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On Friday, we headed to Magic Kingdom - the core of Disney World. Again, we showed up in time to take advantage of the Extra Magic Hour. As soon as we got through the gate, we made a beeline to meet Anna and Elsa. The girls were decked out in the Anna and Elsa tunics Jen had made them, which both Frozen ladies noticed right away.

After meeting them, we noticed that the line for Cinderella and Rapunzel wasn't too long. So, we decided to meet them as well. First up was the very kind Cinderella.

And then was the very fun Rapunzel.

After meeting the princesses, we headed toward Fantasyland, which is where we spent much of our time at the park. Our first stop was the Mad Tea Party teacups. As usual for something so spinny, Jen was happy to let the other three of us go on it without her.

Then we hopped on Dumbo the Flying Elephant for a slower spin.

Then we headed over to The Barnstormer. Leah has never been a fan of roller coasters, but we managed to convince her to give it a try. She sat next to me, and Molly sat next to Jen. And this was her face as we rode the ride.

She loved it, and got off asking if we could go again. There was no line at all, so we headed in for another turn. Then Molly noticed that she was tall enough to ride by herself. Jen was happy to take a break, so Leah, Molly and I hopped on the coaster. Molly was pretty excited to get to ride a roller coaster by herself for the first time.

We then rode it a third time in the same configuration, all three of us still loving it. The girls would have kept going, but we decided that it was time to see a bit more of the park. So, we headed toward Ariel’s place. First, we went into her Grotto (which also had no line) to meet her.

Then we headed over to her ride to see the retelling of her story in a new way.

Next we headed to the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train (using one of our prebooked FastPasses). After Leah loved The Barnstormer, I figured she’d like this as well. And she definitely did. She hid her face a couple times when it got going fast, but she was still smiling throughout.

Leah wanted to ride it a second time too, but it had an hour long wait already. So, we decided to move on. We headed over to Tomorrowland, which was always my favorite part of the park as a kid. First stop - the PeopleMover for a tour of everything. After that, we headed to a fun comedy show at the Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor.

Then we headed back to Fantasyland for Enchanted Tales with Belle (using another FastPass). This is one of the most interactive parts of Magic Kingdom, where kids get to play a role in the retelling of the story of Beauty and the Beast. Leah opted to not participate, but Molly played the wardrobe.

We then headed over to Peter Pan’s Flight (our last prebooked FastPass) before stopping to eat our PB&J sandwiches for lunch. Then we headed to a ride with an earworm I was hoping to avoid - it’s a small world. Fortunately, the song didn’t stay stuck in our heads for long.

At that point, we decided to take a break from rides and shows to shop a bit. We wanted a souvenir Christmas ornament for our tree, and the girls really wanted a toy to bring home. So, we checked out the shops in Liberty Square and on Main Street and made a couple of purchases.

At that point, we left the park and headed to our hotel for a nap. We really wanted to partake in the nighttime activities at Magic Kingdom, and we knew we couldn’t make it all day. So, we took a bit of a rest. This ended up working out great, as the girls lasted late with no problems at all.

We returned to the park ready for our fanciest dinner of all. But that’s enough of a story to warrant its own post, so you’ll have to wait till tomorrow to hear about it.

After dinner, we had some time before the fun evening activities. So, Jen suggested we go to the Haunted Mansion. I wasn’t so sure, but went along with it. As you may have already guessed, the girls were not fans. I rode with Molly, and she totally freaked out. She ended up closing her eyes and covering her ears for almost the entire ride. Jen said Leah did mostly OK with her, though afterward Leah said she did not like it at all.

Then, we headed to my favorite ride as a kid - Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. The line was really long, but I had thankfully scheduled a FastPass for it earlier in the day (after we’d used our rebooked 3). So, we walked right in. I was worried Leah wouldn’t do as well on it since it’s more serious than the earlier coasters, but she loved it (as did Molly). We got off and the girls were asking to go again. Sadly, the FastPass only got us the one ride, so there was no return trip in our plan.

We then went to Mickey’s PhilharMagic - a 3D movie that was both enjoyable and indoors, giving us time to warm up a bit.

Then it was on to find a place to watch the Electrical Parade, which started at 9:00. We followed the advice of touringplans.com and set up just outside the Sleepy Hollow restaurant. The girls were ready to go with glowing accouterments that Jen had purchased months in advance for deals much cheaper than could ever be found in the park.

