Memory of the Day

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• Cupcake
• Helper
• I'm Two
• Day 8 at Disney
• Day 7 at Disney
• Day 6 at Disney
• Day 5 at Disney
• Day 4 at Disney
• Day 3 at Disney
• Day 2 at Disney
• Day 1 at Disney
• On Our Way

Cupcake - May 1, 2010 (23 Months)
Today we went to the local zoo with our son and his aunt, uncle, and cousins. It was a very hot but enjoyable day. Later, when we did an early birthday celebration our son ate half of his cupcake with a fork nice and neat and then the remaining half of the cupcake he shoved into his mouth in one bite.
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Helper - April 28, 2010 (23 Months)
Our son definitely likes to help others. Today Mommy was proud to watch him helping the other kids at his Mommy and Me preschool readiness class. Later in the day while playing at the park, our son told some new kids that his name was "Dude." So he may have manners but he does need to work on saying his real name.
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I'm Two - April 26, 2010 (23 Months)
Our son loves to say he is "Two" but he still has trouble holding up two fingers. So if you ask him his age, he'll proudly say "Two" while he holds up all five fingers.
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Day 8 at Disney - April 19, 2010 (23 Months)
Today was our last day at Disney. We initially wanted to go back to Hollywood Studios since we weren't able to see everything we wanted to see there due to only being there a half day but since we got back so late the night before we still had to pack. We had a late flight (6PM) and we were able to get a late check-out for 1PM. After breakfast I took our son swimming while Daddy finished packing up the room. We had a good time swimming in the pool. The water was extremely warm, it felt like a kid's hot tub.

We were able to check our luggage at the hotel so we didn't have to worry about taking it with us to the airport. This was a great benefit although Erik's leatherman was hiding on the bed and didn't get put into the checked luggage. (We mailed it after going through security.) We finished off the six remaining snacks we had on our meal plan buy getting an icecream sundae, two packages of carrots & celery, two packs of grapes, and a rice crispy mickey mouse treat.

Our son was excited to get to ride the bus one more time even if the bus was taking us to the airport. It started raining soon as we got on the bus. We were very fortunate to have such good weather, it only drizzled a little one day and rained the majority of the day one day but we were still able to do everything we wanted to do at the parks.

The only time weather impacted us was when it was time to go home. It was storming so bad that even though our plane arrived it wasn't allowed to come into our gate. It eventually did only about 20 minutes late but then once we all boarded the plane we found out that water had leaked into the cockpit and our pilot said we had to wait as some of his electrical equipment shorted out. About two hours later the plane finally took off. (I was a little uneasy about the electrical equipment that shorted out) but we did make it home safely.

It was a very enjoyable week at Disney!! I think I now need a vacation from my vacation. :)
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Day 7 at Disney - April 18, 2010 (23 Months)
We started our morning at the Crystal Palace at the Magic Kingdom for a breakfast with our friends and Pooh friends. Our son enjoyed eating the Mickey pancakes and the fresh berries for breakfast.

It was a rainy day but we used our ponchos and started having fun at the park. (Our son wasn't thrilled about the poncho at first.) We started with another ride on Cinderella's Golden Carousel. We then rode on the Mad Tea Party (spinning tea cups) and the Tomorrowland Speedway. Our son was just an inch over the height requirement for the speedway. He was very serious about driving the car.

Shortly after those rides it started to drizzle again so we decided to eat lunch and then try to get our son to take a nap. He fell asleep just in time for us to take shelter during a huge rain storm. We found our friends and so we all sat under a shelter for the next two hours while the kids slept. Erik did go ride a few rides (Space Mountain & Stitch's Great Escape) during the storm. After the storm, we went to dinner at Ohana at the Polynesian Resort. Dinner was excellent, it was all you can eat of barbecue chicken, pork, beef, shrimp served with noodles and vegetables. Our son's favorite was the noodles.

After dinner it was only drizzling so we decided to go back to the park and do a few more rides. We went on Peter Pan's Flight, the Magic Carpets of Aladdin, and the Pirates of the Caribbean. Our friends had to leave for the night and our son was very upset his friend left. We bought him a sword that lights up which quickly distracted him about his friend's departure. Mommy was planning to buy it anyway so it was perfect timing.

