Shhh! Don't tell the kids they are on the way to Disney

[toy]

As I type this report we are driving south with clueless kids. They are happily sitting in the backseat playing with their electronic devices. For all they know we are headed to visit their aunt, uncle, and cousins in NC.

CAST OF CHARACTERS: Me, 3? Yr old SAHM; dh, 39; dd11, Cricket (she grinds her teeth like a cricket);dd9, Jazz; ds8, Jay
There are more characters but you will have to meet them later.

This trip is the 6th trip for dd11. She is autistic and has a little obsession with Disney World. Her dad and I are only too willing to feed that. We already have a surprise trip planned for later this year. But, when one of my bff's decided she wanted everyone to go to Disney with her to celebrate her 40th birthday well...
She is running in the Disney marathon along with her siblings, my dh, our other bff Swalker, my sister in law, and some more friends. We decided our kids didn't need to know they were going too.

Now there have been some slip ups and mishaps but we are finally headed south. People keep asking me about Disney World in front of the kids. The Tuesday before Christmas Cricket doubled over in pain and ended up in the OR getting her appendix removed. We followed that up with the stomach virus that blew through our house like a tornado Christmas weekend. My poor 90 year old Grandmother flew from TX to spend Christmas with us and ended up getting an IV under the tree. Wonder if she will be back next year

So, we were able to deflect away the germs and the bad juju. We created a story about needing to go visit the cousins to do a gift exchange. The kids love traveling so they didn't ask any questions. We manage to get the van packed up while the kids were gone. We actually managed to get out of our house by noon. If you know us, you would know that this was a miracle. When God made my dh he gave him molasses instead of blood. He is sweet but slow as &$#@. We make it to the school to pick up kids and run into bff picking up her kids too. She, not realizing their were already kids in the van, runs up to my dh and screams "WE'RE GOING TO DISNEY WORLD"! My dh was able to play it off by saying, "yeah I heard. You guys have fun."

Now I have to stop typing. We are at the sister-in-law!

 

[eksb327]

Wow! Have a great vacation! I'm sure the look on your kiddos faces will be priceless when they figure it out

 

[luckylady]

Have a great time. Always love it when you can surprise kids. IT's fun to see thier reaction. Have a safe drive today seeing how i'ts after midnight.

 

[ChattaAlley]

What a great surprise!!! Looking forward to hearing all about it.

 

[toy]

Okay, back to our story still in progress...

As we said good-bye to our "lucky friends", we ran a few errands. Cricket starts to complain about belly pain. Uh-oh! She hasn't had her follow up post op visit. She is looking more and more uncomfortable. I make a call to the pediatrician and I get a recording. I'm thinking since it is almost one pm perhaps they are just closed for lunch. Nope, still not open after one so I call the surgeon. He can work us in. We head on over there. I definitely appreciate the benefits of living in a small town. After a 30 minute wait, we saw the doc. Now Cricket doesn't care much for strangers but she REALLY doesn't like doctors. As soon as he walked in I knew an exam would not be easy.

 

[toy]

After some begging and pleading followed by pulling and tugging, the doctor and I picked up my 97# child and plopped her on the table. After a quck exam, the doctor cleared her for travel. Whew! I gave her some aleve and we were headed back to the van. Finally, we could leave town. It was now almost 3. We have a 3 hour drive down to the in-law's house.

We spent a couple of hours hanging out before tossing the kids in a bath and dressing them in jammies. They got strapped in and were asleep in an hour.

 

[RellaSprinkles]

Can't wait to read about the reaction when the kids realize where they're going!

 

[toy]

I usually start off driving while dh sleeps. We stopped for some Starbucks. I arranged my crunchy snacks nearby. I plugged in my headset and chatted with my girlfriend and listened to music. When I reached the blurry eye point, we were about 4 hours into the drive. I woke dh and we pulled over and switched spots. The kids never even moved. I woke up around 6. I think my inner mouse knew I was close to the motherland. The hubby confirmed we were on I-4 and entering Orlando. I got my mouse ears out of their special hiding place (the bag tucked under my seat). I turned the iphone on video mode. Hubby turned on the overhead lights as i woke the kids. "hey kids wake up! We have a problem. Your daddy got us lost on the way home. Instead of going home, we ended up in Florida. I guess we will have to go to Disney World." You could see the realization on the two little ones faces. They noticed their big sister was still waking up and didn't know yet where we were. They did the sweetest thing ever. They stifled their screams until she woke up enough to get it. Once the sleep cleared from Cricket's eyes, she saw the Walt Disney World sign. The screaming was deafening! Yep, we did well. I handed out the mouse ears only to find Cricket's head had grown and it was time for a grown up set. Is it okay that I had a sad mommy moment?

We headed over to ihop near DTD. The waitress was super friendly. I'm sure she was wondering why my children were wearing pj's and mouse ears. It didn't take long before the kids let her know in a rush of excited and loud voices. She told them how lucky they were to have parents who love them so much.

After breakfast we headed over to the Hilton resort Parc Soleil. We were doing the whole presentation thing to try to convince us to buy a timeshare. They didn't have a room ready yet to check in so we needed to find a way to pass the time.

Hmmmm... Where can we do that?

 

[toy]

http://youtu.be/pb_lVpO5TO8

 

[NoOrdinaryPrincess]

Aww very cute!

 

[luckylady]

That was great. Love the way you put the trip together. Congrats on the race, you finished.