And the parade was lots of fun. The girls probably could have watched it for much longer, despite being cold and up late. After the parade, we moved toward Main Street to find a spot to watch the fireworks at 10:00. We didn’t realize that there was going to be another show before the fireworks - Celebrate the Magic. Fortunately, we managed to catch this show as well as the outstanding Wishes Nighttime Spectacular fireworks show.

We had an awesome day at Magic Kingdom. We could have easily spent another day there, as there was just so much to do. Magic Kingdom was generally ranked as either the #1 or #2 park we visited by the members of our family, but it definitely had the most to offer of them all.

The break in the middle of the day worked out perfectly, meaning we could be there early in the morning and late into the night without any grumpiness from the girls. And fortunately, our next morning was not quite as early, but more on that later.

After flying in late Wednesday night, we were up early Thursday morning to be at Epcot for the Extra Magic Hour starting at 8:00am. Before heading to any ride, we stopped to take a picture. What could say Epcot better than a picture in front of the giant sphere that is Spaceship Earth?

Um, Leah, I think there’s something on your hand there. Thanks Disney Magic!

First, we headed to take a ride in Spaceship Earth. Then, we headed over to our first character meet-and-greet - Mickey Mouse. The girls had their autograph books ready.

Next to Mickey was Goofy.

And next to Goofy was Minnie Mouse - one of the characters the girls were really looking forward to.

They even got to do some dancing with her.

Next, we decided to meet a much newer character - Baymax. The girls even got to give him a fist bump.

We then headed to Test Track - an awesome ride where you get to design your car (using a large touchscreen computer), then get to ride in a simulation car and see how your design performs. Here we are in the simulation car.

After Test Track, we hit a bunch of the fun attractions at the front of the park before the World Showcase opened. We went to The Seas with Nemo & Friends and other aquatic fun there like SeaBase and Turtle Talk with Crush. We ate our PB&J sandwiches. We journeyed into our imagination with Figment, after which the girls of course made their own figments (Nancy is Leah’s, Mig is Molly’s).

Then it was off to the World Showcase. We started off by meeting some more characters. We first headed to the United Kingdom and found Mary Poppins. She said our girls’ grey shirts reminded her of a chimney sweep, so she decided to teach them the Step In Time.

We then walked down to France to be the last people in line to meet Belle.

Also in France, we found Aurora.

After meeting so many characters, we decided to take on an adventure. The Phineas and Ferb: Agent P's World Showcase Adventure is an interactive mission, in which we were given a smartphone to guide us through a secret agent mission in France. It led us to different places around France, and activated hidden features. The mission was fun, but enough at 30 minutes. At the end of the mission, we were asked if we wanted to another mission in the next country, and the girls chose not to.

Instead, we decided France was an excellent place to get a sweet treat. That was an excellent choice. Jen and Leah went to the ice cream place, while Molly and I went to the patisserie for some tarts. Yum.

After our treats, we headed down to Japan to listen to some Japanese drumming. They had a really big drum.

We then wandered down to the U.S.A. to listen to the a cappella music of the American Music Machine - lots of fun. Then we walked to Italy and saw an entertaining juggler. The girls also tried out one of the Kidcot Fun Stops, though we just did the one. Then on to China to see some acrobats.

We then walked back to Italy for dinner. We figured we’d be eating pizza on this trip, so we thought we’d go for a high quality one. We had reservations at Via Napoli Ristorante e Pizzeria. The girls were hungry for it.

It was good, though not great, pizza. Sadly, Leah was not a fan of the pizza. Combined with being tired, she turned into a bit of a grump. So, we decided it was time to head back to the hotel rather than sticking around for the fireworks.

After heading out of the restaurant, I took a quick picture of the ladies with the far off Spaceship Earth in the background.

After the long walk back (Leah rode on my shoulders), we even got a magical shot of the four of us.

When we finally got back to our room, Leah was very happy to see her bed. Which was a good thing, since we were getting up early the next morning to head to the Magic Kingdom.

Overall, Epcot was lots of fun and served as a good warmup day for the trip, with smaller crowds and fewer things planned. I don’t think any of us would say it was our favorite park, but it was still awesome.