We rode the Mad Tea Party and the Tomorrowland Speedway again and then Erik took our son on the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh while Mommy went on Stitch's Great Escape. We also walked through Mickey's and Minnie's Country House and then Erik went on Splash Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad while my son and I saw the Country Bear Jamboree. We then had front row seats to watch the SpectroMagic Parade in Frontierland.

On our way out of the park around 11PM, everyone kept commenting on how it was amazing our son was still up. He wasn't just up, he was wide awake as he danced out of the park. It was a wonderful last day at the Disney Parks.
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Day 6 at Disney - April 17, 2010 (23 Months)
We decided to stay at the hotel this morning and play in the pool. We were considering giving our son a nap at the hotel as well. Although, our son was having so much fun playing with his friend in the swimming pool that by the time we all showered after swimming it was already around 1PM so we decided to go to Magic Kingdom and ride a few rides before our character dinner at Mickey's Backyard Barbecue. We went on the Magic Carpets of Aladdin, the Pirates of the Caribbean and the Jungle Cruise. We were on the Jungle Cruise ride for a very long time as the boat in front of us broke down. Fortunately, we were stopped in front of one of the main attractions and so our son was entertained for the duration of the stop. We also walked through the Swiss Family Treehouse.

We left the park early, around 5PM, so we could try to let our son take a nap before dinner at 6:30PM. Unfortunately, he didn't fall asleep until around 5:30PM and slept until right before dinner started at 6:30PM. So he wasn't able to get some of the pre-dinner character pictures. I thought Mickey's Backyard Barbecue was going to be the highlight of our trip as the children are allowed to dance with the characters, Mickey, Minney, Goofy, and Chip n' Dale; especially, since our son's favorite thing to do is dance and he loved seeing and hugging the characters. Although like most things, what you think will be the highlight usually isn't and what you don't expect to be the highlight usually is. I think the music was too loud and so my son didn't want to dance with the other children and characters. (It probably didn't help that he was also exhausted.) So instead of dancing he had fun banging on the bongo drums and playing with chalk that was set up for the children. Soon more kids were joining us outside and my son had fun playing and "talking" to them.

He was excited to get his picture with Mickey and Minnie and trying the various treats. (Mommy let him have lots of treats that are usually off limits at home.)

Once the band stopped playing our son immediately ran and started dancing on the dance floor. So either it really was the music being too loud or he was just waiting for the perfect opportunity to start dancing and have the dance floor to himself. He kept looking around, I think waiting for the characters to come dance with him. Even though the outcome wasn't what I expected, all of us had a great night at Mickey's Backyard Barbecue. We will probably schedule it again on our next trip.

We took the boat from the Campground back to the Magic Kingdom (as that is the easiest way to get back to our hotel) and then we were going to get on the bus to go back but it was almost time for the fireworks show. Since it was our second to last night we decided to make it a late night and stay and see the fireworks. We were able to see the fireworks from a prime location, on the bridge from Tomorrowland. We were really glad we were able to see the fireworks show.

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Day 5 at Disney - April 16, 2010 (23 Months)
Today we went to Epcot. The Epcot International Flower & Garden Festival was going on during our visit and we loved seeing the topiaries throughout the park.

As soon we got to Epcot we got Fast Pass tickets for Soarin as I knew I wanted to ride Soarin. We then went and had breakfast at the Kringla Bakeri Og Kafe. It didn't open until 10AM but it was well worth the wait. The food was delicious. After breakfast we rode on Maelstrom, a viking boat voyage in Norway and the Gran Fiesta Tour Starring the Three Caballeros in Mexico. Our son enjoyed both boat rides once he realized we weren't going on It's a Small World. We then met up with our friends at The Seas with Nemo & Friends. Our son had fun with his friend at Turtle Talk With Crush. He wanted to sit up front with the other little kids but kept running to the back of the theatre to find his friend. We also went on The Seas with Nemo & Friends ride. Then our friends watched our son when we went on Soarin, which was a really cool ride.

