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This was the most time we’d ever spent with Charlie. This led to lots of fun (and lots of pictures). There may have been some downsides (oh, you mean babies sometimes wake up in the middle of the night?), but we were happy to spend so much time with him. Here’s a few bits of the fun.

First of all, Charlie is now starting to eat solid food. We got to observe as Charlie had plums for the first time. It was hilarious. Here he is asking Aunt Jen to save him from this fate.

Then, Charlie got angry about having to eat these plums.

OK, maybe the plums are alright after all.

Charlie’s favorite activity seems to be walking around. He needs a little help, and the girls were glad to help with that.

Hi Charlie! And yes, that’s Leah trying to give him bunny ears.

Charlie was even happy after getting up from his nap earlier than he was supposed to.

Babies are fun.

My favorite outing of our stay in Deep Creek was to Swallow Falls State Park. We went for a hike there and got to experience some great natural beauty and fun. First stop - Muddy Creek Falls.

We then hiked along the river, stopping to climb around on the rocks occasionally.

Here are the four of us at Lower Swallow Falls. The others had just headed back to the cars to get Charlie home for a nap.

The last stop on our hike was also the best in my opinion. Tolliver Falls has this serene pool of water at the bottom of the small falls. And the best part was it was mostly empty of other people. We stayed and played here for a long time.

The 3 of us stood at the top of Tolliver Falls as water rushed over our feet.

The girls spent much of the time there excitedly playing with mud.

Molly found a good place to sit.

If you are in the area and like the outdoors, I highly recommend Swallow Falls. It’s beautiful, and a lot of fun.

While rain kept us indoors on a few days, we had several days of good weather to take advantage of. Our top priority was to ride the Mountain Coaster. Molly’s ready to go.

And here are Jen and Leah at the end of the Mountain Coaster. Lots of fun, and very different to ride a roller coaster where you are in charge of how fast/slow you go (using the control handles).

There were also some classic vacation activities. This, of course, included mini golf.

During the rainy days, someone had randomly turned on the Game Show Network to watch Deal or No Deal. The girls were fascinated with the game. They were even more excited when we discovered that the arcade attached to the mini golf had a Deal or No Deal game. They had to play.

Molly took a wise deal with 2 cases left to win 50 tickets. Leah went all the way to the end, opened her case, and got 40 tickets. I was surprised they were both such big winners. So much fun to get a pile of tickets at the arcade.

Since some of the family couldn’t make it to our first mini golf outing due to nap schedule, we tried out another mini golf course a couple days later when they could.

This course featured a bear you had to hit past. Be careful not to wake it, Leah.

There was one more gaming activity, but I didn’t get pictures of it. This included a trip to Fun Unlimited - a house filled with arcade video games.

The girls had lots of fun with aunts and uncles in Deep Creek. Aunt Caroline and Uncle Charles could only stay for a couple days, but you already saw some hot tub fun with them. Aunt EA and Uncle Scott provided fun all week long.

After the rain on the fourth, the girls wanted to get into the lake when it was clear on the fifth. However, the lake water was freezing cold. Molly opted not to get in except for splashing around in the shallows, but Leah wasn’t scared to jump in.

While Leah could have swam to shore, she convinced Uncle Scott to give her a ride instead.

After the cold of the lake, it was time to warm up in the hot tub. Despite avoiding the cold of the lake, I joined in the fun of the hot tub.

Uncle Scott brought awesome water ballons that fill and tie 35 at a time, so it was time for a water balloon fight.

After a bit, a new participant joined the fray. The others were waiting to pounce.

Their target was Aunt EA, though she managed to catch this incoming balloon before it hit her in the head.

The next day, there was even more water fun. Uncle Scott and Aunt EA wanted to rent some jet skis and offered for the girls to ride along. The girls were very excited to try it. Molly rode with Uncle Scott.

And Leah rode with Aunt EA.

A few minutes later, they stopped by the lakehouse to say hello before continuing on their hour-long ride.

After they got back, the girls wanted to play in the lake, but it was still freezing cold. They didn’t make it in too far.

Our little girls really loved playing with their aunts and uncles. Thanks!