A week ago, we were in Orlando. We took our first trip down to Disney World, and it was awesome. Over the next several days, I’ll walk you through the awesomeness of the trip, but I figured I’d start with some overall impressions and logistics.

First, Disney World is awesome. The kids and adults all had a great time. It’s a level above other theme parks. We also took one day to go to Legoland, which was fun, but not on the same level as Disney World.

Our goal for our room was to be able to get to and from the parks as easily as possible. So, we stayed on Disney World property at the Pop Century Resort and requested a room close to the front desk in order to be close to the bus stop. This meant we had very little walking to do on the resort, which worked out very well.

We chose to go now because the girls had several random days off of school without going over spring break or some other time with huge crowds. However, there were still big crowds due to three groups:

• Mardi Gras escapers - growing up in Louisiana, we know that while most folks partake in the Mardi Gras celebrations, a large contingent takes advantage of the time off to go to Disney World.
• Cheerleaders - The UCA National High School Cheerleading Championship was being held at Disney World while we were there, so there were lots of cheerleaders everywhere.
• There were 1,250 girls from Argentina celebrating their 15th birthday (quinceañera). There may have been other quinceañera groups there as well, I’m really not sure. But wow, were they loud and annoying. They stayed at Pop Century so we got to share the bus with them, but thankfully they were not in the same building at the resort as us.

FastPasses are awesome.

I’m a big fan of the Memory Maker package for PhotoPass pictures. More than half the pictures you’ll see here were taken by Disney photographers instead of me.

Extra Magic Hours are awesome as well (at least the morning ones, as that’s all we used). We planned which park we’d go to based on when they had them, and used them every morning at Disney World. Getting into the park early meant no lines for some things, and getting certain access to things we might never have gotten. We really don’t like waking up early, but it was worth it.

For food, we opted to go big or go small. This meant we used our own groceries for most of our food (delivered to the room by Garden Grocer - very cool). We ate breakfast in the room, and Jen packed sandwiches for lunch and more snacks than we could ever eat into little baggies. Then for dinner we threw in some more exciting options (more on that later). Also, this meant we did not do a Disney dining plan. We’d definitely do it this way again.

We booked our trip through a AAA travel agent we found through a friend, who was very helpful. We’d definitely do that again as well.

And now onto the fun.

Orlando posts

• Epcot
• Magic Kingdom
• Cinderella’s Royal Table
• Legoland
• Hollywood Studios
• Jedi Training
• Animal Kingdom
• Orlando Favorites

I finally arrived home Monday night. We tried to swing by Aunt EA’s house in Silver Spring on the way, but found her neighborhood had not been plowed yet. Fortunately we knew we could get to my house and Grams’s house. We came to my house first to drop me off, then Aunt EA and Grams went on to Grams’s house. Thanks to Jen for shoveling all the snow piled up at the end of the driveway by the plow earlier in the day.

While I missed much of the snow, I did manage to get out in it briefly with my girls. A fair amount of it had already melted, but the giant piles covering the sidewalk are still taller than Molly.

The snow was still quite deep, so we sunk down into it when walking around. The snow was also level, despite the ground below not being level. So, occasionally you take a step and find the snow is so deep that your leg has disappeared below you.

The girls and I had a lot of fun sledding in our back yard. Here they are showing how much fun it is.

Here Leah shows off that you don’t need a sled to sled - your bottom will do just fine. This is especially true if you use a track that someone heavy (say Daddy) has already carved out of the snow by sledding down.

The girls call this penguin sliding, which I guess is a good description. They got going pretty fast like this, though ended up soaking wet from the snow.

Or you can lift up your arms and legs for a belly slide.

There were a lot of snowballs thrown, including the blurry one obscuring Leah’s hat in this shot.

This is what I was missing when I was stuck away, so I was glad I got to have some fun in the snow with them after getting back.

We decided it would be fun to go down to the National Zoo to go to ZooLights. This would have been especially fun given all the warm weather we’ve been having. Sadly, the day we chose to go ended up being really cold. But we bundled up and had fun anyway.

Rather than wait in lines and pay a lot for food at the zoo, we brought our own sandwiches. We found these picnic tables to eat dinner at while listening to these fun carolers sing.

After dinner in the cold, we went into the reptile house to warm up and check out all the lizards, snakes, and frogs. Then we headed back out into the cold.

