Florida Trip

Finally!  It's finished!  A glimpse into our amazing family vacation in Florida...

Josiah's first airplane ride...  (We used frequent flier miles and had to get creative in arranging our flights.  Ashish and Priya flew together out of Sacramento and Josiah and I flew together out of Redding.  We left Monday night and arrived in Orlando within an hour of each other the next morning.  Definitely not the way I'd prefer to travel, but it made our trip possible so I wouldn't have traded it for anything.)

We stayed at the Calypso Cay Vacation Villas Resort for the first 4 days of our trip.  We attended a timeshare tour/sales pitch and were able to get a significant discount on our stay there and got half price Disney World tickets too!  :)

Off to enjoy one of the many pools at the resort.

We had a fun family dinner at Chevy's (Priya's doll came along for the fun as well).

 

And then we decided to check out Downtown Disney.  It was awesome (and also totally free)!

We stopped in a the TREX Cafe and let Priya "dig for dinosaur bones" at the Paleo Zone.

 

And we visited the world's largest Disney Store.  Priya was thrilled by the princess section and had a blast trying on several of the dresses. 

 Ariel...

 Sleeping Beauty...

 And of course Jasmine...

The next day we got up early and got a shuttle to Disney World from our hotel...

They dropped us off at Epcot Center and then we took the Monorail and then a ferry to the Magic Kingdom.  The entire trip took almost 2 hours!  I would probably just pay for parking if we did it again to have a bit more time at the park. 

Priya was thrilled to catch her first glimpse of Cinderella's caste from the ferry.

Josiah fell asleep just as we walked through the gates into the park.  He had no idea what he was missing!

 

 

Our first ride was the Snow White ride.  This was Priya's favorite.  We all had fun telling the wicked queen that she needed to be good.  Priya was extremely eager to see all the "bad people" at Disney World and wanted to tell them that they needed to change their behavior and be good and that they needed Jesus.  Unfortunately for her she never got to meet any of the villains.  So talking to the wicked queen on the ride was the closest she came to her evangelistic goals.

Both kids did quite well that day - and on the trip as a whole.  We were pleasantly surprised.  :)

Our first meet and greet was Peter Pan.

And then we went over to Agrabah and went on the Magic Carpet Ride.

Then the highlight of our entire trip for Priya occurred - she got to meet Jasmine and Aladdin!  She was beyond thrilled!

Priya was intrigued by the Swiss Family Robinson tree house and Josiah enjoyed it too.

Then we were off to meet some of the fairies.  We knew we'd meet Tinker Bell but Rosetta was a surprise treat for Priya.

Then it was time to meet Tinker Bell.

We took the kids to see the Bear Country Jamboree (in honor of my dad who always loved it).  It ended up being one of my absolute favorite parts of our entire trip.  Josiah's reaction to the bears was hilarious!  I tried to capture some of it on video but it doesn't even come close to doing justice to how thrilled he was by the performance.  He laughed and clapped enthusiastically throughout the entire thing and entertained everyone around us.  I was laughing so hard I had tears in my eyes by the end.  You can hear a little bit of his laughter here but again, it really doesn't do it justice.  Dad, this video is for you... :)

While we waited for our Fast Pass to get on the Jungle Safari Cruise (Ashish's favorite ride), Priya enjoyed cooling off and geting a bit wet.  Notice her contagious laughter towards the end of the video.  She had so much fun!

Priya loved that the castle turned purple later in the evening.

Josiah experienced his first merry-go-round experience.  He was on the verge of falling asleep but managed to enjoy himself.

The last event of the night was a really awesome 3-D movie that incorporated a number of Disney characters.  It was by far the coolest 3-D experience I've had to date complete with water being splashed on us, wind blown in our faces and different scents being sprayed into the theater.  We loved it but Josiah was pretty scared by the experience.

The next day we went to the Green Meadows Petting Farm.  It was such a different pace from our day at Disney World but we had a truly fantastic time and soaked up all of the quality family time together.

I loved Josiah's reaction to the goats.  :)

Priya and Ashish got to feed the goats.

I loved seeing the bond between Ashish and Josiah intensifying on our trip.  The video below captured a sweet moment between them on a hayride.

Priya has decided within the past few months that horses are her favorite animal.  So she was thrilled to be able to ride a pony.

 

Josiah got to ride one for the 1st time too.

The last animal visit of the day was the baby chicks and baby ducks.  No baby chicks were harmed in the making of this video...

Our last day involved an airboat ride and gator sightings out on the swamp.

Ashish and I enjoyed the experience but Priya HATED it!  And Josiah ended up falling asleep!

One of 3 gators that we spotted

Then we were off to DeLand to visit Grandma Hazel and Uncle Gordon and Aunt Marion.  It was so special to have my kids there and to meet these important people.

Priya asked for a tour of Grandma Hazel's home.  It brought back a lot of memories walking through the house with them.  I hadn't been there for about 12 years when my grandpa passed away.

We had picked up my cousin Holli earlier that day in Kissimmee at her college and enjoyed having her with us for the day.

After leaving DeLand we quickly headed over to Daytona Beach to walk on the sand and help Priya collect some seashells before turning around and heading back to Orlando. We got to Daytona Beach just as the sun was setting so our time was short but well worth it.

We enjoyed Chipotle for dinner with Holli.

And then dropped Holli off at her college.  It was great to see where she's been living and studying this year.  I just wish it had worked out for us to see Ted and Janis too.  If you are reading this Janis, we love you and miss you both very much!

Ashish and I got about 2 hours of sleep before heading to the airport the next morning.  Again, not the way I would prefer to travel but it was still worth it.

We were blessed with free passes to the Delta Sky Club and got to experience posh accomodations and some free food both in the Orlando and Los Angeles airports.  This defintitely helped to make our travels a bit more managable and fun.

It was an absolutely fantastic trip and one that I'm sure we'll never forget (well, Josiah won't remember it but the rest of us will have this special time emblazened on our hearts for a very long time to come).