We're sitting in the living room watching CBS This Morning as I'm writing this blog post and they're talking all about the Oscar nominees and it's put me in an award winning mood. Sometime in the last 2 months I had convinced myself I had been procrastinating about loading the 700+ pictures to the computer and when weeding through what I wanted to load to Flickr. Last week I was looking for an old picture and I realized I had actually loaded our Disney pictures to Flickr...it's shocking to me just how much motherhood has robbed me of my memories and brain power. After I had Ruth Ann I was at an all time high in regards to my level of stupidity...and more than one time I had the thought "So this is what stupid people feel like."...sorry if you're a stupid person and take offense.
Anyway, back to handing out awards....the award for Most Long Overdue Blog Post goes to....
The Disney Birthday Girl Spectacular 2011...
Toni and Ada were going to get to my mom's house the day before we were planning to role out of town and for days we discussed what time we should leave. I remember my first trip to Disney when I was in the 3rd grade and getting up before the crack of dawn just seems like the right time to leave for Disney. It takes about 6 hours so we decided to hit the road by 6am...here's what time I decided to rise and shine...
Obviously I had done all our packing
the night in the days before before...but the night before was also the Iron Bowl (Auburn vs. Alabama football game for those who don't know better)...which as an good Auburn Alumni I never miss...and I was burning the midnight oil finishing up Ruth Ann and Ada's smocked Minnie dresses. I think I went to bed around 1:30am, so that made 5:30am come much earlier.
When my mom bought her new car a few months ago and we told Ruth Ann Grammy had bought a mini van, Ruth Ann corrected us and said it was a "Mickey Van"...appropriately named, so the name has stuck. Grammy, Toni and Ada arrived in the Mickey Van and we loaded up and headed out...but not before I made Arch take a picture of our departure...
Grammy's Mickey Van is loaded with most all the bells and whistles...if you're going to transport kids on long trips the DVD player with head phones are a must. The headphones took 3 college degrees and 2 post graduate degrees to figure out, but eventually we did and the girls looked like this for most of the drive to Disney...
Ruth Ann's tattoo on her face was left over from our Iron Bowl viewing the night before. She fights me when it's time to wash the tattoo off her face...part of me loves that she wants to continue proudly displaying her Auburn spirit, another part of me is ready for a clean, cute face once the game is over.
We arrived at The Beach Club Resort around 3pm and were welcomed by 80 degree temperatures. The pools at Disney are also heated starting November 1st, so we headed to our rooms, waited on our luggage and when it finally arrived we unpacked, changed into our bathing suits and headed to the pool! Ruth Ann loved the slides at Disney last year and 2 summers ago loved the slide at my mom's pool too...but somewhere between Halloween 2010 and Summer 2011 she fell out of love with pool slides and she really hasn't been on one since. Ada has never been a fan of sliding. She has always tried to avoid getting her face and curls wet when in the pool. There was an enormous slide at this pool that I rode once and knew there was no way I was getting Ruth Ann on it...but next to the big slide there was also a small kids slide and these two girlies loved it! Monumental moment for Ada because on our last trip to Disney we referred to Ada as "Slide Safety Patrol" because she stood at the top of the slide watching everyone take their turn. This year she retired that role and joined in on the fun...
Ada's face may not show it...but she was having fun because she went down over and over and over...
The next morning we got up bright and early for a character breakfast at our resort. While Grammy was waiting on our table, Toni and I went outside to get a few pictures of the girls in all their matching glory...
One thing that's fun about being at Disney Vacation Club Resort is you are surround by others who really LOVE Disney too. We spotted this man and I had to have a picture...do you think I could convince Arch to do the same on his next trip to Disney...
Our table was ready and happened to be at the same table we sat at last year and we had the same waitress! Daisy was absent this year, but we got to see a few other faves while we enjoyed our yummy breakfast. I had been loyally following South Beach...even through Thanksgiving. I had a weight loss goal to meet before leaving for Disney and I was 3 pounds below it before we left...this meant I could enjoy a delicious Mickey waffle or two while we waited patiently for the characters to make their rounds...
But patience pays off and we got our own one on one time with some of our favorite Disney friends...