They set up 150 foot snow tubing tracks (which thankfully work just as well without snow) to slide down. You may not be able to see their faces, but that’s Leah on the left track and Molly starting down the right track. It had quite a line, but the girls said it was lots of fun.

The girls weren’t the only ones to slide down the hill. Jen went down right after them.

We then waited in a long line to go on the carousel. While I may have thought that the wait was not worth riding a carousel, the girls thought it was great.

The last thing the girls wanted to do at the zoo was ride the National Zoo Choo-Choo. Unfortunately, the train was charging when we went to ride it. We ended up waiting over an hour in the cold to go for a ride. It was so cold I decided to put on my Beard Head to keep my face warm.

It was very cold waiting in line, but I thankfully had a way to warm us up. I brought a 64 ounce insulated water bottle full of hot chocolate as well as a bunch of paper cups. Standing around in line was the perfect time to break it out (along with some snacks).

After waiting more than an hour, we boarded the tiny train. It rode around the Kids’ Farm exhibit (which is possibly the most boring part of the zoo to look at) and took a little over 3 minutes in total. Next time we’ll remember that the train is definitely something to skip.

We had a great trip and would definitely go back. Next time we might go earlier in the day to do some of the zoo stuff before the lights part starts.

We live quite close to old Ellicott City, which has a train museum. During they holidays, they set up model train displays, so we thought we’d go check them out. Here’s the first train we saw.

The most exciting display was the Lego trains. It was huge, with lots of buildings and trains. Lego aficionados bring their own Legos to construct all these things. In all, there are around half a million Lego bricks in the display.

Leah and Grampa peer in at the Lego trains.

Leah and Molly both rang the big bell. I don’t know that Leah is sure about this.

More trains, though Leah’s not sure about it this time.

They had one real train car (a caboose) to check out.

The girls take a seat in the caboose.

We then walked over to Johnny’s Bistro in old Ellicott City for some lunch. It was absolutely delicious. And, while we waited for a table, we dropped in to Southwest Connection & Silver Arrow Fudge to pick up some fudge for later (yum!).

The girls have really gotten into Star Wars lately. As a Star Wars fan myself, I was hoping this would happen eventually but I didn’t want to push it. But when they both started expressing interest in watching Star Wars in November, I was ready. Their initial interest was in watching Star Wars Rebels - an animated show that is currently popular. I explained that they should really start with the movies, and they excitedly agreed.

I first showed them A New Hope (Episode IV). We watched it together and I paused whenever they had a question. I started off getting them to close their eyes for the dark parts, but they quickly decided they didn’t need to do that. At the end, they said they loved it and wanted to watch the next one. Thankfully, Thanksgiving vacation was quickly approaching, giving us some free time to watch movies.

We then watched The Empire Strikes Back (Episode V), and then Return of the Jedi (Episode VI). Then we went back the prequels and watched The Phantom Menace (Episode I), Attack of the Clones (Episode II), and Revenge of the Sith (Episode III). They loved them all. They said their favorite was Return of the Jedi.

We then watched the first season of Star Wars Rebels, which they also liked a lot. We’ll probably watch season two sometime after it finishes airing. Then we moved onto The Clone Wars. We began by watching the movie, then moved on to the series. We’re still in the middle of season one, and looking forward to watching it all eventually.

This all led up to going to the theater to see The Force Awakens (Episode VII). I knew it would be too crazy to try to go before Christmas, so I bought tickets for a 2D matinee on the 27th. Jen and Grams came too (though they didn’t make it into the picture and didn’t have Star Wars apparel on). Here we are in our Star Wars shirts upon arriving at the theater.

We got there an hour and twenty minutes early. I knew this was probably overkill, but wanted to play it safe. It meant we were at the front of the line (all by ourselves for the first twenty minutes of the wait). There ended up being a very long line by the time we were let in to the theater, but we got perfect seats for the film.

The movie was great, and the girls really enjoyed it. They now say it is tied with Return of the Jedi as their favorite movie (it’s tough to compete with Ewoks).

The girls show no signs of slowing their Star Wars excitement. They ask to watch an episode of The Clone Wars every day, and are really looking forward to all the Star Wars stuff in Disney World (we’re going in February). There’s also been discussion of Halloween costumes, though that’s a long way away. They’re also talking about looking forward to Episode VIII, but 5/27/2017 is even further away (though it is already on my calendar).

