Mama Bouchard Talks: A Magical Trip

Many months ago...back when it was still freezing cold, Man said he wanted to go down and visit his mother and grandmother. They live near West Palm Beach. Although I am admittedly geographically challenged I do happen to know exactly where Mickey Mouse lives. So, I told him to give me the dates and I would set it all up......and that we could not possibly drive right past Mickey Mouse and not stop in to say, "Hi." Right? It really didn't seem unreasonable. He gave me the "Oh my word, here we go," look. To which I responded with my, "You aren't convincing me otherwise look." (We have this figured out after 10 years.)

The one thing we immediately swapped blood on? The girls could not know. I have to live with them 24 hours a day and I was not counting down to Mickey Mouse for the next 4 or 5 months. There is not enough chocolate in the world for me to survive that.

We laid out all of their clothes the night before with some treats for Disney!

They were VERY surprised!

After lots of hugs and kisses and thank yous and I can't believe its, we were off.

When I found Florida resident tickets for super cheap but included three days, I couldn't pass them up...or the extra day. So, we drove straight to Disney and spent several hours the first night at Hollywood Studios.

Hollywood Studios is not particularly bent towards smaller children. While they have some expereinces for them, it is mostly for Olivia's age and up. So, it was the perfect place to spend just a few hours. I will say though, I think they have the BEST "parade" of all the parks. It occurs on water, at night, and is Fantasmic ;) Slightly scary for small ones so we passed on it this time for Allye's sake.

The next morning we planned in swim time at the hotel for all of us. Nate's sister came over after lunch and went with Nate and the two big girls to Magic Kingdom while Allye ~~and I~~ took a nap.

This was the.way.to.go. When I met up with them a few hours later they had conquered many of the rides already. The age split for our girls is three years and lots of inches. So, this often means Olivia can ride everything and Addison can not. This allowed them to split up and not have anyone out of sorts waiting on the big/little sister to finish a ride. We then rode lots of things together and everyone came out happy. Thank you Aunt Kayley.

This was Allye's first character sighting. She wasn't having it.


Much happier now!

And, well, you can't leave Disney without seeing the fireworks. Even if it means you give your kids a big fat ice cream and don't make it to bed until midnight.

Of course. There is always a price to pay. Our next venture was into the wild at Animal Kingdom. Bright and early. I was not the most popular person that morning....until we found face painting.

Allye had a blast on the drums...

but continued to freak out within 20 feet of a character.

I loved the safari themed parade...this might have been the girls favorite thing that day.

Of course, no park is complete without the mouse who started it all.

This was a wonderful trip for our family. We are so fortunate to live close enough to this magical place and even more fortunate to be able to share this experience with our girls. I would not trade the looks in their eyes and the excitement in their voices and hearts for anything. Through their eyes, that is the best way to be young again.

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Friday afternoon we jumped in the car and rode another two and a half hours to West Palm Beach. We had a great time visiting with Nate's mother and grandmother. The view is always lovely from grandmother's patio.