A "Magical" Beginning!

Whew. I really want to "journal" our trip, but it is a bit overwhelming browsing through the 800 or so pictures from our camera and my parents. Please accept my apologies from the beginning. . . there will be lots of pictures and rambling . . . you may want to skip over the next few posts! ha!

We drove from Dauphin Island, AL to Disney on Saturday, the 4th of July. The roads were smooth and surprisingly relatively traffic free, and the kids, well, they were tolerable. :) My parents flew down and met us there. We stayed at the All Star Music hotel in the Broadway section. Fun hotel - and we were lucky enough to share it with the eight million Brazilian teen tour groups that were there. I think I might still be able to share one of their cheer/chants with you . . .

Noni and Lawton . . . we were on our way to watch the fireworks for the 4th over Magic Kingdom. We didn't arrive at Disney until late that afternoon so we didn't enter the madness of the parks. Viewing from the Polynesian's beach was perfect for us! And this picture below, well, captures the excitement and pure joy Lawton had that first night. That smile was so worth it. . . :) On Sunday morning, our first full day, we somehow miraculously were able to get to Magic Kingdom BEFORE it opened in time to see a little welcome show and Mickey and the gang come in on the train. What a perfect beginning to our trip and introduction to the week for Lawton! I may have even gotten a little misty eyed in my excitement of the week. maybe.

Our first ride - Dumbo. One of our friends, Liana, helped us book and plan our entire trip. She suggested to ride this first because the wait times get incredibly long as the day goes on. She is a great planner if you are from around here . . .

This is the second ride we rode - not that you can tell what it is (Peter Pan) - but you can still see the fresh excitement in Lawton's face. love it. Cinderella's Golden Carousel . . . we rode this several times!

We caught a midday parade at MK and Lawton was so excited to see and to wave to all his character friends . . .

Lawton has the best seat in the house on Dandy's shoulders!

We spotted Donald in Frontierland at MK

That night we ate at O'hana's in the Polynesian. Yummy! We all especially loved the dumplings (but not the kind of dumplings you are probably thinking of) and the bread pudding. Carolina LOVED the noodles here and couldn't slurp up enough!

Somehow when Liana set up our reservations, it somehow got recorded that it was Lawton's birthday (and mine). So, since Disney's big push this year is "What will you celebrate?", we were able to celebrate Lawton's "birthday" (his was in April and mine in June) every night for dinner. He totally went along with it and never disputed it or asked why. Silly boy! Maybe the cupcake every night had something to do with it?

Getting a little Buzz Lightyear action in after dinner. . .

Here's me and mom on Buzz . . . can you tell we were having a little bit of fun ourselves? :)

in front of Cinderella's castle

This was our first (of five or six) time to ride Splash Mountain . . . or maybe Thunder Mountain. Lawton LOVED them both! He is 42" so he was able to ride almost everything in all of Disney. We were so glad he loved all the thrill rides because we loved them, too! It makes me kinda sad though to think that next time we won't be able to squeeze the three of us together. . .

Here we are watching the SpectroMagic Parade at MK. Carolina loved every minute of it and seeing all the lights!

This was the only thing that he asked for all week, his light up Mickey sword. He is still sleeping with it every single night. I love this boy!

More to come . . .