Some souvenirs

Anthony with his new Cat in the Hat shirt.

Because we all need to put a pillow over the daddy's head and climb all over him...

The girls decided Anthony needed to see if he liked chocolate chips on his pancakes.

He did.

We arrived home with Anthony's new snow globe collection from Disney and SeaWorld to be partly broken from rough handling.

Our wish granter had a Mickey and Minnie snow globe with music that she brought over to Anthony when she heard.

We even added to the new collection last week when traveling across Washington state.

But then, one of the children was trying to look at one of the globes the other night, and the whole shelf fell down, breaking several open...

she was remorseful and it is sad, but maybe we weren't meant to have snow globes for now?

Maybe in a few more years...

Sheri, one of our beautiful Wish Granters.

I don't know why I have this picture, but it must mean something.

She must've just woken up?

back to the snow globe

Anthony loved the music it makes.

Kelly's drawing with one of the boys' comments written in.

One of Lilly's souvenirs.

She was so excited to buy this. :)

One night it was time for bed and I told Anthony it was Night Night time.

He hid behind Daniel's arm after grunting and shaking his head "no."

Day 7 & 8 of our Epic Adventure to Florida ~ Universal and Airports

After we cleaned out our villa, we went one last time to the Ice Cream Palace at Give Kids the World Village.

Then, we hopped on over to the Castle of Miracles to see where Anthony's star had been placed.
It is in this cluster in the new Star Tower!

We had just over 2 hours to get to the airport.

Daniel had been bummed that we didn't go on a couple rides a few more times at Universal earlier in the week.

So, we took a chance, drove to Universal, ran through the gates, and Andy and the children went on at least one more Universal ride before coming back home.

I shopped with Anthony during that time, since it was so hot, humid, and I didn't want him or me to overheat on the last day!

On the way to Universal, there was a lot of traffic, making me nervous about making the airport on time if we did get to Universal for a ride or two.

The children commented on how many lights there were at this intersection.

Having fun in the van.

Kelly keeping Anthony happy in the van.

A bumper sticker in the Orlando airport.

I <3 to FART!

HONK & WAVE IF U DO 2

Boy humor....

Anthony liked the blanket over his head on the airport when he slept.

If I pulled it off, he'd grab it back and put it back over his head in his sleep!

So cute.

When we arrived in Seattle, we knew there was a long enough layover before flying home that we'd be staying at a hotel for the night.

We waited and waited and waited for the shuttle.

The rest of us were tired and cranky.

Anthony was raring to go!

After a LONG wait, we called the hotel again and realized we'd been looking for the wrong hotel shuttle.

My tired brain had thought of some other hotel name.

It was so nice to stay in a real bed for the night, even though it was a short night.

We stayed at Marriott Seattle SouthCenter. So nice to sleep.

Andy wore his obnoxious Mickey ears all the way home.

At least he wore them though.

I didn't even try to put Anthony's cute little ears on because he kept yanking it off at Disney.

Anthony's at Sea Tac Airport.

Daniel graffitied the whale at the airport. LOL

We came home to a MOLDY apricot that had dropped on the new carpet...

had to use some good cleaner for that.

Plus, Daniel had forgotten to bring his lunch the first day.

This is what a meat sandwich looks like after a week of sitting at room temperature.

So glad Penny didn't eat it!

Day 6 of our Epic Adventure to Florida ~ Disney World, Magic Kingdom pictures, Disney Hollywood Studios

Check out Anthony in this picture.
He figured out that characters are fun!
When we went back to meet Mickey and Minnie, he pinched both their noses first thing. :)

We JUST got to Magic Kingdom this day and Maggie's flip flop broke.
Luckily one of the girls had an extra pair of sandals in her backpack.
They all switched shoes, and it worked for the whole day. Whew!

