It's Official

Brian and I are Grandparents! (Sounds fishy, doesn't it?!?)

I have dreaded having fish since Ann Catherine started asking for one. Even though I had fish as a child, I remember those many fish dying every single time we changed out their water. Simple solution might be to just never change the water but, obviously, it can't work that way. The tank gets too dirty. And there's nothing worse than a greenish-tinged fishtank (unless it's the dead fish that start floating in it soon afterward). So the next solution would maybe be to get a few snails. They like to suck up the yuckiness, apparently. But after finally buying the tank and reading the instructions, I realized that our snail-solution just wasn't going to be enough. Not only that, but these instructions managed to actually scare me worse and made me actually regret agreeing to our new fish-pets. It started talking about testing the PH levels in your tank. And making sure calcium levels were right. And putting conditioner in it to make the acidic levels just right. And good bacteria versus bad bacteria. And using a vacuum to clean up food. And how to figure out if you're over feeding them. It was downright scary.

Even though I had given her a tank for her birthday, I managed to hold her off with lots of excuses from actually BUYING the fish until after Christmas. Oh no, we didn't have time for that because we had to finish her reading project and get ready for the Christmas parade. It's takes days and weeks to just set up the tank! Oh no, we couldn't afford them right now because of Christmas and all the birthdays at this time of year.

But then the inevitable came along. I was out of excuses. So, yeah, I sucked it up and we went fish-shopping. Picking out the fish was easy. She had her heart set on the tiny pink fish I had seen in the store. But when we went to buy them, they were all out of them. So Ann Catherine started looking around and started laughing because the label called this particular set of fish "Mickey Mouse" fish. Sure enough, look closely at the tail and you can see why they have that name. For anyone who knows our Disney obsession, they will completely understand how two of those fish came home with us.

One was named Mickey and the other was named Minnie. And I prayed that I didn't kill them off right away.

Yesterday morning, Ann Catherine went to feed her fish. And, as usual, I'm sure she stalled for time (as she does every morning when she's supposed to be getting ready for school) by staring into the fishtank. But this time, she saw tiny black eyes staring at her from the bottom of the tank. Daddy came running and realized that there was a tiny baby fish staring back at him. He called me and we all had a good laugh. This would explain why Mickey the supposedly-boy fish had been hiding in the decorative barrel for several days. I thought he was dying. No - HE was giving BIRTH to babies. Ummm...I think we may have switched a couple names.

Anyway, as we talked and laughed about this interesting development, Ann Catherine started yelling again. There was now a SECOND set of eyes at the bottom of the tank.

Now I had a problem. I'm already worried about killing two adult fish. But now we have two more to worry about. And the only thing I know about baby fish is that you're supposed to keep the adult fish away from them. Nearly impossible to do now that they were already in the tank since we had no idea that fat little Mickey was actually a Minnie! So I asked Brian to explain to Ann Catherine that baby fish are hard to keep alive. And they usually die. And yes, we even explained that adult fish sometimes eat baby fish. She didn't bat an eye. Her class just raised a set of crayfish and we all know that the two mean crayfish ate all of the other ones. So she accepted this news just fine and we all went about our day fully expecting to no longer see those little tiny eyes in the bottom of the tank when we got home.

Ann Catherine and I were the first to get home last night. We put our stuff down and right away went to look to see if those two little sets of eyes were still in there. We prepared for the worse...and had a little surprise.

Right away, Ann Catherine found a tiny fish swimming around the back of the tank. OK. So one made it. Then she saw the other one hiding in the orange plant. OK - so they both made it a full day.

So here's where the problem started. I had a hard time seeing this second tiny orange fish in the middle of a giant orange plant. So she pointed and I finally saw the two little black eyes. Then we realized we had a small problem. She was pointing in a place other than where I was looking. Uh oh. There were now THREE baby fish!!

And then something caught my eye at the base of the plant. Ummmm.....yeah, four. So we laughed and giggled about the fact that we now have four baby fish. And Ann Catherine decided to show me where Mickey, the supposedly-boy fish, had been laying the eggs in the decorative barrel in the tank.

And then I saw it in the darkness of the barrel. FOUR MORE EYES!!!!!! There were two more baby fish hiding in the barrel.

Ann Catherine is now obsessed with getting a bigger tank. I'm personally sweating because I have no idea how to keep baby fish alive. Brian's declaring we're giving them all away and neutering Mickey and Minnie to prevent future babies.

