Disney World.....finally!

Wow, so it has really been a while. Sorry....lets just blame being out of town a lot, being pregnant, losing our camera and lets face it...a little laziness :) It seems like the longer you put it off, the more overwhelming it becomes to try and get caught up. But I am determined to do so, I don't want to give up on this blog and now that things have settled I hope to do so. Plus, I want everyone to see all he fun activities we hope to do this wonderful Alaskan summer. So, lets start where I left off to begin with. Our wonderful vacation to Walt Disney World. Disney was offering the military one free 5 day park pass, plus up to 5 more at only $100 each, with the addition of 40% off Disney resorts. As some of you may know, I LOVE Disney World and have been dying to take the kids, especially Bella since she is more at an appropriate age to enjoy it. We figured we would wait until we left Alaska, due to the astronomical cost of plane tickets up here, but we just couldn't pass up this great deal, plus since I have family in Florida is gave us another reason to cough up the money for the plane tickets and spend some time with them as well. My mom and her fiance, Jerry, also joined us for the trip, as did my Brother Austin and sister-in-law Rachel for part of it. Needless to say, we had an amazing time and are already thinking about how we hope to pull it off again in the future, especially if Disney gives great deals like this again! I had almost as much fun planning it too. We were exhausted by the end, but every moment was well worth it.

We started out the trip checking into our Disney Fort Wilderness Cabin. The cabins are great for larger parties and have a full kitchen, so we hoped that would offset some food cost. The cabins were great, very clean and the service it what you would expect from a Disney Resort.

This is us hanging out in the lobby while I checked in. They had old classic Disney cartoons playing, which the kids thought was great.

Bella quickly chose the top bunk for herself...now she wants bunk beds at home too! They have two pools there, this is the smaller one right next to our cabin. Don't you love the plumber butt! Poor kid, he is so little that happens a lot, especially since we forgot the swim diapers...ooops!
We started out our adventure at Animal Kingdom. This was the only one of the parks I had never seen before so we were excited to check it out. People seem to think it is just a big zoo, but I think it was so much more. The African cruise was great and the shows were my favorite from all the parks. Not to mention the roller coaster Everest was awesome as well.
While at Animal Kingdom we got the opportunity to visit some characters. I think this was one of the kids favorite parts. Neither of them were scared of them at all, in fact it was quite the opposite, Bella just hugged and hugged every single one we met and Carson was so curious and excited.

Bella was SOOOO excited to see Pocahontas. This was her first princess sighting and she could barely contain herself. She couldn't even really talk to her, just kept jumping up on down the whole time, we barely got a picture! She did finally settle down to give her a huge hug, then hopped away, smiling as big as she could.

The Lion King Show was amazing! Probably my favorite of all the shows we saw. The kids loved it too, with all the singing and acrobatics, it was like a mini Broadway-type version. The next day we headed to Disney's Hollywood Studios. The scary tower of terror....I rode it once a long time ago and swore I never would again! Mom, Josh and Jerry enjoyed it though...me, I hung out with the kids and kept my feet on the ground!

The next day we decided we need a break from theme parks to catch up on some rest and enjoy the amazing amenities right at our hotel. It was well needed and the kids loved getting a chance to go to the larger pool with kiddie area and slides.
There's that bum crack again! Cute, huh!
The next day we headed to Epcot, where we scheduled a breakfast with the princess's at Akershus Royal Castle. We got up extra early and dressed Bella all up like Belle. Our little princess!
The giant Epcot ball. Our breakfast was before the park even opened to regular guests so we took the chance to get some pics with no other tourists in the background.

Since Bella got all princessed up for the breakfast we figured Carson deserved a manly sword to be the brave knight facing a room of princess's of all ages!

Carson is excited to eat with princess's too! The breakfast was served buffet style, then they also brought all you can eat eggs, sausage, bacon and so forth to your table. The food was great.

The princess's circled the room while you were eating, each one stopping individually at your table to greet you for photos and autographs. I think it was a little overwhelming to Bella to have them all there with her. She really didn't talk to them much, just kept smiling and hugging.

Carson just kept staring at them, like hmmmm...who are you? Your colorful and pretty!

Carson was most intrigued with Ariel. We could hardly get a picture because all he was interested in was pulling that giant starfish hair thing from her hair. He almost got it once, it was really funny. Ariel handled it very well and laughed it off with us.

Afterwards we just enjoyed Epcot. Later we had a dinner reservation at a Moroccan restaurant and little did we know, but Jasmin and Aladdin showed up just outside to take pics and sign autographs.

Since deciding to extend our trip for a day, to take the much needed park break in the middle, we had to stay our last night at a different resort because the cabins were all booked up. We ended up at Disney's Contemporary Resort, which has the monorail going through the middle of the hotel and takes you directly to the Magic Kingdom, which was perfect because that is where we spent the last two days of our trip. It was so easy, convenient and much faster than the bus system we were using before.

We found out on our last day at Magic Kingdom that Mulan would be at Epcot in the afternoon. Since this is the only princess we had yet to meet and since the monorail runs between Magic Kingdom and Epcot, Josh decided to take Bella over there to meet her. Well, Bella actually fell asleep on the way over and after waiting in line, Josh couldn't get her to wake up to meet Mulan...blame the week of fun but exhausting park hopping! So, they went to the back of the line in hopes that by the time they got back up again he would have her awake. She woke up long enough to smile for a picture, then was out again! Poor kid, I think we wore her out!

Our last day at Magic Kingdom we did some shopping and Carson picked out this little Mickey Mouse that he just hugged and hugged. He actually still sleeps with it too, so cute!

The beautiful castle at Magic Kingdom!

Carson's face while riding Winnie the Pooh...hmmm....he seems a little frightened! He never cried though, I don't think he knew what to think.

Oh the joys of taking your 3 year old princess to Disney World. We had to wait in a hour long line, which is more than we probably waited for any ride, to get the chance to enter pixie hollow and meet Tinker Bell and her friends.

The beautiful castle all lit up at night.

Well, this was just a sampler of the around 800 pictures we took between my mom's camera and ours. The rest will go into a great memory book, for us to enjoy thoughout the years. I just wanted you all to get a taste of what we saw. We had such an amazing time. The magic of Disney truly cannot be replicated by any other park. We left exhausted, but full of dreams and wishes to relive the magic once again another day.