Later in the day we saw Honey, I Shrunk the Audience, Spaceship Earth, The Circle of Life, and our son had fun playing in the water.

Our son eventually fell asleep and slept through most of dinner. We had a wonderful dinner with our friends at The Garden Grill which had characters but once our son did wake up he was still too sleepy to enjoy visiting with the characters.

After dinner, we did Journey Into Imagination with Figment and Living with the Land attractions. We ended the night with the Illuminations: Reflections of Earth which was a fireworks, laser, and water show. Erik stayed and rode some more rides like Test Track and Mission: SPACE while Mommy took our son home. It was a very late night for everyone.
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Day 4 at Disney - April 15, 2010 (23 Months)
Today we stayed at the hotel in the morning and swam in the pool. We then let our son take a nap in the hotel room. We debated whether this was a good idea or not as it would limit the amount of time we would have at Hollywood Studios but Mommy wasn't sure how much longer he could go without a real nap. On the other hand Mommy was worried that once he had a real nap he would realize how tired he was. Our son slept about an 1 1/2 in the room and then woke up (normally he sleeps 2 - 3 hours for a nap) but it was still probably better than a nap in the stroller.

We then went to Hollywood Studios in the afternoon. The Block Party Bash started shortly after we got there although it was one of the few parade entertainments our son didn't like. I think it was mainly because the music was extremely loud as when we started to leave the area our son started dancing and liking the music, I think it was just too loud. We then went to see High School Musical 3 but unfortunately it started raining and so the performance was cancelled. This was our first day of rain while at Disney so we've been lucky so far with the weather. We went to see the Playhouse Disney show which our son really liked. Although when Pooh came on stage he didn't understand why he couldn't run up to the stage and meet Pooh. We then had dinner at The Hollywood Brown Derby which was a fancy sit down dinner and required two meal tickets. We were slightly disappointed in the food, it was good but not worth two meal tickets. (Unlike the Aloha dinner that was definitely worth the two meal tickets.)

After dinner we saw the Voyage of The Little Mermaid which our son really liked. We then went on the Studio Backlot Tour. After the tour we went to the Fantasmic! show which we had great seats! We previously signed up for the Fantasmic Package and so we only had to show up for the show 30 minutes early rather than 1 1/2 hours early in order to get seats. Our son had fun "talking" to the little boy next to him before the show started. It was a great show. A lot of the show was displayed by movie clips which were shown on the water with live action as well. After the show, Erik went on the Tower of Terror while our son entertained himself chasing bubbles another little boy was shooting with a bubble gun. On the way home, our son once again had fun entertaining the people that sat around him on the bus. At least he was smiling and laughing and not crying.
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Day 3 at Disney - April 14, 2010 (22 Months)
Today we started our day at Chef Mickey's at the Contemporary hotel. I wasn't sure if this was going to be a good idea traveling to another hotel before going to Magic Kingdom but the Contemporary hotel is only a 2 minute tram ride from Magic Kingdom. Our son was very excited to ride on the tram so it ended up being a good idea. The food was great at the restaurant and our son got to meet Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy, and Pluto. Here are some pictures:

After breakfast we saw the Dream-Along With Mickey show and then met up with our friends at Magic Kingdom.

We saw Mickey's PhilharMagic 3D movie show which our son wore the glasses for part of the show but the objects really seemed to fly at you and so I took his glasses off. He seemed to enjoy the rest of the show once I removed the glasses. We also rode the Peter Pan's Flight and saw the Celebrate A Dream Come True Parade. Our son took a nap and when he woke up it was time to go to Disney's Spirit of Aloha Dinner Show. Going to the show meant leaving the park early but for us, we felt the entertainment was just as much fun as riding the rides. The food was really good and our son loved the barbecue chicken. He ate a really large chicken breast by himself. He loved watching the entertainment and even got up on the stage with the other kids to dance. He also liked saying "Aloha." It was a really fun evening and probably one of our favorite dining experiences.

After the show we toured around the Polynesian hotel and also stopped at the Grand Floridian hotel on our way home. Both hotels were really nice and were right on the water with a small beach. We'd love to stay at one of these hotels on our next trip to Disney.