And 12 little tiny black eyes are just staring at the humans going crazy.

New Addition to the Family!!!!!!!!

Now before you all get way to excited, let me explain. Ann Catherine is now the proud owner of two fish. She asked for and got a fish tank for her birthday. We finally got her two fish this past weekend. After lots of looking at the different types of fish, she decided on a Golden Mickey Mouse Platy and a Red Mickey Mouse Platy. They are named, you guessed it, Mickey and Minnie. Mickey is Gold and Minnie is red.

Can you guess why they are called Mickey Mouse Platy.

Do you see it now!!!!!!

Before and After

This was my baby boy on Christmas Day.

And this would be the reason he has that nice splint and wrap on his arm.

That is a view of his arm from the side with his arm and hand flat on the xray table. Can you tell why we immediately knew we needed to head to the ER? Bones are not supposed to look like that. In fact, arms are not supposed to look like that!

Well, this is my little boy this morning.

Ignore the fact that he's wearing the same PJs. We're pretty limited in his wardrobe right now. Basically, he's down to two pairs of PJs - one long sleeve that is stretchy enough and one short-sleeve that can fit over his cast on nights when it's not -7 outside. And as for his shirts, well, we're down to three or four shirts with sleeves that either stretch really well or are shirts that are ugly and we don't care about stretching the life out of them. Yeah, my son is wearing ugly clothes right now. But we love him. And his cast is pretty.

Don't you think his cast is pretty? Or would a boy's cast be considered handsome? Regardless, from day one as we were trying to get his mind off the pain in the ER, we have been asking him what color cast he wanted. And from that awful day in the ER all the way to Tuesday morning when they put the cast cover over the splint (not a full cast), he has been announcing that it'd be green. So green it was. And he's a pretty handsome little boy with it on.

Even better, the xray technician who took the xray on Tuesday morning looked at his xray and almost didn't believe us when we said he had broken both bones. In fact, she almost didn't believe that he had a broken arm. If it weren't for the fact that the ER had put a splint on, I'm sure the lady would have called us crazy and sent us home. She called Brian over to get him to show her where it had been broken. He looked at it, squinted at it, and called me over. We looked again and honestly couldn't do more than guess. There's no sign of the break at all! In fact, his arm is lined up perfectly. She was very impressed with the work the ER Dr. had done. We were pretty impressed with the fact that he hadn't rebroken it by falling four or five times throughout our house last week!

Luckily, the orthopaedic Dr. managed to figure out where the break was. She's a pretty smart cookie and pointed it right away. We had to squint to figure out where she was pointing at. But the good news is that she said it was healing beautifully and that we'd have to come back next Tuesday and the Tuesday after that but, after that, we may get to get it off! Only five weeks with it on! I can handle that!

Now if we can just get him to stop jumping from the couch onto the coffee table and back again, we'd be much happier parents.

Saying Goodbye to 2009

I've now written this blog post four times and have deleted each attempt. They were all too depressing and I'm been waiting for inspiration to descend.

The truth is that 2009 has been a hard year. I should be counting my blessings: the fact that my family is healthy, we have a home, we have food on the table, we can afford to go out to restaurants and shop occasionally, the fact that we've started to get our lives in order financially for the first time since we married, the fact that we have jobs to go to every day.

But I've been wallowing. I've been frustrated over how hard it has been to be a working mom this year and lonely because of the fact that I'm the only working mom I know. I've been stressed over the chaos of Will's health illness that lasted for three months and culminated to a nice ending with his broken arm on Christmas Eve. I've been stressed over the possibility of losing a job in an economic climate where retailers are struggling and just hoping and praying to make it another day. It's been hard to watch my bosses pace, to see them whisper, to see the worry lines on their faces, to hear them breath a sigh of relief with a small chuckle when they manage to make another payroll. As a couple, Brian and I have had to deal with job losses on several fronts: our own job loss at a job we worked together on the weekends, the loss of his parents' jobs and home, and a friends' job loss as well. These losses have been hard to watch and scary to deal with. And the fact is that my calendar and to-do list has exploded. The older Ann Catherine gets, the more she has to do. The more she has to do means my own to-do list grows. She's very active in Girl Scouts and her homework is growing at school. I want to be an involved parent, so all of those activities means more for me to do. Plus, with all of Will's health concerns, we've had an enormous amount of doctors visits, specialists appointments and the worry and concern that goes with it. To top it all off, the stress and anxiety has gotten to me so badly this winter that I've started having my own personal health problems with my heart and my breathing. My doctor has had to put me on medicine and then up my medicine at least once and, while upping it worked for a few days, my heart problem started back up again on Christmas Eve after we spent the day in the ER with Will. I have a feeling she'll be upping my medicine again in January. So, yes, I think I'll be happy to leave 2009 behind.

