Magic Kingdom

Thursday morning, we woke up and had another quick breakfast in our room before catching the bus to Magic Kingdom.  We got there in time to see the characters come in on the train to open the park.  It was a perfect, beautiful day!

We headed straight back to Fantasyland, where we knew we wanted to check out the new Little Mermaid ride first, before it got too busy.  Later we realized that we should have gone to Belle's story time right away when the wait was only 15 minutes...oh well!  The Little Mermaid was lots of fun, and there were some fun things to look at while you waited to get on the ride.  We decided to do Dumbo next, Dave's mom's favorite ride, also before lines got too long.  Abby was so excited when we spotted Pluto right outside the ride, since he was the only "main" character that we hadn't gotten to see at Animal Kingdom.

After Dumbo, we did a couple more rides in Fantasyland--Peter Pan and It's a Small World (Dave's dad's favorite).

We waited in line to see Alice in Wonderland, but unfortunately, she went on a break just as we got to the front of the line.  We got to see the White Rabbit instead, and then came back to wait for Alice a little later.  Nancy gave the girls a snack while the rest of us got to go on Space Mountain.

At 11, we were supposed to meet my brother at Be Our Guest restaurant, the new Beauty and the Beast restaurant that he helped develop.  Unfortunately, he was running late and it was taking too long to get to Magic Kingdom, so he wasn't able to meet us.  He did get us an in, though--he had set up for us to meet someone he had worked with who would let us right in.  Pretty amazing, since the line was probably 2 hours long to get in.  We ordered our food outside, then got a rose (GPS tracker) to put on a table inside.  While we got drinks and looked around, they brought our food right to us.  The food there was amazing!  We would definitely like to go back sometime at dinner time, to see the special effects that Greg helped develop.

After lunch, we headed over to Frontierland to use our FastPasses for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.  Abby decided not to ride, but the rest of us had a good time!  Everyone but Norah and I then watched the Country Bear Jamboree.  Norah was still napping in her stroller, so I sat outside with her.  Our next stop was the Haunted Mansion.  This has always been one of my favorite rides, but it didn't go so well this time.  Lots of technical difficulties, so we were stopped for several minutes at a time a few times.  Norah was sitting with Dave's mom and dad and did NOT like all of the stops...her screaming was not so fun to listen to.

After Haunted Mansion, we went to get some "fairy dust" for Abby for our princess dinner while Dave's parents staked out spots for the parade.

The parade was lots of fun.  Right before, we had changed Norah into her Cinderella costume, so she was noticed by a lot of the characters in the parade.  

After the parade, we had time to ride Pirates of the Caribbean quickly before going to our princess meal at Cinderella's Royal Table in the castle.  We got our picture taken with Cinderella first, then were brought up to our table.  The meal was delicious, and Abby was excited to meet several princesses.  The girls got wishing stars and magic wands to bring home.

After dinner, Nancy and Abby rode on the carousel, then we headed toward the entrance for the light parade.

After the parade, Greg met up with us.  We stayed on Main Street to watch the light display on the castle and fireworks.

Since the park was going to be open just a little bit longer, we decided to split up.  Dave's parents and sister went on Pirates of the Caribbean, and Greg, Dave, and I took the girls back to Fantasyland.  Not the smartest idea--it seemed that everyone was heading to the entrance as we tried to fight our way through the crowd.  We lost Norah's pacifier as we tried to get to Fantasyland--luckily we still had a couple back at the hotel!  We only had time to ride the Little Mermaid ride once more--they were having technical issues, so we waited for awhile, but finally got to go on it.  We split from Greg, and made it back to the bus before the end of the last light parade, so beat most of the crowd.  Luckily, Norah was able to fall asleep without her pacifier on our walk to the bus--we ended up just putting her to sleep in her clothes back at our resort.  A fun and busy day!

Disney trip--part 1

We're a couple of days away from it being a month since we left for our Disney trip--definitely time to write about it!

We left home early in the morning on Tuesday, January 22nd.  Dave's parents and sister had stayed at a hotel close to the airport, so met up with us there.  We had some time at the airport to get something to eat before our flight.  A pilot gave Norah and Abby wings to pin on their matching sweatshirts as we waited for our plane.

 Norah did surprisingly well on the flight--she fell asleep during take-off, and woke up just as we were about to land.

Abby sat with Dave's parents and enjoyed her toys and movie.  Once in Orlando, we made our way to the Magical Express bus that would take us to our resort.

We got to see the Animal Kingdom resort before being dropped off at the All-Star Music resort.  We got checked in and were able to drop off our carry-ons and get ready to head to Fantasmic at Hollywood Studios.

It was just a quick bus ride there, and we headed right to get seats for the show.  Greg joined us, since he works right behind the Tower of Terror.

The show was so good--unfortunately, the pictures that turned out are all on my phone.  We told Greg that we'd give him a call later that night to meet up, but we ended up being so tired after a long day of traveling that we just headed back to our resort, had a quick supper, and put the girls to bed.  We enjoyed a good meal at the All-Star Music's food court while Dave's mom stayed with the girls.

