Florida Family Vacation (May 2008)

Matt took us on a wonderful family vacation to Orlando. We flew in on Mother's Day and did not have time for anything but to eat dinner. Monday morning we got up early and took Matt to the airport. Yes, that is right, we went on a family vacation and Matt left as soon as we got there. He was gone for 3 days but Nya and I had a blast. We stayed at the Omni Hotel which is one of our favorite hotels to stay at because they are very family friendly. Nya and I had a great three days to ourselves. Each day we woke up, had breakfast, went to the pools for about 2 1/2 hours, had lunch, took a nap, had dinner, played/walked around, bought a piece of candy, and made it back to our room for the 8:00 Disney Channel movie. We had such a nice time. Wednesday we picked Matt up from the airport after we got our pedicures.

Thursday we went to Disney World. We decided that we would go to "The Magic Kingdom" because it would be the most appropriate for a toddler. After about an hour of pushing through the crowds and getting frustrated with Nya because I had to tell her several times to hold my hand, Nya very politely asked, "Mommy, when are we going to get to The Magic Kingdom?" I just had to laugh as I thought that I did not explain to her what "The Magic Kingdom" really was. She was most likely expecting to see castles, rolling hills, friendly animals that talked, princesses dancing and singing, and princes riding beautiful horses along cobble stoned streets waiting to rescue their true love. What a shock for Nya: crowds, screaming kids, lines to go on rides, the heat... We did have a wonderful time and were able to go on lots of rides. Nya was able to visit with 13 characters. The characters were fabulous and Nya was very excited to meet them. This was the first time she was not afraid of the costumes.

We stayed as late as we could and we were all very tired when we left. We even had Nya take a little nap on Matt while we sat in the Hall of the Presidents and watched the little President movie. We did not get to do everything we wanted, but I feel like we accomplished a lot. The only line that was bad was the Winnie the Pooh ride. I think to ride broke down a few times because the line was not moving. By the time we got to the front, the ride did break, and we waited so long, but at that point, you have already invested so much time you hate to walk away. The ride turned out to be a real disappointment, probably because we waited so long. All the others were not more than 10 minutes and several we were able to just walk on.