We were in Deep Creek for the Fourth of July - always a fun holiday. Sadly, it wasn’t quite as fun as we had hoped due to the weather. It rained, and rained. It was nice to chill in the house, but it would have been even nicer to get outside.

A few of us did get outside. The girls were very excited about the hot tub at the lake house. The rain may have kept them out of the lake, but it didn’t keep them out of the hot tub. Thanks to Aunt Caroline and Uncle Charles for joining them so Jen and I could stay out of the rain.

When not in the hot tub, the girls were very festive on July 4th, wearing their new dresses made by Jen.

The fireworks did not go off on July 4th due to rain, so they postponed to the 5th. We could see them from the lake house, though they were somewhat far away (sorry, no pics of far away fireworks). I got the girls red, white, and blue glow wands at the dollar store, which Leah is showing off as she watches the fireworks.

These fireworks are amazing!

We spent last week in Deep Creek with my my family. We rented out a lakefront house to spend a relaxing week together.

While there, we had a photoshoot. For Grams’s birthday, we all decided to give her a new family portrait. We were going to hire a professional photographer and then get a framed print, but we realized our best chance for being together was on our lake trip. So, I got the job of photographer instead. Here we all are. What do you think?

And here’s Grams with her grandkids.

I also took some pictures of the smaller family units amongst us.

We tried a different setup of all of us as well.

I think this last one was the best group shot, though for some reason Grams didn’t want a giant print of it on her wall.

After our trip, I decided to ask all the members of the family about their favorite parts of the trip. I thought it might be a fun way to close out the recap of the trip. So, here they are, in their own words.

Which park was your favorite?

• Molly - Hollywood Studios because all the Star Wars stuff was there and Jedi Training was awesome
• Leah - Hollywood Studios ‘cause of all the Star Wars stuff
• Jen - Magic Kingdom
• Chad - Hollywood Studios

What were your 3 favorite activities of the trip?

• Molly
  1. Jedi Training
  2. Star Tours
  3. Thunder Mountain
• Leah
  1. Jedi Training
  2. Star Tours
  3. Barnstormer
• Jen
  1. Festival of the Lion King
  2. Magic Kingdom evening show (Electrical Parade/Celebrate the Magic/Wishes Nighttime Spectacular)
  3. Toy Story Midway Mania
• Chad
  1. Jedi Training
  2. Star Tours
  3. Thunder Mountain

What was your favorite thing on each day?

• Epcot
  • Molly - Agent P’s adventure - especially, like, showing us Perry’s locked in, Agent S, like his cage. And they tell us to get away quick, Doofenshmirtz might be coming back
  • Leah - Spaceship Earth
  • Jen
    • Turtle Talk with Crush
    • American Music Machine
  • Chad - Test Track
• Magic Kingdom
  • Molly
    • Thunder Mountain - my favorite part was like when we had, like, the turns
    • Seven Dwarfs Mine Train - the part I liked the best was when we were like going up, and we see all the dwarfs, and they’re like singing “Hi ho!”
  • Leah
    • Barnstormer
    • Seven Dwarfs Mine Train
    • Thunder Mountain
  • Jen - Magic Kingdom evening show (Electrical Parade/Celebrate the Magic/Wishes Nighttime Spectacular)
  • Chad - Thunder Mountain
• Legoland
  • Molly - Coastersaurus. My favorite part was at the place where they take your picture. My least favorite part was when there’s the two big drops.
  • Leah
    • Double-decker carousel
    • Star Wars stuff
    • the ski show
  • Jen - Apple Fries
  • Chad - Star Wars section
• Hollywood Studios
  • Molly - Jedi Training
  • Leah
    • Building lightsaber and droids
    • Star Tours
    • Jedi Training
  • Jen
    • Toy Story Midway Mania
    • Frozen Sing-Along
    • Beauty and the Beast - Live on Stage
  • Chad - Jedi Training
• Animal Kingdom
  • Molly - meeting Minnie and Mickey
  • Leah - What was the thing when you sat and saw all the animals? Safari
  • Jen - Festival of the Lion King
  • Chad - Kilimanjaro Safaris

What was your favorite meal?

