Mickey's House

Alec's first trip to Disney was wonderful!!  I'd sworn I'd never take a child under 5 to Disney, but with Kaleigh coming in June, I thought Alec needed one last special trip as an only child!  Mimi, Papa, Nana and Paps all tagged along too, so there was plenty of adult supervision!  Dustin, Paps and Nana all left Monday morning for a quick trip to a golf course in Perido while the other half of us worked one more day before vacation.  Alec, me, Mimi and Papa, all met up with them at a military base near Pensacola to break up our drive down.  We stayed the night and started on our journey again Tuesday morning.  Alec was such a trooper and did wonderful with the long car ride!

Tuesday afternoon, we finally made it to Port Orleans Riverside.  Our resort was themed like mansions from New Orleans.  Once we got there, the guys went for a quick milk/coffee run and to run by Shades of Green (the military resort) to pick up our park tickets.  Thank-you Disney for all of the wonderful military discounts!!  Our resort was 35% off and our 4 day park hoppers were 50% off!!  Their quick trip turned into a 3 hour fiasco so the girls took Alec exploring the hotel.

First Stop Playground!!

Take note that my sweet little country boy loved the relaxing atmosphere and thought it would be fine to pull his pants down and pee in the flowerbed surrounding the playground!  Agghh, we had to grab up bags, the stroller and Alec and make a quick run for the potty!!  I was thinking that if the entire trip was like this, our potty training was going out the window, but thankfully, potty breaks were uneventful for the rest of our time at Disney!  And we used NONE of the spare clothes I had packed in our backpack!

Mom got volunteered to go for a dip in this FREEZING cold pool.  Nana said no way and Mimi didn't have a key to her room.  Needless to say, once Alec's teeth started chattering, we ran for a hot bath!  Please excuse the 29 week preggo belly in the pic!!  I don't have a preggo swimsuit yet, so this bikini had to do!!   

We woke up bright and early Wednesday morning and headed to Magic Kingdom!  Alec was beyond excited to be getting to go see "Mickey's House", although, I'm not quite sure he made the connection that the "Mickey's House" we see at the beginning of Disney movies was the same thing.

First of many rides on the Disney Bus

We had some great tips (Thanks Lindsey!!) and headed straight on over to the Buzz Lightyear ride before the lines got long.  There was no line and we walked right on!  I was a little concerned as this ride is mostly in the dark, but Alec LOVED it!!  He was shooting everything with his "Buzz" gun!

Wide Eyed, taking in all of the toy story scenery in line

Couldn't get Alec to look as he was very interested in what the life sized Buzz was saying in the back ground!

Paps and Nana

Papa was SERIOUS about his Buzz game! 

Alec and Nana on "It's a small world" while Dustin was busy trying to think up a plan for collecting all of the coins that people had thrown in the water on this ride!

Once they got on the track, you couldn't see Alec's head above the steering wheel and it looked like Dustin was being driven around by a crazy ghost driver!  But Alec LOVED steering and wouldn't let Dustin touch the wheel!

Alec showing off his new Driver's Liscence!!  That's a scary thought!

I think he looks grown in this picture!

"Eating" dad's nose, one of our many activities while waiting in line.

Still waiting for Pirates of the Caribbean.  This one was a tad more scary than I remembered, but Dustin always helped on the "scary" rides.  He and Alec would "pow, pow, pow" anything that was even remotely scary!

This was a wonderful start to our vacation!

First night's dessert at the "Flying Fish Cafe".  Alec's was a cupcake with a white chocolate puzzle and "paint".  This kept him entertained for a while, he loved painting on his plate and eating the paint!

Done with his masterpiece and on a MAJOR sugar kick!

Our room was a small hike to the first bus stop, especially with me being pregnant and Butch's bad knee, so this is how we "rednecks" went to the bus stop everyday!  Yee haw, here we come!  Notice the tigger hat, Alec got lots of compliments on his new hat!!

We did Epcot on Thursday, and didn't even have time to see the "counties" here as it was much busier than Magic Kingdom was.  It was the flower festival and there were beautiful flowers everywhere!

Tigger Playing at Epcot!

Mimi's Disney Visa Card came in extremely handy at Epcot.  There is a special place and time that's not heavily advertised for Visa members to have a meet and greet with the Characters.  The wait was short and we got special time for just our family to take pictures with Minnie and Goofy.  Minnie was so sweet, she loved on my belly and even knew that mom and I were mother and daughter. 

Dinner at Ohana, this was by far our favorite meal!

Alec couldn't get enough of the pasta!

YUMMY!

So excited for his first monorail ride!!