Of course, this year had some wonderful moments. Can you say Disney Trip? I have discovered a newfound obsession with all things Disney and had a wonderful time feeding that obsession this year. And getting to go for four days in October was just icing on the cake. Added to that, we have had a wonderful time growing into our new church, making new friends there, and learning how to worship in a totally new way. And on top of it all was the blessing of our newborn niece who, I can honestly say is one of the most beautiful, sweet and precious little girls I have ever seen before in my life. She ranks right up there with my own daughter. I may just have to steal her one day!

I could sit here and tell you all about December and how our Christmas went but, the truth is it was bad...really bad. All the things that I normally do to help create the Christmas magic for myself and my family never did happen. We never got to go to the Christmas programs we normally go to, we didn't get to go to the Christmas Concert I had been looking forward to attending since last Spring, and we never got to go to the Christmas Eve service I always look forward to and use to get my heart into the true Christmas Spirit the night before the big day. We discovered that Christmas is more fun with the crowded chaos with family on Christmas Day. Plus, we had to watch our son struggle to open his gifts and walk down the hall to his bedroom with his head hanging on his chest as he struggled not to cry because he couldn't play with his new toys on Christmas Day. Yeah, I think this is one Christmas I'd prefer to forget.

So I'll end this on a more positive note. I'm looking forward to 2010. I'm excited about our trip to Disney in May and will have a ball making plans and dreaming lots of dreams for what we're going to do during those eight days. I'm looking forward to getting to know the women in my Sunday School class even more and finding opportunities to maybe grow some real friendships with them over this year. I'm looking forward to continuing to work on our debt-free plan and see some of the debts actually disappear this year. And, silly as it seems for me to be excited about this so early in the year, I'm even excited about Christmas this year. I'm determined that this year will be better and will be full of some wonderful memories because this year we'll make sure we're surrounded by lots of family and crazy fun Christmas chaos.

My New Years resolution for 2010 is simply this: to do the things I can and to say no to the things I can't. I will do my best to keep up with the chores and tasks, but give myself permission to not stress over the things I can't. I will give myself permission to take days off and do nothing more than play with my kids and take some time to myself, all while ignoring the state of my house and the things on my to-do list.

And last, I'll continue to pump my children full of vitamins and milk. Healthy bodies and strong bones are a necessity for this year!

P.S. I apologize!!! How in the world could I forget the addition of my newest brother-in-law in my list of wonderful things for 2009?!? He's my husband's long-lost twin brother!

A Late Halloween Post

Well, I didn't mean to leave everyone in suspense. Luckily, you all know me well enough to guess that I'd let you hang for a little while! :-)

First off is Halloween. Brian and I aren't crazy about this "holiday." Given my (diminishing) fear of people in costumes, and the fact that Brian's family just never really "did" Halloween, it's typically been the holiday where we would go out to dinner or just sit in a darkened house and enjoy a nice dinner and movie. When Ann Catherine came along, we wanted to enjoy seeing her in a costume but still really didn't want to do the whole trick-or-treating thing, so we started taking her to the Fall Festivals at church. Luckily (or unluckily depending upon how you look at it), the child's own fears really made her prefer to stay at home with her party-pooper parents.

This year was different. Ann Catherine's best friend from school just happens to LOVE trick-or-treating (despite her own shyness) and the two girls hatched up a plan for the two of them to trick-or-treat together. I talked to her friend's mom at the school's Fall Festival one night and we decided we'd go ahead and take the girls together. Now, if my shy little girl and her shy little friend happily and giddily announce that they want to go door-to-door and actually say "Trick or Treat" to a stranger, then I'm all for it. I've been looking for opportunities to allow my fearful one to shake loose a few fears. If it meant standing out in the cold surrounded by hundreds of costumed parents and children, then so be it. And since my little boy is not fearful of anything at all, we figured we'd bring him right along.