• Molly - Sanaa because for dessert we got to make our own butterfly-winged cookies
• Leah
  • Cinderella’s Castle - cause the chicken nuggets were so good. And also cause you got to meet princesses.
  • And Sanaa, where you got to make your own cookie, and cause I got to see zebras, and cause the pizza was so good.
• Jen - Sanaa
• Chad - Sanaa

What was your least favorite thing?

• Molly - the Haunted Mansion
• Leah - the Haunted Mansion
• Jen - Star Tours
• Chad - the Haunted Mansion

The girls are already asking when we can go again. I told them that next time, I want to go to Universal Studios so we can go to Harry Potter World, but we shouldn’t do that until Leah had read at least the first couple of books. So, as soon as she does that, we’ll start planning a trip. Maybe it’ll give her some motivation to work on her reading skills in the mean time.

When we started planning our Orlando trip, we thought Monday would be a travel day. But when we looked at flights, we realized we could fly back late enough to give us a half day at the parks. Adding an extra day to our park tickets was quite cheap (adding extra days gets progressively cheaper). So, we decided to add a half day of Animal Kingdom to our trip to maximize the fun.

We woke up early, got ready, and packed up. We headed down and checked our bags for our flight at our hotel (yes, the resort no only printed our boarding passes and delivered them to our room, but also let us check our bags for our flight at the hotel). We got Luggage Services to hang onto the girls’ backpacks so they didn’t have to keep up with them at the park. Then we hopped on the bus to Animal Kingdom.

We didn’t get there right at 8:00, but we arrived early enough to take advantage of most of the Extra Magic Hour. We headed straight to Kilimanjaro Safaris, where we hopped in a truck for a guided tour of their Harambe Wildlife Reserve. It was like a mini African safari in the middle of Florida. We saw lots of animals as we drove through the preserve, including hippos

and giraffes

and rhinos

and zebras so close you could almost touch them.

and many more.

It was really cool - definitely my favorite attraction at Animal Kingdom.

When we got out, we stumbled upon the Tam Tam Drummers of Harambe and got to listen to some drumming. This was a nice source of entertainment while we waited for the Lion King show to open.

Then, we headed to the Festival of the Lion King. It’s a huge live show with singers, giant puppet animals, dancers, gymnasts, fire jugglers, and more. The audience sits on four sides of the performance, each representing an animal (go giraffes!).

Next, we thought we might check out the Tree of Life before lunch. Sadly, it was closed that day, so that didn’t work out. So, instead we took a family picture at the front of the park before heading to lunch.

We were shocked at who we saw there.

We couldn’t have a fancy dinner since we’d be on a plane, so we instead had a fancy lunch. We heard that Sanaa, the restaurant at the Animal Kingdom Villas was very cool (thanks Kelly), so we went there. To get there, we had to leave the park and take a 5 minute bus ride to the villas, but it was definitely worth it.

Sanaa was delicious African cooking with Indian flavors. We definitely recommend getting the Indian-style Bread Service appetizer. Jen had the Tandoori chicken and I had the Potjie Inspired (braised beef and seafood curry), and they were great. Easily the best meal we ate at Disney.

And not only was the food great, the atmosphere was very cool. It’s a fancy restaurant in a fancy hotel, but right outside the window next to our table is a wildlife reserve. This may not be the best picture of Molly eating her naan and showing off the light-up Tinker Bell that came on her drink, but the awesome part is the zebras in the background.

Yes, there were zebras outside the restaurant, as well as a bunch of large birds. There are apparently often giraffes as well, but they weren’t around during our meal.

The girls also appreciated that they had a fun-filled dessert for kids - Decorate-Your-Own Sugar Cookie. Leah might have put enough icing on this one.

After lunch, we had a FastPass for Finding Nemo - The Musical for the 1:00 show. To use the FastPass, we had to be there by 12:50. We finished lunch at 12:30, waited for the bus, rode it to the Animal Kingdom Lodge where it picked up more passengers, rode it to the park, went through security/bag check, re-entered the park, and booked it to the show (which was very far from the park entrance). We got there at 12:58, too late to use the FastPass but not too late to get into the show and sit at the very back. Regardless, we enjoyed it.

