Vacationing

We are happy to be at home from our week long vacation.  It was fun traveling with three little ones and exhausting too!  We are all trying to get back into our daily rhythm of things and are starting to look ahead to the rest of summer and the new adventures to come.

We spent the first part of our trip at our family reunion (albeit a small portion of our extended family) in Walt Disney World.  We stayed at the Port Orleans Resort on the WDW campus.  The year before we stayed at the Riverside resort.  Both are great.  The Port Orleans had a Mardi Gras theme that my almost 3 year old (tomorrow!) was a bit afraid of.  He had a hard time walking as he was so distracted by the large masks starring down at him.  I don't blame him.  I thought they were weird too!  The hotel had a pool that had a sea serpent curled around it with a water slide down his tongue.  Both of my boys could quite happily live in water and had lots of fun going down the slide and motoring around the pool with their swimmies on. Logan enjoyed his first swim too. 

We visited two parks: The Magic Kingdom and Epcot.  By boys have been planning their day at the Magic Kingdom for months and were so excited to go!  We rode all the rides we could and they ended the night with the late light show and fireworks.  Luckily, my dad stayed back at the hotel (quite happily I may add) with little Logan as it was record breaking temperatures in Florida and just too hot for a baby to be in. 

As much as people don't like Disney for all of it commercialism and whatnot, I love it.  I think it is nothing but pure fun and imagination. 
The anticipation of things is so fun to watch in your children.

And then to watch how they are when they see something truly exciting and magical. I am lucky to share that with them.

Before leaving the Disney area, we stopped by Downtown Disney for a late birthday lunch for me.  Because I am a cool mommy, I wanted to eat at the T Rex Cafe' because I know someone in my household is a bit obsessed with everything Dino.  I'll blog more on that later this week.  It was a really fun place.  My son was beyond himself with being surrounded in dinosaurs.  Plus, eating in a ice cave with a TRex skeleton above us was pretty cool too!

From there we traveled to Long Boat Key, FL.  I've been going at least once a year every year of my life.  My grandparents, and two sets of Aunts/Uncles live there.  It was so wonderful to see them!  We were also lucky to spend the time with my cousin's kids.  Reagan was at the worshiping point with the 12 year old and loved having such cool people to hang out with.  The 9 year old was such help too.  She is great with babies and Logan loved her so!
Logan got to meet his great-grandmother and I was able to give her the Tea Leaves cardi I made for her (and it fit perfectly and I didn't snap a pic!)!

We enjoyed the rest of our vacation with our family there.  We celebrated birthdays

hung out coloring in bed

 got sand everywhere

 and had evenings like these

It. Was. Magical. 

It almost makes be forget the flight home...where we had to spend an extra 3 hours in the air and arrive home at 4 AM...with three small children...after a week of being gone... :)