The kids had a ball. Actually, Ann Catherine had a ball. Will liked it the first couple houses. Then, when a very creepy looking costumed man walked out to hand the kids some candy, he quickly backed away. My typically anxious little girl decided to play protector and asked for some candy for him. They proceeded to do this for the next half hour or so every time Will found a house he wasn't too sure of. With a smile, a chuckle and a shaking of my head, I enjoyed quite a bit of time observing my little ones swapping roles as Will became the anxious one and Ann Catherine suddenly became so brave for him.

As the night wore on and it started to get colder out, Will's little feet started dragging. Soon, the big kids were a house ahead of him. At this one house, he slowly walked up the very steep steps to the front porch. His little feet were dragging and suddenly he tripped on one of the steps. The lady who owned the house was watching him and waiting to see if he'd make it but, once he fell, she decided she'd save him the rest of the trip and came down the stairs to give him some candy. After wiping away his tears, we knew it was time for Daddy to take him home.

Ann Catherine and her friends still had plenty of energy to spare so we continued up and down the street until we finally made it to our own street. Now here's where it got funny. Ann Catherine's friends were starting to drag and their mom said it was time to go home. Ann Catherine was so upset - she wanted to keep going! As she sadly watched her friends walk away, she looked at me and asked if she could continue on. "Sure," I said, "but I'm NOT going to walk with you up to the house and you're going to have to say 'trick or treat' on your own."

"OK!" she quickly agreed.

Ummmm...is this my daughter I'm talking to?!?! Since when does this child who hyperventilates in a 3D movie, or looks terror stricken any time it starts to rain, or has to be bribed to get her to say hello to strangers (and sometimes even friends) at church, have the bravery needed in order to trick or treat ON HER OWN?!

She did it though! She bravely walked up to doors and knocked and loudly said, "Trick or Treat," dug through their candy bowls and clearly said, "Thank you" at each house. Of course, it all ended when she came upon a bowl that someone had left on their front porch for trick or treaters that just happened to be a bowl with a motion-sensored hand in it that would grab your hand as you went to get the candy. I tried to warn her. She didn't listen. She cried for most of the way home. Of course, her 10 pound bag of candy helped wipe away the tears as soon as we got back home.

Oh, and yes, she's declared that she's doing this EVERY YEAR!

So, for the second half of my story...

Drum roll please. Anyone want to guess after reading my trip report to Disney as to whether or not we're going back to Disney again next summer?

No cheating by asking Rachel. I couldn't keep the news in while she was at our house.

Ok, the answer is...maybe.

When we got back home, we were still not sure if we wanted to brave the trip with Will again. We WANTED to go, but we were so afraid he'd pull the same temper tantrums again. I don't like paying a huge amount of money only to be miserable half of the time. But when we got back home, I had another little surprise waiting for me in my inbox in my email. You guessed it - it was another pin code that gives us a discount on another trip.

Now here's where it gets a little funny. The pin codes only covered trips until the end of May. And we were looking at doing a trip in June. Just because I was curious, I looked to see when Ann Catherine's last day of school is. Friday, May 21. So, for the fun of it and because I'm daring and brave (no, not really - just too curious for my own good), I forwarded my pin code email to my travel agent. Uh oh. Remember how this got us in trouble last time? Oh yeah, she came back with a good offer; much lower than we originally expected. I told her we'd think about it, knowing we had five days to make our decision before a discount would be needed to hold our reservation.

I went back to my favorite Disney website just for the fun of it but noticed a couple posts from a couple people mentioning the same pin code email. And then I saw one where someone talked about how, with the pin code, cheap it was to upgrade from the value resort (the motel-ish type hotel we stayed in last month) to a moderate resort (the medium one which is more like a nicer hotel we'd typically stay in, but still one step away from the deluxes...which obviously we'll never be able to afford!). Just for the fun of it (yeah, right...again, too curious), I emailed my travel agent and asked her how much it'd cost to upgrade to a moderate resort. Ummmm, yeah. It was only $200 more.

Here's where I had to start thinking quickly. In the value resort, you have to PAY to rent a refrigerator. In our household, given my son's frequent desire to wake up in the middle of the night needing his sippy cup of milk, a refrigerator is a necessity. So we knew that, by staying 7 nights at a value hotel, we'd end up paying $70 just to rent the refrigerator for a week ($10 a night). But at a moderate resort, you get the refrigerator for free. You even get a coffee pot (which you don't get at the values, but would be a huge plus for Brian and I to cut down on our grumpiness!!). Yeah, that totally justifies spending the extra $200 to upgrade to a moderate resort with a bigger pool, less people and a less crowded bus!