The girls hadn’t been excited about meeting any characters lately, but they decided they did want to go see Mickey and Minnie again.

And hugging them good-bye.

We then wandered into DinoLand, thinking that the Primeval Whirl looked like a fun ride. We started to walk in, only to find out Leah wasn’t tall enough to ride. We decided no one would ride it without her. So, instead we hopped on the TriceraTop Spin, which is a lot like the Dumbo ride at Magic Kingdom.

We then heard music, and found the Viva Gaia Street Band! playing some fun tunes and leading dancing. Molly quickly jumped into the action.

And then we were done. We had hit the main things we wanted to at Animal Kingdom, and it was time to head toward the airport. We took the bus back to our hotel, collected backpacks, and waited on Disney’s Magical Express to the airport. And everyone was still smiling.

The trip was fantastic, and there’s very little we’d do differently. We were very glad we took advantage of every minute. We got home around 10:00 - extremely tired and not looking forward to waking up for school the next morning. Fortunately, the next day ended up being a snow day, so the girls got to recover a bit before getting back into the usual routine.

While at Hollywood Studios, the girls joined in Jedi Training: Trials of the Temple (previously known as Jedi Training Academy). This is an awesome experience for any Star Wars fan (well, at least any fan between age 4 and 12, leaving some of the parents around wondering if they could pass as one of their kids for a bit ;) ). It’s also one of the hottest tickets in town and there are no FastPasses for it. So, we made sure to get to the park right when it opened to sign up. Even so, we ended up in line for about 30 minutes just to sign up. Our girls got into the 12:40 group, and they told us to be back there at 12:10 to get ready.

When we got there at 12:10, there was a little bit of standing around as everyone gathered. We took advantage of the time, pulled out our PB&J sandwiches, and ate the quickly. Once all 30 of the kids had arrived, they lined them up in height order and gave them Jedi robes.

They then marched from Indiana Jones Adventure Outpost to the Jedi Temple next to Star Tours. They were led by a banner-holder who continually yelled “Make way for the future of the Jedi Order”. After arriving at the temple, the fun got started.

Our younglings were met by 4 Jedi - one master, her apprentice, and two other students. And then the training began. Each youngling was given a lightsaber, and they were all taught a bunch of moves. They repeated these in sequence to practice them.

But then, the trials started. Their darkest fears were realized when Darth Vader and the Seventh Sister Inquisitor arrived.

But they learned to face their fears, and each got a chance to fight one of these evil Sith. Both Molly and Leah were in the group to fight the Seventh Sister, which was fortunate since we’d just caught up on the second season of Star Wars Rebels and she was fresh in their minds.

In the end, lightsabers were not enough to get rid of the evil ones, so they had to use the force to push them away.

But wait, Darth Maul showed up as well, with his acrobatic double-sided lightsaber moves.

And Molly was shocked.

But we all used the force to push him away as well.

There was a lot more to the show, but I think you get the idea. For a Star Wars fan, this was as fun as it gets. It’s also got to be the most interactive attraction at Disney World. Where else do you get to be up on stage for 20 minutes, including fighting the bad guy one-on-one?

The girls say this was their favorite part of the trip, and even though I experienced it vicariously, I’d say it was my favorite part as well. I highly recommend it for any Star Wars fans who meet the age requirements.

On Sunday, we woke up early to head to Hollywood Studios (formerly known as MGM). Our first stop was to sign up for Jedi Training, which was the thing the girls were looking forward to the most of the trip. It was so awesome it deserves its own post, so you’ll have to wait until tomorrow to hear about that. For now, just know that we got there in time to sign up for a session after noon, then headed out to have other fun in the park.

These days, Hollywood Studios is full of Star Wars stuff. The girls and I are big Star Wars fans, which is why the three of us were looking forward to it more than any other day. So, we took advantage of our Extra Magic Hour to go on Star Tours. Jen even got caught up in the Star Wars excitement so much that she joined us, despite it being the kind of ride that usually doesn’t sit well with her. The girls and I loved it (Jen less so) - such a fun ride to get in on the Star Wars space travel action.

