A Disney Dream Come True...Day 1

Holy cow, what a whirlwind of fun and craziness. It was kind of surreal experience when we left for the airport. I booked our hotel April of 2008 and I remember thinking October 2009 was so far away. Now it is over and done and I keep thinking it went by too fast. I am going to try and not make this the longest blog in the history of mankind and not get too longwinded...notice I said try :) Greatest lesson learned on this vacation: You need AT LEAST 2 days in every park to get it all in!!!

When we told Olivia about our planned trip we thought it would be great to get a water jug and start filling it with change.We started out with a couple
dollars and then Grandma Kathy got in on the action and gave Liv a quart jar of change. It was about $80. After a year of saving Olivia had $298!! Some more of which came from her grandma. This was Liv's souvenoir money.
The Saturday before we left we started getting things packed so that I wouldn't have to stay up all night the night before since our plane was taking off early. It is needless to say a very excited little girl was packed and ready to leave 4 days early. Just as a fun fact...so was her dad :) Here she is patiently waiting at the airport with her first prize on the seat next to her, a cute little airplane that the doors open up. As we got ready to board she started to get very nervous. She was almost in tears as we walked on the plane. However, we were almost last to board and the flight attendant could tell she was nervous and Liv got to look in the cockpit and meet the pilot, so nice of her to do that!! After a long day of traveling, and having a 30 minute layover in Denver turn into a 2 hour layover, we finally made it to Florida, where Grandpa Doug and Grandma Kathy were waiting for us.

This pond was just outside our door and Olivia had just as much fun feeding ducks, turtles, all kinds of birds and chasing lizards as she did in the Disney parks.

WELCOME TO DISNEY WORLD!!!!!

We visited the Magic Kingdom first. It was fun, but much busier than I expected it to be. Here are Ryan and Livvy with a Mickey bush just outside the monorail station. We opted to take the steamboat over.There weren't as many Halloween decorations as I expected and had seen of pictures from Disneyland. I was a little bummed, but not too much :) It was just great to be there.After pausing for a main street photo it was off to Fantasyland. Olivia loved the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, Mickey's Philharmagic, Cinderella's carousel, and of course It's A Small World (we are still hearing the song daily at our house.)But the highlight of her day was meeting Ariel (whose voice sounded like she had just sucked down an entire helium tank!!) This next picture is us waiting in line (30 mintues folks). See how Liv looks a little nervous. I was worried we would get up to the front and she would freak out since we had just seen Donald from afar and she started to cry. I know this is not the best picture of Liv, but I wanted to show Ariel holding the picture Olivia drew for her. It was of Ariel swimming in the ocean and Liv wrote on the bottom "I like your DVD Ariel". It was so cute!! And this was the only character that Liv wasn't terrified of.Ariel put the picture in her treasure chest and told Liv she would show it to Flounder later. So all I have to say is PRICELESS!!!!After doing the one thing she had dreamed about for weeks she was ready to head off and find some more fun....which did not include The Haunted Mansion. Thank heavens Disney has exits everywhere for scared kids :) But she did love Pirates, the Tiki Room, and playing on Tom Sawyer Island with dad while everyone else rode Splash Mountain. And she caught a parade in there somewhere too. After such a long day we skipped the night parade and fireworks. We were all VERY tired.

Okay I just decided I am going to have to do this is multiple posts. There is just TOO much.