We went back to epcot after dinner for Test Track, as the everyone's fast passes were good for 8pm to 9pm.  Ecpot's fireworks were at 9, when the park closed, so we figured we had time to squeeze Test Track and Fireworks in before closing.  Well the monorail dropped us off at Epcot at 8:45, so we took off in a sprint for Test Track!

RUN, RUN, RUN

We made it to Test Track with 2 minutes to spare!

Alec and I waited outside and watched the fireworks since he was too short and I was too pregnant to ride.  You can see the cars as they ZOOM along part of the track, he though it was so cool and screamed everytime one passed!!!

Hollywood Studios was next and also had some cool things for Alec.  He LOVED the stunt show with fast cars and motorcycles!!  Dustin and Les played golf so they caught up with us after their golf game.  Dustin says, "There were even lines at the golf course!"  ha!!  Guess that's Disney for you.  Although, even though it was Spring Break, we never waiting more than 20 or 30 minutes for anything.  However, if we hadn't strategically planned our days with the Fast Passes the lines were definately LONG.  Soarin' was one of our favorite rides and at one point had a 3 hour wait!!  Whew, Thankfully we had gotten Fast Passes for this as soon as we got to Epcot before they ran out for the day!

Monsters, Inc.

Alec saw these guys and had to go see them, he's laughing, not crying in the picture.  He's not allowed to watch this at home because after he watched it one time, he started thinking there were Monsters in his  room.  But needless to say, he asks to watch it all the time, with NO being the answer everytime, and was thrilled when he saw these guys.  Mimi was holding him and I was steadily trying to steer her in a different direction before Alec saw them.  Too late, he had to go over and see them!

I must admit, they are pretty cute!

Mimi, Papa and Alec in front of one of the background scenes at Hollywood Studios. 

Alec talked Mimi into one of these $10 balloons, that didn't last 10 minutes before he busted the clear balloon on the outside!!

Watching the parade with Papa at Hollywood Studios.  All of Alec's favorite people from Toy Story and Disney, Jr. were in this parade!

Alec Loves Handy Manny!

Using his "binoculars" at the Playhouse Disney show.  Somehow, I was confused and thought the Charaters were in this show but it was actually a puppet show that was terribly hard to see from the ground.  But Alec really enjoyed it and played along!  He was helping the Neverland Pirates look for Captain Hook!

"Chomping" like an aligator at the show!

One of the Little Einstein’s!

Everyone at Hollywood Studios.  This was after dinner at Hollywood and Vine, which was our least favorite dinner on the trip! We'll definately pick the Sci-Fi Drive in Theater for our meal here next time.

Our last day was at Animal Kingdom, which was a great change from the crowds at the other parks.  It's more spread out so it doesn't seem as crowed, and is more like a fun zoo.  We raced to the safari first here and got right into our safari jeep with no waiting in line!  We saw a ton of fun animals on the safari, hippos, a lioness, aligators, rinos, giraffees and lots more!

  

Love this picture!! 

We checked out the 3-D show, "A bugs life" before leaving Animal Kingdom.  Alec loved it and was so sweet trying to catch the butterflies and insects!

Then it was back to the hotel for a quick break and swim before dinner at Chef Mickeys!

My two favorite people on our way to the pool!

This little fish LOVES the water!!  I'm going to have to find some swimming lessons this year, as he has no fear of the water and jumps right in!

Resting with dad

Chef Mickey's was our last dinner and I think that place could make anyone CRAZY!! I'm pretty laid back and I thought I was going to go INSANE before we left that place.  We've all made a deal that we'll bring Kaleigh and Alec to Disney when Kaleighs old enough, but we're NEVER going back to Chef Mickeys.  Delicious food but the kids were WILD.  The characters go from table to table during dinner taking pics and giving hugs and all of the kids are so excited and loud!  We'll have to check out Cinderella's breakfast with Kaleigh and maybe it won't be quite so roundy.  I'm glad this was our last Disney event or we might not have made it through the week! 

Meeting Chef Mickey

Pluto

Minnie was by far his favorite!! He went right up to her and gave her a big smooch!

Silly Goofy

And last but not least was Donald!

We drove the entire way home Sunday, which was a 10.5 hour ride in one day....  Whew, it wore  us all out but Alec complained the least of anyone!!  We'll definately break this up into a 2 day drive next time!!

Dustin would definately have a different review of Disney, guess I'm falling into that "Disney Freak" category with mom, but I really did love Disney.  Dustin loved seeing the joy on Alec's face but is definately not the type to go to Disney on an adults only trip.  Although, I think he enjoyed it more than Les did, I'm not sure Les will even go back when Kaleigh gets older.  Dustin's says he'll go one more time, when Kaleigh's older, then that'll probably be his last trip to Disney.  And as everyone at Disney says, "Have a magical day!"