The exit for Star Tours leaves you in Tatooine Traders, which is a great place to shop for Star Wars stuff. They even let you build your own lightsaber, which both of the girls were looking forward to. They both had Disney gift cards (thanks G’Mom and Grampa), and had saved them for this.

Thanks to William from Endor for helping the girls with constructing their lightsabers.

Not only can you build lightsabers, you can build little droids as well. The girls were excited to do so.

Here they are with their lightsabers and droids (R8-D8 and R2-L2).

A few notes for those interested - the lightsabers are $25 each for standard ones like ours, though they can be up to $45 if you want double sided with Kylo Ren cross guards on each side. Droids were $22 for two of them (I think). We did this early, and discovered that was the best thing to do as the place gets crowded and the supplies get less plentiful as the day goes on. We tried to have them send our stuff to our room so we didn’t have to carry it, but they said it might not make it before we checked out the next day. Instead, we had them send the items to Package Pickup where we picked them up at the end of the day.

Outside, the girls got to sit on an Imperial Speeder Bike.

Then we headed off to our first FastPass of the day - Toy Story Midway Mania, which was lots of fun. Then we thought we had some time before our next FastPass, so we hopped on the Great Movie Ride. We didn’t have as much time as we thought, but thankfully the attendant at Voyage of the Little Mermaid let us in despite being late. We ended up having to wait for the next show there, but that wasn’t a big deal. Then, on to our last prebooked FastPass - For the First Time in Forever: A Frozen Sing-Along Celebration, which was funny and fun. We then headed back to Jedi Training, where we ate our PB&J sandwich lunch standing while they gathered the kids together (more on that tomorrow).

After Jedi Training, we headed over to Muppet*Vision 3D. It was a fun show, and next to a kiosk we could use to book an additional FastPass (for Star Tours again, of course). But that FastPass was for several hours later, so we instead opted to check out other Star Wars stuff. We went to the Star Wars Launch Bay, where we got to watch a short behind-the-scenes movie and then look at a bunch of movie props.

Then we walked over to Sunset Boulevard to see Beauty and the Beast - Live on Stage.

There wasn’t much else for us over on Sunset Boulevard, so we headed back to the Animation Courtyard for a family picture.

Family pictures with signs are fun, but family pictures with Wookies are even better. So, we headed back into Star Wars Launch Bay to wait in line to meet Chewbacca. The girls also wanted his signature, but we were told that he was not signing anything to avoid leaving a paper trail that the First Order could use to track down the Resistance.

Chewie wasn’t sure about my shirt when he saw Darth Vader on it, but he seemed to be OK with it after I pointed out Luke, Leia, and her Chewbacca doll.

We also met a Jawa wandering around there.

After that, it was time for a snack. Everywhere you walked, you could smell the popcorn, and the girls really wanted some. Jen and I instead opted for something that brought me back to my childhood - Mickey Mouse Ice Cream Bars. These aren’t the same ones I remember (those were vanilla ice cream with chocolate ice cream eyes and mouth, and only the ears were dipped in chocolate). But these were still excellent.

At that point, we’d done most of the stuff we wanted to. The girls kept asking to go back to Star Tours, but our FastPass there wasn’t for another hour. So, we decided we’d just stand in line for it (well, the girls and I would - Jen was not up for a return trip). Here we are ready for our second space flight with front row seats.

After we got off the ride, it was about time for our FastPass, so we went back for a third time. Note that they do have a bunch of different elements that they mix together, so each ride was slightly different.

For dinner, we had our only quick counter-service meal of the trip at the ABC Commissary. Then we headed to get a seat for some evening entertainment at 7:00. Fantasmic is a huge character, fireworks, and water show (they even project video onto a sheet of water being sprayed into the air). It was very cool.

Then we swung by Package Pickup to get our lightsabers and droids, and headed to the Animation Courtyard to watch Symphony in the Stars: A Galactic Spectacular - a Star Wars-themed fireworks show at 8:00. It was the perfect finale to a fantastic day.

Note that we stayed at the park all day. It was crazy busy, and the girls loved it so much there was never a hint of exhaustion. We left the hotel at 7:30 in the morning and got back around 9:30 at night. Our girls are awesome.