Magical...

M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E, Mickey Mouse, Mickey Mouse....

Yes, we have been to the house of the mouse, Cinderella's castle and all the good Walt Disney World (WDW) things. It was fantastic.

ZippityDooDah ZippityEh? We stayed at Fort Wilderness Campground RIGHT ON the Walt Disney World property. Trailer Life Magazine rates it the #1 campground in North America. It was magical! We had free access to all the WDW-transportation (boats/monorail/buses to & from the campground to all the theme parks and Downtown Disney) .

Chim Chim Cher-ee... On Jan 2. WDW unveiled their new pricing plan. A 4-day pass (what we'd originally planned) was $220 but a 10-day pass was only $232. Seriously. $12 more for 6 days? Well...bring on the mouse with the big ears! I am proud to say that now, 10 days later (well, actually, we only did 9 in a 14 day period but hey...) we can honestly say that there is not much at WDW that we have not seen. (Brilliant WDW marketing because this meant that we didn't have time to go to Universal Studios or Seaworld & spent our 'lunch' money at their empire instead).

Supercalifragilisticexpealadocious... We arrived on Jan. 3 and left on the 18th and Todd's mom flew in/out on those days so we had help with the mighty munchkins. Hooray!! Todd & I had some 'Todd & Carmen' time while the kids & their Nani had a great time playing together.

Hakuna Matata. (No Worries). What were our favourite rides? The Safari and Dinosaur ride at Animal Kingdom were great. Although the absolute highlight was Todd being selected to lead the audience in making Elephant noises for the Lion King Theatre Show.

Ahhhh. At MGM-Studios I re-lived my Muppet days with Kermit, Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Waldorf & the gang... while I also swooned at the Indiana Jones Stunt Show. The kids loved the parade with the characters and old cars. Todd, Tomas & I also did The Tower of Terror ride where we dropped 13 floors. When the ride finished, at the exact time Tomas said "Do that AGAIN!" - Todd said "Not AGAIN".

A Whole New World... EPCOT as always was good. We all love the Test Track where the cars go 70 miles an hour.

You Can Fly! You Can Fly! Space Mountain. Splash Mountain. Thunder Mountain. Been there. Done that. The Magic Kingdom was lots of fun. With Tomas being 40" this year he can go on lots of rides. His favourites were Thunder Mountain, Dumbo and Pooh's Big Adventure. Toria's favourite included the Buzz Lightyear and the Carousel.

A Jolly Holiday. We have lots of pictures (I'm sure you're all looking forward to seeing) but we're at a dialup connection this morning and don't expect to have high-speed connection for another 2 weeks but who knows - keep checking back.

As Mickey Mouse says...
See Ya Later
Carmen.

Time? What Time?

I think the sign of a successful vacation is when you haven't worn a watch for over a week. This is us. We weren't even sure when we celebrated the New Year - so we just kept celebrating...

On New Years' Eve we went to a First Night family affair in St. Petersburg, Florida (near Tampa). They use about a 6-block radius and inside bank lobbys, art galleries, and churches they either have performers or areas where you can make crafts (both for children and adults). On the park areas they have jumpy-things, etc. for kids and a special 'party' areas for teenagers. Down by their pier they had fire works and more performers. It was fantastic - totally the way to spend New Years Eve.

As if the New Year wasn't good enough - we found a beach - Siesta Key Beach in Sarasota that is rated as one of the top 10 beaches. The sand was so fine - it was like icing sugar. Seriously. We didn't think we were 'beach' people. Hah. A first has occurred and I admit - we were wrong. We are beach people. The kids played in the sand for hours designing and building varying sand castles and sand animals.





Today we are 'racing' Nani (Todd's mom) to Walt Disney World. She is flying to Orlando, we are driving and Tomas has decided that the first one there gets the first visit with the big guy - Mickey Mouse.

Happy New Year!
The once-again-watch-wearing-Carmen.