Our Family Circus does Disney

Our Disney trip was quite good. Very good, really. We are very thankful that both sets of grandparents were able to come with us-- we had a great adult-kid ratio! I can't even imagine doing a trip like this on our own. (My parents took us to Washington, D.C. when we kids were about the same ages as my own kids now... and after that trip we didn't go on another family vacation for 8 years. It was that crazy!) So I'm happy to say that having grandparents along for our family trip was a big blessing -- with 2 kids in strollers, both needing naps, and one nursing still, it would have been too insane otherwise.

But Saturday, our first day at Magic Kingdom, was very crowded (a holiday weekend), and very hot (mid-90's... 10 degrees hotter than usual for this time of year). And if I had been writing a blog title at about 4:00 that afternoon, it would have been something like:

"The Great Restroom Tour of Disney"
or,
"If you're going to Disney on a hot holiday weekend, use the term "vacation" lightly"
or,
"Strider's Vacation at Disney, with 9 people watching"
or even,
"Navigating a stroller through throngs of people who are not all moving in one direction is extremely annoying, and it's all I've been doing all day."

I realized later that I attempted to go to 6 rides/shows that day, but 3 times had to leave early to take someone to the bathroom. I became quite expert at finding the illegal ways to both exit and re-enter an attraction. But while a few of us were doing a lot of waiting outside of attractions, some of our group did actually get to do a lot of fun rides, and the day ended on a more positive note.

And by the time Monday came around, the crowds had thinned considerably, and we were ALL able to go to many more attractions. At that point I realized Disney could actually be a fun place!

We actually had many highlights and "favorites" of the trip, and I'll post some of those maybe tomorrow (I'm tired of dealing with Blogger's picture uploading (non)capabilities for the moment), but here are some of the pictures of us actually riding rides and seeing (whole) shows.

Philharmagic (which was one of my favorite things at the park... and was a hit with everyone in our group)

Buzz Lightyear... Pete was our group's high scorer -- he and Strider rode this 4 times in a row on Monday.

Rayna and Grandpa

Colsen and Poppa (poor Poppa had a very jerky ride with this little driver)

Jungle Cruise

Rayna, Grandpa and Gee-Gee on Peter Pan

Pete and Colsen on Dumbo

.... And one of Colsen's favorite rides, the Monorail!