Here are some things you ought to know about Josh. First of all, he’s great! Second of all, he loves trips to warm weather and Disney. So, to escape January in Utah, we took a trip to Florida to enjoy warmer weather with David’s family and hit up some Disney while we were there! It was seriously a dream!
The kids did really well on all four flights of this trip! We are very grateful!
David and Megan completely spoiled us on this trip! They gave us our own apartment to stay in, let us borrow their car, and fed us most of our meals! Seriously, though, thanks to Megan, this was one of the most relaxing vacations I have ever taken with kids, because I didn’t have to worry about anything!
We arrived Saturday night and the kids and cousins just played and played outside in the delightful weather! We had dinner together and then watched a movie in the theater in the apartment. The next day, we all went to church where we got to see Harry sing in the choir while Megan accompanied the music. Multiple people told us about how great David and Megan’s family is; but we already knew. 🙂 That afternoon, Megan read Dory Fantasmagory to all of us, and it was so much fun! If you ever get the chance, you should ask Megan to do her Mrs. Gobble Gracker voice for you!
Monday was Martin Luther King Jr. Day, so there was no school. This was such a fun day! The first thing we did that morning was go to a u-pick garden with strawberries and citrus trees!
Picking oranges! 
Josh and our stroller of destiny! We fit four kids on this thing several times during all our adventures.
After fruit-picking, the kids played and explored outside for HOURS! David and Megan’s house is really more of a fairy tale experience than just a regular house. They have all the fun backyard toys, of course (like two trampolines). But they also have a jungle that circles their whole property! There are standing and fallen trees to play on, cool trails through the foliage, and a creek at the back! David just recently cut a fallen oak tree into a bridge to go over the creek, and we got to watch him place his craw fish trap. The kids just went back and forth between excursions through the woods and jumping on the tramp. Oh, there is also a tree-house that David recently put in, AND train tracks right by their yard. The train comes only occasionally and drives very slowly. But we got to see it! The kids ran up the drive-way to where the tracks cross the road (about a 45 second walk from the front door) and the conductor waved to them as the train passed. Calvin informed us that the train had 6 box cars on it. Does that not sound like the kind of place that kids visit in books and then something turns out to be magic or enchanted or something?!
These pictures are somewhat misleading, because there aren’t any cousins in them. They all played together all day long! 
That night, after hide and seek in the park by the lake, we had a fire and hotdogs. Plus Megan made DELICIOUS strawberry shortcake from the strawberries we had picked that morning (or at least what remained of them 😉 )
Tuesday, the older boys had school. But we went with Megan, Titus, and Naomi to the Orlando Science Museum. It was a ton of fun! We stayed for about 3 hours and still didn’t see all of it!
After the museum, we said goodbye to Megan, Titus, and Naomi who went home to see David off on a trip and pick the boys up from the school bus. Then we went to a place called The Crayola Experience! Everybody got to customize a crayon wrapper (I named mine Fantasmaglorious), melt a crayon into a cool shape, sculpt with clay, decorate a cat, color to their heart’s content, and learn all about how crayons are made. Plus there were two playgrounds, one of which you could color all over.
Portia with part of the outside display 
Helen modeling with clay 
Fay and clay
Wednesday was our first Disney day. We went to the Magic Kingdom, which is basically just like Disneyland. Some things I thought were improvements on Disneyland include: It felt like there was a lot more space; and there were live shows on a big stage periodically throughout the day, all of which were fantastic! Another highlight for the kids was riding the monorail into the park! Carter was very proud of the fact that the monorail was featured in his book about trains.
Meeting Mickey in our Disney garb! 
Another cool thing from The Magic Kingdom you don’t find at Disneyland is you can reserve a meal at a sit-down restaurant! It was excitingly expensive; but a fun experience! 
I always love the Tea-cups!
We just went and went all day long! When we decided it was probably time to head home, we got a very surprising response from the kids. The conversation went something like this:
Me: “Hey kids, we’re going to go on this one last ride, and then we’re going to head back to the house.”
Carter: “That’s good. I want to go back.”
Fay: “Yay! Back to David and Megan’s house!”
They loved Disney World. But nothing is quite like the fairy tale house!
Thursday, we had another Disney day, but this time at Animal Kingdom. I really wasn’t sure what to expect; but if anyone cares to know my analysis, I would say that Animal Kingdom is basically a zoo with a little bit of Disney theme-ing and logistics mixed in. Fay said it was her favorite of the two parks because she LOVES animals. We did get to see a lot of really cool animals! We went on a safari ride on which we saw giraffes, multiple deer/zebra type animals whose names I can’t recall, lions, cheetahs (I think a first for me), a hippopotamus that was very active (a first in the history of zoos), wildebeests, hyenas, crocodiles, and a wart hog! It was really fun to get to see them all. We saw a bunch of other animals not on the safari. One of my favorites was the gorillas. One of the grossest things we saw was a giant frog that weighed over 2 lbs!
On the safari ride 
Another thing the kids really enjoyed was The Bone Yard, which was a giant play area in the dinosaur part of Animal Kingdom. Carter did some exploring–while we frantically looked for him :)–and found a giant sandbox! All four kids were happily entertained there for probably half an hour.
Also, here is a picture of us at the Tree of Life. It is GIGANTIC!
Part way through the day we got hit by a rainstorm. It lasted about 2.5 hours; so we took the opportunity to enjoy a rather extended lunch. Inside.
Another reason our lunch was so extended is that Helen slept until everybody else had eaten, then woke up starving. As she was eating, Portia sacked out. We really ran them hard on this trip!
After the sun had set, we watched a really cool water, light show on the lake in the park.
Waiting for the show to start
On Friday, January 24–my half birthday, we got breakfast at I hop in Sanford (where David and Megan live) in lieu of the character breakfast we had originally planned. After the excitingly expensive dinner on Wednesday we looked a little closer at the price of the breakfast we had reserved and found its price to be even MORE exciting. The kids were slightly bummed about missing the breakfast with Minnie; but they seemed very pleased with their chocolate and cupcake pancakes. Carter got a mad-lib on his kids menu, and I took a picture.
After breakfast, we headed back to Orlando to Disney Springs. We looked around the stores there and had lots of fun. One highlight for the kids was the Lego store. We didn’t even have to go inside the store, actually. They had all kinds of Legos set up on special tables outside for kids to play with. They also had a small table of Duplos which Helen thoroughly enjoyed.
Fay’s creation 
Carter’s creation 
I put these Yoda ears on Portia mostly for Kathryn.
The last thing we did at Disney Springs was try out a crazy cool, fancy cake shake at Planet Hollywood. We also got a regular shake. They were both really yummy and a perfect treat for my half birthday!
Helen fell asleep again. She and we are excited for her nap schedule to return this week.
After that, we came back to David and Megan’s house and the kids swam in the pool. They had been dreaming of doing it since the moment we arrived, but it was quite chilly the whole week, so we hadn’t done it. It was still chilly that evening, but we just had to let them do it anyway! They loved every frigid minute in the pool, but weren’t too disappointed when we told them it was time to get out and get dressed. That night, we had pizza for dinner and did karaoke. It was a lot of fun, especially with 9 kids who all wanted to sing most of the songs!
We slept well in the apartment again, and then David took us to the airport early the next morning. We arrived safely and uneventfully back in SLC Saturday afternoon where we were greeted by Lacey (THANK YOU for the rides to and from the airport)!
It was such a fun and memorable trip! We are so grateful for David and Megan for everything they did to make it so wonderful!
Also, I just have to add one thing. We got to go to Aldi while we were there!! Just being in that store makes me want (even more) to move back to the East!