Sooooo...want to guess what we did?

Yeah, we booked it. Granted, it's still booked with a question mark hanging over it. We've only put down the minimal deposit (which is very minimal and fully refundable up until sometime in April). But we're going to watch Will and see how he changes and matures in the next six months and, of course, we're going to majorly work on the attitude and practicing with our time-out skills. Six months from now, we're hoping to walk into our lovely room with queen sized beds at the Coronado Springs Resort. If something happens (ahem, Will), then we may just be driving down the beach instead.

Day Four: Our Final Day

Where in the world has the time gone? Seriously, I can't believe it's taken me so long to complete our little journey on here. I really do apologize for leaving all of you in suspense. In my defense, though, the two weeks have been crazy! With a capital "C"! I was supposed to finish this up before our appointment at the hospital with the specialist for Will. However, my worry and concern definitely got the best of me in the day or two before the appointment. After that, we were in a flurry of activity hunting down Halloween costumes, helping prepare for and run a small game booth at the schoolwide Fall Festival at Ann Catherine's school, and preparing and purchasing all the goodies the kids were responsible for for their Fall Parties. Between Girl Scouts, Ann Catherine's class at school, her Aftercare program at school (the people who watch her until I can pick her up after work), and Will's daycare, we had four different parties to get ready for and, for each, I had at least one thing to send in. I think we spent $50 just buying everything needed for the parties, making sure to send in enough for 12 kids, and 25 kids and 15 kids (depending on who it was for!). Then, to top it all off, we actually took the kids trick-or-treating for the first time on Saturday (to be blogged about hopefully tomorrow). I think we've finally settled down for at least a week or so. Of course, coming up I still have to prepare for AC's birthday parties, buy presents, prepare for another bridal shower (not complaining, just saying), along with the parties that will happen at all of these same places for Thanksgiving!

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Back to Disney! Even though this was our last day at Disney, this was a day we were really looking forward to. The weather was beautiful (as opposed to the freezing cold days we had for our first two days where we had to wear jeans and jackets!), and it was the day we were going to spend our time slowing down and relaxing. The one big event we had for the day was breakfast with Donald.

There is a wonderful restaurant at the Animal Kingdom called the Tusker House. While lunch and dinner aren't character meals, they do have Donald and friends (Mickey, Daisy and Goofy) on hand for breakfast. And let me tell you, this breakfast was our favorite meal for our whole trip. So much food, so much variety...and, of course, Will would only eat a plate full of sausages. I'm sighing as I say that.

Anyway, our breakfast at the Tusker House was early enough that, once we got finished eating, it was just in time for the park to officially open. Since we were already in the park, there is a special place near the restaurant where we could stand and wait for the official rope drop rather than having to return to the park entrance. Lucky for us, it was right next to the Kilimanjaro Safari ride so we were literally the third people in line for this ride. We had heard that the animals are always a little more active in the morning and evening because it's not so hot. While we enjoyed having absolutely no wait for the ride, we were a little disappointed because we really didn't see very many animals. Plus, this seemed to be the one ride Ann Catherine was still a little afraid of so she wasn't too happy that we forced her to go. Our rule for the trip was that we wouldn't go on any ride the kids didn't want to go on and, for the most part, we stuck to that. However, I'm a HUGE animal/zoo fan and really wanted to see the animals on this ride again. Plus, how often can we say we got to be the third in line for it?! So, we confess: we forced her to ride.

Afterwards, we lazily walked through some of the animal areas, saw the Lion King show and then saw a few characters the kids wanted to see, we then over to the Dinosaur area. By this time, Will needed a playground break so, while he played in the little playground over there, Ann Catherine and I rode the ONE roller coaster that child loves: the Primeval Whirl. Since Will is still too short to ride it and it made Brian a little sick the last time he rode it last summer, I offered to take her over there. Yeah, I'm not passing up a chance to ride on a roller coaster - even if it is designed for kids! The two of us girls had so much fun laughing and she didn't even blink an eye when they put someone in the car with us. Given her many fears, it amazed me how brave she was on this roller coaster. It's designed for kids but it has it's own fair share of good-sized drops! And she LOVES them! I think this little girl is MUCH braver than she gives herself credit for. And the minute she decides she's old enough and brave enough for REAL roller coasters, we will SO be making the drive north to Sandusky!