Day 2 at Disney - April 13, 2010 (22 Months)
Our son woke up around 6:30AM (normal time even though he went to bed close to 11:30PM the night before) and we got ready to go to the Animal Kingdom. A few pictures on our way to the park:

Before breakfast we picked up a fast pass for the Kilimanjaro Safaris. We had a character breakfast with Donald, Daisy, Mickey, and Goofy. Here are some pictures:

After breakfast we went on the Kilimanjaro Safaris. I told our son that we were going on a ride to see animals and soon as he sat down, he got very excited and started pointing and said squirrel. Yes, there was a squirrel near us. I knew he was going to like the safaris simply based on his excitement on seeing a squirrel before the trip started. We saw giraffes, zebra, elephants, alligators, antelope, rhinos, and ostriches. There were also lions but they were hiding and so we didn't really see them. Shortly after the safaris our son was pretty tired and ended up falling asleep in his stroller. It worked out well as Erik and I walked around the other areas of the park looking at the animals. Seeing the bats was actually very cool. I almost didn't go in to see them but they were very interesting to see up close. The Tree of Life was really neat to look at as well. There were different animal carvings in the tree.

Our son woke up in time to go to the Finding Nemo Musical which he loved. Every theatre we went in after this show our son would say "Nemo" as he was hoping to watch the Nemo show. I found it fascinating since the actors both acted themselves and also made the fish puppets move and show expressions. We also saw Mickey's Jammin' Jungle Parade. Our son loved watching the parades. He would wave at all of the floats and try to give the characters high five's as they walked past us. We then went over to the affection section. On our way into the affection section we saw some monkeys. The monkeys were sticking out their tongues at us. When we left the monkey section we asked our son what do monkeys do thinking he would make the monkey sound but instead he stuck out his tongue. I guess he was right since the monkeys did seem to like to stick their tongues out.

We ended our day at the Festival of the Lion King, which was another great show that we all loved. We had a great day at Animal Kingdom.
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Day 1 at Disney - April 12, 2010 (22 Months)
We woke up around 4:30AM and our son woke up around 5:00AM so we could leave the hotel to go to the airport. It actually wasn't too bad for our son since recently he's been getting up at 6:30AM. We had a short plane ride (about 2 hours) to Orlando and our son was able to entertain himself during the flight by playing with his car, taking apart his bottle and putting it back together, and smiling at the other passengers. We had put the DVD player in the overhead compartment and fortunately we didn't need to get it to entertain him.

Since we were staying at one of the Disney Resort hotels transportation was provided. We soon found out that one of our son's favorite parts of the trip was riding the bus to and from parks.

When we got to the hotel, we put our son down for a nap (we didn't want to start off the trip with an exhausted toddler) and Mommy got to relax at the pool while Daddy finished up some work in the hotel room. When our son got up, around 4PM, we left to meet our friends at Disney World for our first Character Dining experience. We weren't sure how our almost 2 year old would like the characters but it was pretty obvious that he LOVED them. Here are a few of the first pictures:

We were able to see the end of the Move It! Shake It! Celebrate It! Street Party. We rode a few rides, such as Cinderella's Golden Carrousel, It's a Small World, and Dumbo the Flying Elephant. Our son loved the Carrousel and Dumbo but definitely did not like It's a Small World. Half way through the ride he started telling me he was done but unfortunately you can't get off the ride so he had to suffer through the rest of it. His friend loved the ride. (We later found out that this was the one and only ride he didn't like at Disney World.)

We stayed for the "Spectro Magic" Parade at 9PM but did not stay for the 10PM fireworks. It was a wonderful first day at Disney.
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On Our Way - April 11, 2010 (22 Months)
We left to drive to Baltimore, MD around 5PM. We decided to stay at a hotel near the Baltimore Airport since we had a 7AM flight out of Baltimore to Orlando for our first family vacation to Walt Disney World! Here is a picture of our son ready for the trip.

We were able to get our son to bed by 8:30PM and we went to bed shortly afterward. Normally we are packing until 2AM the night before we leave for a trip so it was really nice to be able to go to bed early before the start of our vacation.
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