Wednesday was our Animal Kingdom day.  It was a little chilly in the morning, but warmed up throughout the day.  We ate a quick breakfast in our room, then hopped on the bus.  We knew we wanted to get on the safari right away, since we had heard that the lines get long later in the day.  The animals weren't too active since it was so early, but we walked right on, and were able to see some giraffes, lions, zebras, and other animals.  Lots of fun!

We were going to try to meet some characters afterwards, but realized that the character trail didn't open until later, so we headed to the dinosaur area next.  We rode the Triceratops Spin (like Dumbo), which Abby loved.  Nancy and Mike watched the girls while the rest of us went on the Primeval Whirl (small rollercoaster with a spinning car that you sit in).  It was a pretty mild ride, so a good warm up for Everest later.  We went on Dinosaur (fun, but a little jerky for Dave and his healing ribs) while Nancy and the girls had a snack.  Abby was ready to meet some characters after waiting for us to go on rides, so we went to the character trail that had opened up.  Meeting characters was definitely the highlight for Abby this trip--she LOVED getting her autograph book signed and posing for pictures.

At 11, we went to the nearby Tusker House restaurant for our first character meal.  We got to meet Donald Duck, Mickey, Daisy, Minnie, and Goofy at this meal.  The buffet was delicious!

After lunch, we had some more time to meet characters before the Lion King show.

A family friend of ours, Kelsey, is a dancer in the show and had arranged for us to have VIP seats.  We got to go to the special entrance for reserved seats, which was actually the exit of the show.  Once it was time, we were led to our front row seats.  The show was amazing, and it was so fun to see Kelsey perform in it.  Abby was of course too shy to participate--she was chosen twice to help out with something or dance with the characters, but she didn't want to.  Norah was so enthralled by the music, dancing, and colors.  Afterward, we were to taken out a special exit and got to meet the cast and get our picture taken with them.  It was so sweet of Kelsey to hook us up with the VIP treatment!

We had some time after the show to go get FastPasses for Expedition Everest...I wasn't sure if I really wanted to ride a rollercoaster that goes backwards, but we got the passes anyway.  We decided to go to the Bug's Life show before getting spots for the parade--Abby enjoyed it until the end when they make it feel like there are bugs crawling underneath your seat--her scream was SO loud--definitely not something she'll probably ever want to do again.  We sat right outside the show's exit for the parade.  The Animal Kingdom parade was definitely one of our favorites.  It was lots of fun, and we even got to see Kelsey dancing in it.

After the parade, we knew we didn't have a lot of time left, so we went to see Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, and Eeyore at another character spot.

We had to get to our FastPass time for Everest, so Nancy watched a sleeping Norah and snacking Abby for us.  I was pretty nervous for the ride, but ended up going and enjoying it a lot--it was not as bad as I had thought--just one big drop.  When we got off, we assumed that they would be closing the ride since the park was supposed to close at 5.  They were letting people in through the FastPass entrance, so we decided to go again.  It was lots of fun the second time around!  When we got off again, they were still letting people through, so we thought we might as well go one last time.  We had front row seats this time--Dave and Tracy in the front, Mike and I in the second row. Three times on a rollercoaster in 10 minutes is probably not the best idea...I was definitely feeling a little off-kilter afterwards!

We had originally thought about going to Epcot to see Illuminations at night, since our Animal Kingdom day was a little shorter, but we were all pretty tired after getting back to the hotel.  Another quick meal at the food court, then Kelsey came to do Abby's hair for her princess meal the next day.  Abby was so excited when Kelsey pulled out a special package from "Cinderella" with a flower hair pin, sparkly bobby pins, a necklace, and blue nail polish.  She got all dolled up, and it was nice to have a chance to visit more with Kelsey.

We decided to call it a day after she left, since Magic Kingdom would be a busy day on Thursday.

11 months old

It's official--just one month left before Norah turns a year old...  I can't believe how fast this year has gone!  Norah has had an exciting month--she got to meet her aunt Tracy (who has been teaching in South Korea for the past year), ride on a plane for the first time, and take her first trip to Disney World.  It's also been a rough month for her ears...she hasn't been able to shake the double ear infection that she got at Christmastime.  Just when we thought she was fine, we decided to take her in before our Disney trip just in case--right ear infection.  She had just finished her 2nd antibiotic when it came back with a vengeance last week--in both ears again.  She's finishing her 3rd different antibiotic, but also has a bad cold and probably teeth coming that are bugging her, so it's been a tough week.

When Norah isn't feeling crummy, she has been up to a lot of exciting new things.  She's still standing up on everything, and lately will let go for a few seconds at a time.  She is still putting everything into her mouth, but will now look at us before or as she's doing it to see what kind of reaction she'll get.  She LOVES to feed herself, and we discovered her love for blueberries today.  She really will eat just about anything we put in front of her.  She's still eating some baby food when it's more convenient, but is probably ready to be done with that completely.  She is truly a baby on the go, with a mind of her own.  So social and pretty easygoing when she's feeling well.  It's still hard to get good pics of this girlie on the go, but we thought we'd try to trick her by giving her a book to read.  We ended up with a few good ones:

I'll post about our Disney trip soon!  We definitely had a blast!