First thing we did when getting to Magic Kingdom (besides breaking shoes) was find Rapunzel from Tangled.
Kelly LOVES Flynn Rider (Eugene Fitzherbert) from Tangled.
She has a thing for animated men.
So, she REALLY wanted to meet Eugene and get some pictures with him.
But no, he was "off galivanting throughout the kingdom for the past 4 weeks."
Actually, he hasn't been there since the opening of the Tangled area.
Kelly was heartbroken.
But, we did get to meet Rapunzel.
Anthony likes Tangled next to the Toy Story movies.
He LOVED her!
She interacted with Anthony and talked to him a lot.
Rapunzel was the first princess to call Anthony a prince, that I noticed.
All the boys were princes and the girls were princesses.

Cinderella Castle from another viewpoint.

The girls, Anthony, and I went to meet the princesses.

They loved him, and Anthony loved them.

He sure knows who the ladies are. ;)

I think Belle was Anthony's favorite princess.

Belle thought Anthony might sit next to her for a picture...

I didn't think he would, but we tried anyway.

After a whirlwind of character meets, we headed over to Disney's Hollywood Studios.

I love the gate.

With the amount of water I let Anthony drink, he had a lot of overfull diapers.

While he and I were waiting for everyone else to get off the Indiana Jones ride, I let him go out in just a diaper for a few minutes to air out...as much as one can air out in humid Florida.

We saw Phineas and Ferb!!

It was hotter that day than the other days. We were melting.

On our way toward the exit, the Commander from Toy Story stopped us, pointed to our Make a Wish buttons and motioned for us to have photos taken.

He was so sweet.
Where Anthony was freaked out by characters that were less life-like, and he loved real-looking ladies (princesses), he was not freaked out by this guy, and he actually kept staring at him in awe.

Anthony did not like the first Cars movie.

All through Disney though, he kept pointing to Cars toys and grunting, communicating that he wanted them...

Here was a huge billboard that he was pointing up to.

We happened to see Handy Manny from Disney Jr.

Anthony loved this show in Seattle (and I love it too, because then I could get a shower in peace).

And yes, A pinched Manny's nose.

It was so hot, we didn't stay out at Hollywood very long.

We retreated back to our van, back to GKTW, and had some ice cream in the Ice Cream Palace.

Kelly was having fun talking to the volunteers there.

We heard that that night was the pirates and princesses night at the water park at GKTW.

So, we headed over after dinner.

They painted Lilly to be made up like a princess?

A little extreme on the make up, but she liked it.

Daniel helping Anthony get out of the water and ready to be a pirate.

Maggie made up to be a princess.

The princesses were standing around or something, and Anthony walked right over, sat down in the middle and started his excited dance.

They were entranced by him, and sat down to talk and giggle with him.

Meeting Shamu the Pirate at GKTW...and pinching the nose.

Daniel holding Anthony in the pirate line.

Part of the princess line.

There were all these people dressed up like pirates that came...3 charter buses full.

I thought they were all volunteers from the Orlando area, like a lot of the regular GKTW volunteers.

I asked two of them if they belonged to an organization or what.

They were television stars on MTV and Survivor...can you tell I don't watch tv.

There were some from Big Brother and some other shows, but I don't remember which.

I think maybe they were humbled, by their expressions of incredulity when I asked.

Daniel had ice cream yet again.

Now to the pictures of the day from Kelly's camera.

Cinderella's wishing well.

We got to meet Buzz and Woody again, and TOGETHER!!

Anthony still wasn't hugely thrilled, but he did better.

And, of course, he pinched their noses.

The day before, we got our free parking in the regular lot, and took a tram with hundreds of other people. This day, we were shown to the handicapped parking lot, which was just a tiny walk to the park. It was interesting the different things that different employees at different parks (and even at the same parks) offered for us being a Make a Wish family. We are grateful to them all, to the parks, to the MAW foundation, and to our angel sponsors.

I think there's only one more main post for the trip. And, I'll probably add more pictures when the cd from Disney comes.