Christmas Vacation - "No Not the Griswold the Manley's"

Santa brought Dade a trip to Disney this year so the family loaded up an left on Christmas Day

Thank goodness Santa also brought Dade some new movies for this trip to keep him occupied! He was so excited to get going and even though we were driving we all had a blast. During our 8 day Trip we packed in as much fun as we could handle!

Day 1 Magic Kingdom

Above is one of my favorite pictures from that day, all of us in front of Cinderellas Castle. 

We started this day off with the Holiday Parade and had great seats! Watching Dade get so excited over all of the characters as they came by was so great to see. He even got embarrassed when Cinderella blew him a kiss! This was the perfect year to take him he had a growth spurt this summer and is just at 40 inches which allowed him to get on quite a few rides! He is my little dare devil, not scared of a thing. His favorite ride was Dumbo. All though he liked them all. This was a full day for us we arrived around 11:30am and left at 1:00am. Even though the weather was very cold (around 32 degrees) We made the best of it and had a blast! 

Day 2 Swamp Buggy Ride

We had a free day during the trip where nothing was planned. Our intentions were to go to NASA but, when we told the kids they all gave us that look.... like really... that sounds like a blast <insert sarcasm>. Change of Plans.... I googled Air boat rides and found Boggy Creek Air boat tours. Sounded fun enough, water, boat, gators, Wait Gators.... Well we hopped on that boat and took off into the swampy water. Guess what it was SUPER FUN! We even got to see a 9ft. Alligator. The kids loved it and when the tour was over they all held a small gator well except Meghan she wanted no part of that!

If you look closely at the picture below you can see the momma gator!

You can check out more pics from the Swamp Buggy Ride here

We ended this day with a trip to the mall for the girls (Meghan and Amanda) and then went to the Movies to see Gulliver's Travel. Dade really liked it and so did we.  Nice end to yet another great day!

Day 3 Epcot & Animal Kingdom

We woke up to a gorgeous day the sun was out and it was starting to warm up somewhere around the 60's. Epcot was fun but, we knew going in it is was more shows and less rides. We did enjoy the Waste Management exhibit. Dade got to push a dump truck around and learn about recycling and how landfills work. Our Team name was "Ninja Umpire" (there will be another blog explaining that much later). After spending half a day there we were ready to head over to Animal Kingdom. As soon as we got into the park we headed over to the Tree of Life for the "It's hard to be a bug" show. Me and Meghan were excited because we remembered it from when we went 9 years ago. Once we were done we headed to the Mt. Everest Roller Coaster. Let me just say SO WORTH THE LINE... We had a blast and rode it twice! Durwood took Dade around to the Character Signing spots while we were on Everest. We met back up in Dinosaur Land were dade was getting ready to board the Dino Ride ( it's the same as Dumbo but Dinosaurs) we decided to join them on this ride, where else can an adult act like a kid. The perfect last ride to the end of a perfect day with my family!

This is a picture of Dade with His Bug's Glasses Ready for the show to begin!

Day 4 Universal Studios

The days were getting nicer as the vacation was coming closer to the end. Universal Studios was a blast. This is where Durwood and I came for our Honeymoon 8 years ago so it held a lot of special memories for us. We enjoyed the Shrek 4D ride first. We all really liked it but, after waiting in line 80 minutes we were not going to ride it again. We took Dade to meet Shrek and Donkey by the time we got up to see them he became shy.. Donkey kept asking him questions and he would not respond so of course Donkey is going to pick out mommy and start talking to her. They were funny and in the end we got a great pic. Universal has a  "Macy Day Parade" we set back and watched that for a while and then went to ride the Simpson roller coaster. Okay I hate to say it but, yes I am 35 and still watch the Simpsons every Sunday at 7:00pm on channel 4. LOL so I was EXCITED and so was everyone else that came to the park that day..... The line was long 90 minutes long. Do you think I cared??....You got it.... I made my whole family get in line and wait. It was not that bad they had Simpson cartoons playing while we were in line so I was just fine. We finally made it to the front of the line. The ride was great but, not great enough to go a second time. Dade had been so good we purchased him a light up sword, which now I realize was a bad idea. he ran around poking us every chance he got. He even hid behind a bush and jumped out at some man walking by. Yeah he's silly but he's mine and I like him that way. We ended this day with a Squishee, churros and a much needed call to nanny ( Dade was missing her). 

Day 5 Magic Kingdom  Disney Movie Studios

What better way to spend New Years then at Magic Kingdom they closed at 3am so we would have tons of time to ride rides and have fun! All dressed and ready to go we pull up to the gates and were told "I'm sorry the park is closed" closed really how is that even possible.... Well they already had 75,000 people in the park and were FULL. We did get a coupon to go to Animal Kingdom and Park free but, they closed at 8pm and the point was to Ring in the New Year @ Disney! We did not let it get us down though we decided to go over to Disney Movie Studios, this was the only park we had not visited yet (other than the water parks and it was too cold for them) bedsides they closed at 12am and were having a New Years Bash! That's what we wanted in the first place. On this day Meghan and Amanda went off on their own to ride rides and me, Dur and Dade went to find our own fun! Dade even got his face painted as a tiger. The best part of the night was going to see Fantasmic. The show was fun and they had giant sprays of water that they showed pictures of the characters on. After the show we went over to the main area where the party was already in full swing. Nice loud band, plenty of horn blowing and lots of dancing people. We found a spot pushed ourselves in and let they dancing begin. We all had a blast. What a perfect way to end 2010 and start 2011.



Dade's New Years Kiss

I hope you all had a great New Year!