Disney World

About a year ago Dave's parents told us they were surprising our niece Kaylin with a trip to Disney World for her golden birthday.  The rest of us decided we wanted to join in on the fun as well so a couple weeks later we surprised Dave's parents with the news that Dave, me, Dan and Emily were also going!  Everyone was excited about taking a big family vacation together.  The anticipation was exciting but keeping the surprise from Kaylin for a whole year was quite challenging.  Mike Lea Ann, Dan and Emily surprised Kaylin the night before they left for Disney.  They got the surprise on camera which was quite comical.  I think she was camera shy because she didn't have much of a reaction except for "Are we seriously going?".  Emily said once the cameras were off she was way more excited.  The cool part was Kaylin didn't know that Dave, me, Dan and Emily were showing up to Disney a few days later.  She thought it was just her and her grandparents going.  The day came for us to knock on their hotel room door and surprise her that we were there!!!  Again it was a bit anticlimactic.  I was thinking she was going to start screaming with excitement but instead I think we scared her lol!  She obviously was glad we were there but it didn't play out as we imagined.

That night we went out to dinner for Lea Ann's birthday!  Dinner was delicious and oh boy do they bring you a TON of food!!!  We had a great time singing happy birthday as a beautiful birthday cake appeared from the staff at the restaurant.

The next day was everyone's day to do their own thing so Dave and I went to Epcot and had a marvelous time.  We visited all of the countries and enjoyed nachos from Mexico, a pork lettuce wrap from South Korea, Ravioli from Italy, Tiramisu from Italy as well as some ice cream.  Listened to a band play in the UK.  We checked out a few rides including Soarin', Mission Space which was AWESOME and a few others that were, well lets be honest, kind of boring.  The sun was hot so we took advantage of all those boat rides that are indoors in the a/c along with the indoor aquarium.  Ahhh the a/c was nice.  I clearly can't handle heat well, I must get that from my dad.  We walked a TON all day long so when we arrived back at our resort we all went down to the pool and soaked our feet in the hot tub.  The sun was down of course otherwise I'd be nowhere near a hot tub.

The next day, Mike and Lea Ann picked all 5 of us up and we headed off to Cocoa Beach!  When we arrived, we made a quick stop at Ron Jon Surf Shop, ate lunch in the picnic area and then walked over to the beach.  The sun was hot and the ocean water was so warm.  I thought for sure I was going to walk up and get that chilling cold feeling when you stick your foot in the ocean.  But no, it was like an electric blanket was wrapped around me.  I LOVED it!  It even started to rain which gave me goosebumps so I just went in the water and warmed up while the 5 minute rain shower passed.  Our time was up at the beach so we headed back to the Disney campus for a spectacular pontoon ride while watching the fireworks over Magic Kingdom.  As I watched those fireworks I thought "Dreams Do Come True".  A few years ago it was a dream of mine and Dave's to have his whole family go to Disney together and there we were living our dream at that very moment.

Sunday was filled with fantastic food, fun rides, a Beauty and the Beast musical and everything else that Hollywood Studios had to offer.  The whole family enjoyed lunch at Mama Melrose and later experienced Fantasmic which was an exhilarating show.  One of my favorite parts was when the big boat came out with all the Disney characters on it which you can see in one of the pictures below.  Mickey put on quite a show!

Later that night we headed back to our hotel to pack it up for our flight home in the morning.  We ordered in some pizza, relaxed, laughed and browsed through photos from the trip.  Turns out we had quite a few pictures with hats!

The trip was a tremendous experience and next time we go to Disney World we will have to bring Caleb.  He stayed with Grandpa Harley and Grandma Patty in Wisconsin.  Grandma Lala did buy him a matching t-shirt so once we all arrived home in Minnesota we captured a cute picture of us all.