Florida trip, days 1 and 2

Ok, y'all.  Yes... I know I am behind.  Yes.  We took a trip.  And yes, we've been back for a while now.  But, well...  as soon as we got back, we hit the ground running.  With school events, subbing jobs for me like crazy, a few more last minute photo sessions, and more.  Then, to top it off...last day of school, I start to feel a little sick.  Next day, I'm down with the flu.  As I type this I am still sick, sick, sick.  I won't dwell too much.  But suffice it to say, next year I WILL be getting my flu shot.  Here I sit, 2 days before Christmas, 3 days in to the flu and I am just now able to actually "sit".  The girls have been staying w my mother in law to keep them well, Brad is now also on Tamiflu.  And I would never wish this on my worst enemy.  Every possible symptom known to man, I have.  I woke up Saturday morning with congestion, dehyrdrated (no mater how much I drank), lightheadedness, dizziness, blurred vision, vomiting, aching so bad in all my muscles I could barely walk.  It is awful y'all.  Just awful.  I see how people can die from this.  Serious.

So anyway.  Day 3 and I can now "sit".  So I am sitting and typing trying to do a little catching up instead of partaking in my own misery of missing out of Christmas activities and family and what not. :(



Ok...  back to the topic at hand.  Yes!  We went to Florida and it was great.  I'm going to try to do a day by day post to give you good ideas and planning if you are planning a trip or if you're just interested in how our days went.

Days 1 and 2 combined.  We have great travellers in the car.  We really do.  So we decided, again, to drive the 18+ hours to Florida, spending one night on the way.  We again took little presents for the kids to open along the way for some bit of excitement.

But honestly, now that they are older, this go-round, they enjoyed sleeping and playing their iPods through much of the trip.  ;)

We also went to see the new Disney movie, Frozen, right before we left.  It literally came out the day before.  I had a feeling it would be big at Disney and the girls LOVED it.  So much so they insisted I buy the soundtrack (it had some good music too!) so we enjoyed listening to that quite a lot as well.

So, our first day we made it 13 hours!  All the way to Tallahassee, where we spent the night at a Country Inn and Suites.  We choose these often as they are reasonably priced (typically b/w $60-$90), have a 'suite' like room, have free hot breakfast, and I get points to use at future stays.

Now, if you remember, we were traveling on Thanksgiving that first day.  So we missed out on a turkey dinner.  But we got to Tallahassee and ate a late night breakfast at the Waffle House next door.

Think Alice's Diner - the old 80's sitcom? - the waitstaff was the treat, the food was edible...we'll leave it at that.  Brad enjoyed the atmosphere, I enjoyed not getting food poisoning.  ;)

We all slept well and got up early.  Ate breakfast and continued the rest of the trip to Orlando, a measly 4.5 hrs remaining.  We got to Orlando by noon and had several hours available before being allowed to check in to our resort.  So because we made such fabulous time, we stopped and did The HolyLand Experience.  We had been told it was a fabulous thing to do and see and we must go if time allowed.  So we did!

I have to say, honest opinion...  I was hoping, expecting?, more.  The sights were great and most of it was really pretty cool.  But I guess I figured there would be more "experience" to it.  I thought there would be people dressed up in "character" or more shows or things to DO.  It was really more things to SEE.  The things to see were great, don't get me wrong.  But I just thought there would be more to do or experience.  I guess in my mind, I was picturing walking through Bethlehem scenarios...  anyway.  Here's some pictures!

The Then Commandments behind Brad and the girls...

Since we got there right at noon, our first stop was to eat.  They offered Chick Fila bag lunches or hot dogs or pizzas or sandwiches.  Brad also got lamb on a stick (like a shish ka bob) that he swore was delicious.  Brenna got this HUGE hot dog...

They had a whole wax museum area which was pretty neat - 

Which conveniently dumped you out into the 'market'....  ;)

This next picture makes me laugh.  Brenna insisted on being the "third wiseman" as they only had two here....

So we spent a few hours there before heading over to Disney property to our resort.

We stayed at the Wyndham Bonnet Creek through my mother in law's timeshare.   It is ON Disney property but it is not included as a "Disney resort".  So therefore, we don't get the cool magic bands that some guests were getting and we don't get to be a part of the dining plan.  But let me just tell you.  Staying here far outweighs the benefits of those two things.  #1 it's free!  Super plus.  #2 its awesome.  #3 its huge and a true 'resort'.  Here's some pics of our "room" which was nearly as big as our house!  (they actually don't call them 'rooms' they call them units)

After unpacking, we headed down to DownTown Disney to find a place to eat.  Brenna quickly decided she wanted to eat the TRex restaraunt.  Which is similar to the Rainforest Cafe, but with dinosaurs.  Now, remember, this is not the day after Thanksgiving (black Friday) so it was pretty crowded still but we only had a 25 minute wait or so.  Not too bad.

After we ate, we pretty much headed back to the room.  We knew we needed to rest up because the next day would start our real Disney adventures!