Per tradition, the girls went to Grams’s house to bake Christmas cookies. Sadly this year Aunt Caroline was not around to help since she no longer lives nearby. We miss you Aunt Caroline.

Baking cookies with Aunt EA meant they also got to hang out a bit with Charlie. Leah thought that was great, though Charlie seems a bit bored by it all.

Charlie is excellent at staring. Molly’s smile doesn’t stand a chance at getting him to blink.

We weren’t the only folks around us to put out lights. Not far from our house, these folks go all out. In fact, they were featured on this season of The Great Christmas Light Fight. So, we made sure to see them up close for the first time this year.

Soon after we arrived, our children transformed into an elf and a reindeer.

The girls’ favorite part was this dance floor. Each square changes colors with the music.

Here’s the view from across the street. I still couldn’t fit everything in (there are giant arrows off to the right showing Santa the way), but this is most of it.

After Molly’s karate tournament Saturday morning, we told the girls we had another activity. We had been debating making a trip to Hershey for their Christmas Candylane. When we saw that Saturday was set to be an unseasonably warm, beautiful day, we decided to surprise the girls with a trip. And I mean surprise. We told them we were going some place and it would be a long drive, but that was it. It wasn’t until they saw the Hershey Kiss shaped streetlights that they realized where we were going. As you can see from their faces, they were still in shock when we got to the entrance.

We got to Hershey Park not too long after the park opened at noon. It was pretty empty compared to what we’ve seen before, which was nice. Many of the rides are closed, but plenty are still open. And there’s a bunch of special Christmas stuff in addition to the usual attractions.

First stop - Skyview. This gave us a nice aerial view of the park to see where there was special Christmas stuff set up.

Leah kept me safe up high. My fear of heights has gotten worse as I’ve aged, so this ride was not necessarily the best choice for me.

Molly was the only one of us brave enough to try the Wave Swinger, but she quickly discovered it was too fast and high for her. So, she closed her eyes for much of it.

Molly and Leah then chose to ride the Sweet Swing. Always fun and not intense, which gave Molly’s nerves some time to settle. They liked it so much they rode it twice.

As usual, I am in charge of spinny rides, since Jen does not handle them well.

Most of the roller coasters were closed. The few that were open included 3 of the most intense ones, as well as the Cocoa Cruiser - the least intense one. Leah was willing to try the Cocoa Cruiser again, and seemed to enjoy it during the ride. Afterward, though, she said it was “freaky” and did not want to do it again.

Here’s another shot of Leah on the Cocoa Cruiser. You can also just make out Molly a few cars behind us (she was riding with Jen).

We went for a ride on the Monorail to see even more of the park.

There were lots of special Christmas-themed things to do (Santa, reindeer, ice skating, etc.), but we didn’t do many of them. We did go to the Music Box Theatre to see a performance of The Littlest Tree.

We then headed over to The Hollow to watch NOEL, their light show with lights animated to music. We even saw some of our church friends there who had a similar idea. In fact, lots of people had a similar idea. The park was not crowded when we arrived, but by this point it was packed. Lines were long and crowds were huge. Also, we were hungry, and lots more planned beyond Hershey Park. So, we headed out of the park.

But we didn’t go far. We headed over to Chocolate World right outside the entrance. First, we got some dinner (including chocolate drizzled corn chips and pretzels). Then we got in line for the Chocolate Tour. We ended up waiting a long time as the place was packed and the ride broke down for a while. But the girls love this ride, so we waited our turn.

The girls really do love seeing how chocolate is made.

The initial impetus for going up was actually to see the Hershey Sweet Lights. The local place that does lights was not doing them this year, so we got our fix in Hershey. So, we drove over after our visit to Chocolate World. The line of cars was so long, it took well over an hour to get in to see the lights.

They even gave us some paper snowflake glasses. These look like old-school 3D glasses, but they instead make all lights look like snowflakes (even those on the cars in front of you).

Molly was excited to see an owl.

Here’s the same owl in snow-D.

The lights took about an hour to drive through. Then it was finally time to head back home. The girls thankfully slept in the car. We got home about 12:10 with a car full of tired people. I think I’m still tired, but it really was a lot of fun. The girls claim it was the best day ever.