Wednesday/Thursday: magic kingdom

Last night Cheryl let Ben and I go out after putting the boys to bed.  We had a late supper, watched the fireworks by the castle, and then rode as many of the rides as we could.  They had extended hours for resort guests, so we had about three hours.

We made good use of them!  We weren't sure we'd stay the whole time, but we weren't up much past or normal bedtime, really.  We did the haunted mansion, a mineshaft one, pirates of the Caribbean, space mountain, seven dwarves, and the Stitch thingy.  My favorite was the seven dwarves... It was so smooth, although too short.

Today we went back.  The only ride we did again was space mountain.  But we still did a lot!  People mover, Winnie-the-Pooh (this was really cute), it's a small world, fantasmic, Peter pan, Dumbo, buzz, and a train.  It was hard to get a read on Isaac as to what he liked, although it wasn't the people mover because the dark part was to scary.  However, in the buzz ride his score was about 300 one third of the way through it and then I looked over and it was 301000!  He beat Been by about 3x, so must have hit something amazing.  Joshua liked Pooh (and Owl), and small world the most... I think.

And while we had a great time, I think we also left at just the right time.  Joshua had a small melt down in the car as we were driving home, but finally fell asleep if my hand was by his cheek.  Isaac had a headache but finally fell asleep with his head leaning forward on my hand.  (Luckily I was able to extract my hand from Joshua by then.)

Isaac asked to go to bed shortly after dinner even though he hadn't really been awake for very long, but Joshua is still awake.  I'll probably try to put him to bed soon.

Wednesday: Epcot/mk

Today started with Ben waking Isaac up... "Wake up Isaac!". " I'm not Isaac, I'm a talking rock, " said the lump under the sheets.

We again started with a character breakfast.  Joshua liked the characters from far away, but if they got close and interrupted his breakfast, he was not happy!  Isaac was excited about Pluto, since we learned his favorite animal is a dog yesterday.

Well, the boat just came to pick us up from the after hours in the magic kingdom, so I guess the rest will wait.  It's now 1:30, but ben and i went on a lot of rides tonight!

Tuesday: animal kingdom

Today we were of to the animal kingdom!

We started with a character breakfast.

Joshua's look shows how he felt about most of them and Isaac was OK but not super excited.  Donald actually made it around twice and since we weren't trying to do so much the second time I think he enjoyed it s bit more.

Then we went one an animal walk.  There was a bird house that we got to go in and Joshua loved it.  He's really enjoyed all the birds, from exotics to sparrows, this trip.

On the walk we also picked up an explorer book for Isaac.  Her could learn about different things and get stickers for doing so.  It was pretty cool and he really got excited about it.

We watched the Nemo show... Well done but a bit loud.  I especially enjoyed the actors who got to be big ocean plants.  I think I would enjoy that part.

Then a quick ride and onto the safari!  Joshua, of course, feel asleep about the minutes before the safari until the minutes after.  I tried to wake him up, but he wouldn't.  Isaac got excited by some of the wildlife and kept asking us to take a picture!

We slowly made our way back to the hotel where the adults napped ( or tried to) and the kids had their screen time.  Then to the pool and dinner and just like that it was way past bedtime!

Made it!

We made it to Disney!  The trip went rather smoothly... It helped that Joshua slept for a good part of it.  After an early dinner at Disney springs we went to the hotel (where the boys enjoyed making pillows mountains until the luggage came).  We followed it up with a swim and some dessert.

My phone app doesn't seem to let me do pictures, so they might have to wait again. :(

Ha.  Take that app.

Saturday: a proud parent

This morning Isaac and I ran the Kids' Fun Run, a 1K.  Last year we came in second-to-last and barely made it.  This year was so different!  I don't think that we ever stopped moving, although we did take a few short walking-water breaks.  But for the most part we were running!

We did tell him that we would go to the playground if there was enough time after the race and before our next thing.  So I think that he ran mostly so that he could go to the playground.

Joshua did his normal belly button push to show me that he pooped and then walked to the bathroom.  I put him on the toilet, mainly trying to just get him used to it.  (BTW, he doesn't like going on the same toilet as Isaac, so that might be annoying for the next year.)  And he went to the bathroom while sitting on the toilet.  Hooray!

Friday: a rough day

Today was one of my more annoying days.  Let's just face it...it happens.

It felt like Isaac was four going on thirteen.  He was rather whiny and wouldn't stop asking for things even after I told him no and to stop asking.

The monitors were out and the boys love playing with them.  (It makes no sense to me either.)  But then Joshua was just getting frustrated by his side when it wouldn't power on.  There was a one minute spell when they both had them on that was kind of cool, but mostly Joshua was just really upset.

I was trying to get some work done and had four places to go today.  That's a bit more than I like, and then one of the places didn't have jean shorts for Ben and had huge lines.  So I went somewhere else, but that meant five stops.

(I went to JCPenny.  I asked a guy working in the men's section if they had any jean shorts.  He didn't seem too sure but then pointed to these.  Yeah.  Can you see Ben in those?  It turned out that there were normal jean shorts about 4 yards away, but I didn't see them until we had paid for other shorts.  So we grabbed them and got back in line.  They didn't fit.  (But the first shorts did, so we're still in business.)  While we were at JCPenny Joshua was just starting to wander off so Isaac grabbed his hand.  It was cute.  Then later, when we were in the line the second time, Joshua didn't want to hold my hand so I gave him the choice of my hand or Isaac's.  He chose Isaac's, who of course wasn't interested by that time.)

By dinner time I was done and told Isaac in no uncertain terms that he could eat off the slightly broken plate or not eat.  Ben proceeded to ask if I needed to eat alone.  I declined the offer, but did pretty much ignore everyone for the hour before bedtime as I tried to finish stuff up.

Isaac did pick a bunch of nice dandelions for me today.  It's rather sad that they wilt within hours as I do find them rather beautiful.  Oh, Isaac also really wanted me to take a picture of his milk with the cap upside down.  He asked yesterday too, so I figure it really was interesting to him.

Thursday: who wore it better?

Isaac or Joshua?  (Joshua is about six months older than Isaac in the pictures.)

I was happy to finally get Joshua smiling.  I asked him to and then got a whole bunch of "cheese"-es.  He seemed to enjoy his swimming lessons, although he kept trying to drink the water instead of blowing bubbles.