(Ruth Ann shunned Minnie and refused to get in the picture with Minnie)
We wrapped up breakfast and headed to our bus stop to catch a ride to the Animal Kingdom...
And here's a stroll down Disney Memory Lane this is a picture of Ruth Ann on her first visit to Animal Kingdom in 2009 (she was 6 months old)...
I can't decide if I like Christmas or Halloween at Disney better...but Christmas has a serious advantage with Christmas trees everywhere. We tried to get a picture of the girls as we headed into Animal Kingdom...
But sometimes taking pictures in sunny Florida requires you break out the sun glasses when taking a picture...
My best friend, Andrea, and her family planned a trip to Disney the same week as ours so we met up with them at Animal Kingdom. The grandmothers took the girls to a kid friendly area while the moms and Scott (Andrea's husband) went off to ride Expedition Everest. To help you understand just how low the crowds were the week we were there, we rode this ride 3 times in a row without waiting more than 5 minutes to board the ride...when we went in June a few summers ago the wait was 45+ minutes...this only confirmed my commitment that I'll never go to Disney in the summer again!
When we got finished we met back up with the grandmothers who had treated the girls to a little face painting while we were gone...
A sweet fairy princess, a cute kitty and a little pirate...the pirate belongs to me. I asked my mom if she couldn't have tried to talk her into something different...but what Ruth Ann wants, Ruth Ann gets when Grammy is around. I just wish the face painter had gone just a little bit more girlly with the pirate paint.
We visited more characters...
The next day, my mom, Toni and Ada headed South down the coast to visit my grandmother's cousin, Aunt Liz, for the day. Ruth Ann and I stayed behind to hang out with Andrea and her family. We loaded up on the boat outside of our resort and headed to meet them bright and early at Hollywood Studios...
I loved these sweet black tights with polka dot ruffles...I knew when I put them on Ruth Ann that morning they would never last...they would be a one wear wonder...
Ruth Ann and I headed straight to Toy Story Mania to get our Fast Pass per Andrea's instruction and our boat captains recommendation...
Notice the time on the clock...10:19am...this is when I got our fast passes...the time you see on the far right is the wait time...45 minutes. Most rides this week had a wait time of 15 minutes or less. The following picture is the return time for our passes...
6 HOURS later! This is the most popular ride in all the parks so if you're going, get there early, grab a Fast Pass or plan to wait in a really long line!
Hollywood Studios doesn't have a ton of rides but instead has lots of shows to watch...which can be a nice break. We visited with one of Ruth Ann's favorite characters...
Jake from Jake and the Neverland Pirates. If you can't tell, they're both saying "ARGHH".
Then we walked around for a while and took a few pictures of these two cuties...
When you're at Disney people are taking pictures everywhere and it's important you try to keep one eye on the look out for families as they are setting up for a picture...otherwise you'll end up like this fool & his family who wandered right into my picture...
Even when he tried to back out of the picture...he was still there...
Hollywood Studios had a huge light show that we didn't get to see in the dark, but you could tell it would have looked fabulous. Amongst all the commercial Christmas stuff, it was nice to find this nativity scene...
Then we took a tour of the back lot and my favorite part was getting a peak into the real sewing room for Disney World...
Ruth Ann had fallen asleep at this point and spent most of the ride like this...
Then we went to eat dinner and while we were waiting for our table to be ready these two let me take a few more pictures...
They weren't always "happy" pictures...
And remember those perfect sweet tights from earlier in the day...here's how they looked by 4pm...
Ruth Ann has said she wants to be a pirate for Halloween and we're going to be at Disney for Halloween this year so I'm already figuring out how to incorporate these holey tights into a Disney Pirate Princess...they will be worn more than once!
We had dinner at the Sci-Fi Drive-In...the food was good, but the milk-shake at the end was FABULOUS!
Then we headed to the light show to get our seats and waited on the show to begin...
Great show! Definitely worth going to see...and we will again!
The next day was Grammy's birthday and Bipitti Bopitti Boutique day. This Ariel statue was right outside our building and every time we walked by the girls wanted to take a picture with it...we made sure to get a picture on this morning outing because the girls looked especially cute...
Then we headed to the Magic Kingdom to get the girls to their appointment with their fairy god mothers...
