We're back

11 days.... 6 parks.....10 throbbing feet.....

What a vacation!  The weather cooperated beautifully, we had a surprise visit from my parents for a couple of days, and we experienced everything we wanted to at Disney and Universal Studios....in fact I think we are Disney'd out..... sorry Disney Fans!  Really we are Disney'd out.  We had a great time but I don't see going back any time soon.

We rode the Tower of Terror over and over and over again....it never gets old...I could do that all day.  We sopped ourselves on the Popeye's BilgeRat Barges....best water raft ride EVER!  We had a delicious fresh meal at Mythos...so yummy...Universal definitely out does Disney on food.  We walked through Harry Potter's Hogsmeade time and time again, what a beautiful and magical place.  The boys played in an over sized playground at Honey I shrunk the Kids, we laughed our heads off at Monster's Inc Laugh floor and walked through the Tree of Life in awe of the beautiful carvings.  We experienced so many things in our time in Orlando and will remember it all fondly...except the blisters and sore feet and.....well maybe even those because we did it together.



Now I to subject you all to a small photo capture of our adventure.....

First stop Wizarding World of Harry Potter where the butter beer is delicious and on tap.

Hogwarts (Forbidden Journey ride...could of used the motion sickness bands on this one)

Eoin finds his wand at Olivander's....he was picked as part of the show and put on quite a show himself for Olivander.

One of my favourite views...the Tree of Life at Animal Kingdom, although Animal Kingdom is one of my least favourite parks it can't be beat in ambiance.

Carvings in the Tree of Life

More carvings in the Tree of Life

The line at Expedition Everest in Animal Kingdom...one of Liam's favourite rides..

The Speeder bike outside of Start Tours at Disney's Hollywood Studios. Everyone's feet hurt so much that they made their escape on the speeder bikes.

Meeting Donald in Mexico...Epcot

I didn't think they would want 'ears' but they HAD to have their ears before they went to Magic Kingdom.... Eoin picked R2-D2 ears, Liam chose patriotic Canada ears and Seamus was wearing Pirate ears.

Meeting Pluto....they actually got a few autographs too

Donald and Daisy in Hollywood Studios

The Green Goblin at Islands of Adventure/universal

My parents came down as a surprise treat for a few days

Meeting Mickey Mouse on the very last day

Star Tours again and again and again...wasn't so bad after I got some motion sickness bands

The three caballeros in Mexico World Showcase Epcot

Playing at Honey I shrunk the Kids

Liam and Eoin waiting to take on Darth Vader at Jedi Training Academy

The climbing gear outside of Expedition Everest

Waiting in Line at Rockn' roller coaster with Tower of Terror in the background....yep Gramma and Papa experienced ALL the rides...Eoin made sure of it.

Epcot

We spent many hours in and around Star Tours and it's store

Ewok village at Star Tours

SURPRISE!!!!!!

SURPRISE!!!!  I don't think they believed us this morning.   We woke them up to a room FULL of balloons....about 150 of them....with instructions to 1. Wake up mom and dad, 2. wake up their grandparents, 3.  Pop the yellow balloons in number order.

We had to wake them up so step 1 & 2 were already taken care of.  The balloons had a message to head to our spare room where they found....... a HUGE mickey balloon and all our luggage ready to go along with their gift bags.   

I don't have time to upload the video so the pictures will have to do.   Although there was no screaming... just a lot of blank stares full of confusion.  As the minutes went by it sunk in and the excitement grew!!!

SEE YOU WHEN WE GET BACK!!!

We're going.......

I have spent the last month planning and prepping for the big trip.  Who knew that planning a trip to Disney would be so involved!!  Okay.....I did but we went ahead and planned one anyway.  Chris and I went the year we got married.  It could have been our honeymoon of sorts as we had a destination wedding with all our family along for the ride for our actual wedding/honeymoon.  What a blast it was, we really enjoyed our trip to Walt Disney World. We swore we would bring our future children when they were old enough.  As luck would have it we conceived our first son on the way back from Disney when an ice storm kept us in Ohio for a few days. 

For a few years now we have been talking about the trip but something always came up, lay offs, renos, weddings in Mexico.  Last month Chris put his foot down (in his ever so gentlemanly way) and said it was time to make the trip.  So here we are 45 days later and the trip is planned, the bags are packed and the only thing that is left to do is tell the boys.  The boys still don't know.   I don't know how I kept it a secret... actually to be honest I had an ingenious strategy..... I kept yelling "surprise" at them randomly to get it off my chest.  They think I am a little off my rocker anyway so it worked out.

I must say I don't know how they haven't figured it out.  Maybe it was a boy thing but they didn't pay me any attention. I have been doing everything pretty much in front of their eyes. And I have been doing a lot of things, from designing custom mickey t shirts to making mickey cookie pops to crafting up some fun fake boarding passes and itineraries.  Yeah, I went way over the top and gave myself too much to do...the joys of being a SAHM.....but it was so much fun!  I put my Silhouette Cameo to some serious work these past few weeks.

Tomorrow is the big reveal when we get to yell surprise for real and let them know "we are going to Disney tomorrow!!!".  When they wake up in the morning  a surprise will be waiting for them.  But I am not going to share how we did it... you can wait to see the video.

T-shirts for their trip to Hollywood studios Star Tours.  Each boy has their own lightsaber design with three unique lightsaber handles and colours on their shirts



"Vacation dollars" money holder and scrapbook for them to fill up




book mark, luggage tags and sketch book for each of them....because we know wherever we go there needs to be something they can draw in.




Boarding passes and itinerary holder



Inside itinerary holder with the passes and a customized itinerary with hotel info, park info and our schedule.





Cut cut cut

This christmas I received a fun new toy! Chris bought me the new Silhouette Cameo!  I have made lots of crafty things so far already but can't post them because they are part of an upcoming surprise for the boys.  I can post this one, it is plain but meaningful for who it is meant for. It is a card for Eoin's birthday.   Eoin has the most treasured webkinz like toy that has these huge 'puppy dog' eyes. Her name is named Daisy.  I was able to cut out a paper Daisy and put her on a birthday card for him.  He is going to LOVE it.

Let them eat this cake

The boys seem to think that anything can be put on a birthday cake.  They often have much more faith in me than I do.   Eoin wanted the sack boy character he created put on his this year.  I didn't think I could do it but he reminded me that last year I was able to pull off an Invader Zim cake for Liam. Guilt?  Yep.  So here is the sack boy cake.   And tomorrow I will tell you how much bigger my rear is because of how much icing goes in mouth when I am decorating a cake.   Not good.

Eoin's Little Big Planet character on his birthday cake

And for reference.  Here is Liam's cake last year.

Liam's Invader Zim cake from last year