francis6306]

Our trip started out GREAT! We planned to leave right after I got out of work, and drive to Tallahassee,Fl for the evening and then drive the rest of the way Friday morning. Cortlyn was very excited and did really well, with the help of our handy dandy DVD player for the Car! . We stopped in Mobile, AL for dinner at one of my favorite places that we’re missing in our new hometown- Panera Bread! YUMMY! No pictures of this food! heehee... Actually, we don’t have many pictures at all until we actually get to WDW and unpack, since my husband packed the camera. Its fine, because really... the car pictures aren’t all that necessary.

Finally, we heard the voice on the Tomtom telling us to exit ahead. Woohoo... except the Tomtom had the configuration for the exit, so we sort of missed it. Honestly, we should have been paying more attention ourselves, because the La Quinta sign was RIGHT there, but we both totally missed it. Oh well. We went down to the next exit and came back around. Cortlyn by this point was D.O.N.E. So, while Corey went in and checked into the hotel, I unstrapped her and let her sit up in the front seat with me. I know, I know... HORRIBLE mother. But she was done and I didn’t want to go inside the lobby with a crying toddler. She was excited just to be out of the seat, so we sat and talked while we waited on daddy. Corey came back out and we drove around to the side of the building (less than 50 yards!) and parked in front of our room. YAY! We were there!

The hotel was nice, older but updated. We got into the room around 11:30. Cortlyn had never stayed in a hotel before, so I think she was a little confused. She didn’t want to lay in the bed... she wanted to lay her blanket and pillow on the floor. HAHA... She has slept on the floor at family and even at home (what can I say? She ASKS to sleep on the floor sometimes... weird). We finally convinced her to get in the bed with me and watch her princess movie (The Enchanted Tales with Aurora & Jasmine). I figured she would fall asleep watching it, but she was WIDE awake. I think part of the problem was, I thought she might wake up scared and get out of the bed and not know where she was- so I left the bathroom light on. Bad idea apparently... because she was awake until around 3... Corey had fallen asleep while she was watching the movie and I was dozing in and out. Corey woke up around 3 and realized she was awake and so he took her in his bed and he turned off all the lights and wham- instant sleeping baby. Oh well... we learned that lesson!

So, since that was such a LONG night, the next day went much slower than expected. I figured Cortlyn would be up early and we’d all be so excited! Yeah... no. Since we were all so tired, we just took our time. We didn’t stress and I kept reminding myself, Magic Kingdom wasn’t going anywhere! We stopped by Target and picked up a few things we forgot and grab me some gloves and a toboggan since it was going to be colder later in our trip than we expected.

The drive to Orlando was pretty uneventful. We did have some drizzling rain in Gainesville, and that got us worried, but we heard from our friends Shelley and Brian that they had landed in Orlando and that the weather was perfect. Of course, I was praying we’d be leaving that yucky weather behind! The traffic wasn’t horrible, but really people... slower traffic stay RIGHT! What part of that do people miss???