Disney World

The week prior to Christmas Brian, Nolan and I drove to Orlando to meet Brian's parents and niece, Maddie, for a week. We've had the trip planned since last February when an acquaintance from church sold us that week's timeshare at a condo. It was a 3 bedroom condo with a full kitchen and our goal was to save lots of money by eating in as much as possible. I think we did really good at sticking to that and did indeed save some big bucks. We even brought the crock pot, which turned out to be brilliant because by the time we would get home from a day out we were sooo tired and wouldn't have wanted to cook. Nolan did really good, considering he rarely got a "real" nap and was going to bed way past his bedtime (around 10) most nights. We did 3 days of Disney and one day at Seaworld (military receives free tickets to Seaworld, or at least they could one time in 2008). The other two days we tried to have "down" days where we took it easy, swam, shopped a bit and just relaxed. It was much needed because the four days at the park we walked miles!! The weather worked out in our favor and was in the 70's, sometimes low 80's. Anyway, we took close to 500 pictures so it's going to be tough choosing which ones to post. So here's the start of some of our fun!

Brian and Nolan riding the cars at Magic Kingdom. You'll notice Nolan has a backpack. We always used to make fun of parents who put a "leash" on their kid, but we're so glad we used one for Disney, otherwise he would have been long gone!

Teacups with Grandpa, Maddie, Nolan & Brian:

In front of the castle:

Riding the elephants. I wasn't allowed to ride much, but the elephants were okay!This was the first day and Nolan didn't want to sit in the stroller all day, just walk...or run (this rapidly changed later in the week when exhaustion kicked in and he opted to ride the stroller around mostly). Anyway, at about 4 pm, 3 hours after his normal nap time he sleepily asked to sit in his stroller, saying, "I'm really tired." And this is how we crash, Disney style!Disney at Christmas really is beautiful! If/when we go in the future, I think I would want to go at this time of year again.