Elise makes us laugh

Elise is a pretty serious kid, but she still makes us laugh a lot. Recently she asked us if we could get her an app for her kindle fire that she could make to do lists on. David and I use the cozi app and so we installed it on her device and showed her how it worked. This way both he and I could edit her list since we all share an account.

The next day I get a text from David. "Check E's to do list", with this screen shot.

When I got to "shine trophies" I seriously almost peed in my pants. Lovely, I know, but true.

And sure enough after school she went upstairs and shined them. 

This little project she did at school made me laugh as well.

{When I am one hundred years old I will be crazy! I will play with my grandchildren. I will read also.}

day seven: this is it!

We all woke up feeling a little sad that it was time to go. In some ways it felt like we had been in Disney forever, in other ways like we just got there. We were all sad to pack up our things and check out of the beautiful Grand Floridian.

Getting to ride in the front of the golf cart as well as the fact that we were still going to spend the day in Magic Kingdom helped soften the blow a little.

While David finished loading up the car we took a last pic on the hotel balcony waiting for monorail.

I love this picture of Elise and her big smile!

And Goofy and Goofier!

Reunited with their new friends for Peter Pan's Flight.

Bennett didn't seem to mind all of the girls!

Lila and Bennett were excited to run into another classmate, Christian.

Yum! Mickey pretzels for lunch!!!!!

Then time for another parade..

Elise and I hit Space Mountain again while Lila and Bennett met Marie from Aristocats.

We caught another fabulous show featuring the Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy, The Princesses, and well as the crew from Peter Pan.

Then one of my favorites, Thunder Mountain!! David, Elise, and Bennett were up first.

Bennett apparently screamed the entire time. But, as soon as they were done he asked if he could go again with me on the rider switch. SO, off we went....and then he screamed the whole time again. :)

While we were on Thunder Mountain David took Lila to Tom Sawyer's island. They had fun exploring together!

Then another ride on Dumbo. Lila and Bennett love this one. And Lila was thrilled to go by herself. Big deal when you are 5!

We wanted to get a great spot for the Electrical parade and Wishes show and so after grabbing a quick dinner we headed to the Castle.

Lots of dancing while we were waiting..

Including Bennett asking the girls "May I have this dance?"

So cute.

David and I even caught Elise and I dancing in this shot!

That green streak is Tinkerbell flying out of the castle!

Then we sat back and enjoyed the Magic...

Before heading out and taking one last picture...

A few tears, and a few "can we just live here?" later we were in the car.

The kids were asleep before we even left the parking lot (even Lila--a FIRST!) and so David and I had a peaceful hour and a half ride to the hotel where we would spend the night.

Don't they look like little angels when they are sleeping?

It truly was a "magical" trip and we are so grateful the experience and the time together as a family. David really, really, worked hard on this trip, from booking everything, to planning out our days to loading the car....and then little things, like making sure I had coffee every morning. :)

He takes really good care of us and we are so blessed.

Already dreaming of going back!

day six : hollywood studios and downtown disney

Happy Valentine's Day!

We had so much in Hollywood Studios yesterday that we headed back today!

The kids wanted a few more rounds on Star Tours, and there were a few things we didn't have time to do the day before.

This was our one day of pretty gross weather, but Hollywood is a good place to go on a rainy day and we were able to stay relatively dry.

The kids had some fun on the "Honey, I shrunk the kids" playground.

And lots of more Star Wars fun.

We let the kids each choose a Disney treat, and it was a no-brainer what Bennett would choose. He has been talking about having his own light saber forever, and so when we found out you could build your own in Hollywood Studios we let him do it!

He loves it, and has been practicing his Jedi skills ever since.

We missed the Beauty and the Beast Show yesterday, but were able to catch it today. Another great Disney production that we all loved.

Elise also talked David into the Tower of Terror- which she loved and he did not. :)

She is a true ride junkie!

After a pretty full day at the park we headed off to explore Downtown Disney. We had not done this on our last trip and so we were all looking forward to it. The one damper was the bad weather, which had gone from a drizzle to a downpour. But we stuck through it and headed downtown.

We hit the Lego store, which the kids loved. All of the Lego creations were amazing. We were running behind because of the weather and so we weren't able to spend as much time as we could have there--- although that might have saved us some $$$!

We had another surprise for the kids- we were meeting David's cousin, Logan, and her family for dinner! They had gotten into town that day and we are so glad we were able to all get together! We had a great dinner at Bongo's, a delicious Cuban restaurant. Yum!

After dinner we went to Disney Quest, which is a huge video game place. We had free passes for all of the games with our park tickets, so we played for about an hour before heading back to catch some sleep.