We checked in at the boutique, the girls picked out their favorite princess dress and then we waited our turns. They crammed as many little girls as possible into what was a pretty small area, but when you're high on Disney Magic you really don't care...
We changed the girls into their gowns and then the fairy god mothers got to work...
Then we ran into the wicked step sisters and step mother from Cinderella...which made for a cute picture since Ruth Ann was Cinderella.
Then we had a lunch reservation in the castle, but first Cinderella greeted us before we sat down to eat...
My opinion, the food was probably the worst all week and ironically it was also the most expensive. You definitely pay for see the princesses, but there is an area when you first come into the park where you can do the same thing and last year the princesses spent much more time with the girls there than they did during lunch. I felt like they zipped by our table and we barely had enough time to talk to them...we have now done it once...and I think it will be the last. Belle also rubbed me the wrong way with a snotty response to why she was wearing her street clothes so I'm pretty sure I'll never spend my money on that meal again...unless Arch really wants to dine with the princesses...but I kinda doubt that will ever happen.
Then we waited in a few lines and rode a few rides...
As you may have been able to tell my Ruth Ann's choice of face paint earlier on our first day and her favorite Disney character being Jake from Jake and the Neverland pirates you may have noticed she has a thing for pirates. She plays with her cousin Ethan after he gets home from school 3 days a week and when she was 2 & 1/2 she could tell you about Captain Jack Sparrow and Barbossa. On one of our first rides on the public transportation to the parks I noticed Disney had a boy counterpart to the Bipitti Bopitti Boutique...it was a pirate theme. I knew right away if Ruth Ann discovered this version she would be completely against any type of princess dress-up...so it was a secret those of us in our group who could read kept to ourselves. However, we were on the look out of Captain Jack Sparrow and we caught the end of one of his shows and she managed to get up on stage and she was deemed an official pirate...if you can't find her in the pictures below, she the one in the pretty blue dress...
Then we headed out of the park to eat dinner in EPCOT at Germany...which is one of my faves...
We can't forget, this was Grammy's birthday, and the whole day had been about the girls...the least we could do was get a picture with all 3 of them together...
We arrived at EPCOT and from the silly looks on the girls face you can tell we were starting to run on fumes...at this point we had been on the go for close to 9 hours...and our day wasn't over yet...
We ate dinner and then hit the Character Spot to see all the major Disney characters...
We walked around for a while and waited for the fireworks to start. Our hotel was right next to EPCOT so we could see these fireworks from our back porch...seeing them at EPCOT was nice, but watching them in our pj's may have been better...the first night we didn't realize how close we were and when the show started it sounded like we were in down town Baghdad. After seeing this fireworks show every night and knowing similar shows were going on at other parks I can't even begin to imagine how much Disney spends on their fireworks budget...
Unfortunately, Ruth Ann missed it all because the excitement of the day had finally caught up with her...at this point we had been gone from the room for 12 hours straight with no slowing down.
She didn't even budge as I change her into her pj's and put her to bed...
The next day was Ruth Ann's birthday and a few of these pictures I've already shared...
We rode a few rides again...
You can't see Toni's score, but she blew us all out of the water. Those visiting Oconee State Park should feel safer knowing one of their rangers is a sharp shooter...at least on the Buzz Lightyear ride!
The following picture has a lot of significance. 25 years ago my parents took me and my little brother to Disney. On this trip my dad wanted us all to ride Big Thunder Mountain...I rode it, but I screamed and cried the entire time and was probably the most hysterical I can ever remember myself being...ever. After it was over my dad thought it would be fun to head over to Space Mountain. Earlier this same summer my friend Mandy had gone to Disney and had told me horrorible stories about this ride, so once more I was hysterical and finally my mom had had enough. She and I got out of line and walked out while my dad and brother rode Space Mountain. Here my mom and I are 25 years later riding together on Space Mountain...
This was our last day at Disney so we tried to get a group picture. Toni and I had picked a cute frame out for my mom for Christmas and needed a good picture of all of us to give her...this was the best we got...my mom ended up with a picture of Ruth Ann and Ada in the frame instead.
We had another long day and before long Ruth Ann was passed out again...
And that concludes the Most Long Over Due Post which also could have been a nominee for Longest Post Ever!