After spending some time in the Dinosaur area, we grabbed some lunch at the one and only BBQ joint in all of Disney. I was craving their ribs after hearing rave reviews about them on the disboards. Oh my, they weren't quite perfectly Tennessean but they were very good!

The funny thing is that, even though the day was only halfway over, we looked at our map and realized that there really wasn't anything left that we REALLY wanted to do other than to go look at the one animal area we missed last year with the tigers. Other than that, we were all excited to go back to the resort and do the one thing we had purposefully left for this day: swimming in the pools at the resort.

After viewing the tigers, we headed back to the resort, grabbed our swimsuits and headed to the pools. We had such a nice, relaxed time in those pools and just enjoyed the little sunshine that was left for the day. All too soon, the winds picked up, the sun hid behind the clouds once again, and my son's lips turned blue as his teeth chattered (but with a smile still plastered on his face!). Yep, it was time to go inside!

But the nice thing about the time remaining was that we felt no pressure to go do anything. We spent a leisurely afternoon changing back into our clothes, taking a leisurely stroll along the lake next to the resort, and headed to the food court in our room and enjoyed a nice dinner, and then headed to the gift shop next to the food court. The kids had been begging to shop in there and we had purposefully left all of the major shopping to this evening. We spent a wonderful and very leisurely hour or two in that shop before returning back to our room and just enjoying the evening together. Let's just not talk about how much money we spent in there!!

The funny thing about this whole stay was that, despite how wonderful it was, once we were back on the road the next morning (for a full 12 hour trip home!), we weren't quite sure about our trip for next summer. This trip we had purposefully tried to relax and not worry about seeing it all because we knew we were going back next summer. But given Will's temper tantrums, we weren't quite sure if we were brave enough for the trip! Hearing him say, on a daily basis, "I wanna go back home" was a little unnerving (and tiring). Plus, we realized how blessed we've been over the past 10 years to have additional sets of hands to help us when the kids are driving us nuts because we've always vacationed with my family. So, on our trip home, Brian and I instead spent the time making up a list for the trip we DID decide on: our 15-year wedding anniversary. We are going to go back, just the two of us, and hit every ADULT ride we can find. We will ride every roller coaster and we will enjoy every meal that has NO characters! We will NOT ride Dumbo and we will NOT stand in line to meet any characters. And it will be heavenly.

So coming up tomorrow (just to give you one more day of suspense), I'm going to fill you in on our Halloween trick-or-treating experience (with pictures to enjoy) and, as an added bonus, let you know what our FINAL decision was on next summer.

Day Three and It's a Small World

Whew! I feel so much better! Thank you so much for letting me take a headache break! :-)

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Monday was supposed to be our long day. This time we were headed to Magic Kingdom, and I really wanted to do rope drop, plus we wanted to take advantage of the Extra Magic Hours at the park. Even though the park technically closed at 10:00 pm, Disney Resort Guests (those staying on property at a Disney hotel) were able to stay in the park until 1:00 am. I'm not brave enough to try to keep these kids up until 1:00 am - especially considering how Will had been acting. But we thought that we'd ride a couple rides after the fireworks, which would give time for the crowds to thin out a little bit before we attempted to board a bus back to the hotel. However, given the fact that we had stayed up later than originally planned to watch the Fantasmic show the night before, Brian and I both thought it'd be wise to skip rope drop and instead get a little more sleep.

So after a leisurely breakfast, we started to get our stuff together for our daylong trip to the Magic Kingdom. But just before leaving, I spotted the stroller laying on the floor next to the door and started thinking. One of the main triggers for Will's meltdowns the previous two days had involved the stroller. Really, he wanted to be PUSHING the stroller - not riding in it. However, his pushing tends to give Brian and I both heart attacks as we do everything we can to help him steer AWAY from people - rather than letting him plow into the backs of their legs. It made me start to wonder what it would be like without the stroller. I quietly asked Brian what he thought and, after talking it through, we decided to take a chance and try the day without the stroller. Honestly, that was absolutely the best decision we had made. Other than the struggle to get a sleeping Will to the bus when we were ready to leave for the night, that stroller was never missed. Will never complained about walking all day and, honestly, I think it helped him to get rid of his excessive energy after waiting in lines for rides.

Right away, once we reached the park, we headed straight for the "mandatory" rides, according to my kids - Dumbo and the Mad Tea Party teacups. Luckily, even though the park was crowded, we never saw lines longer than 20 minutes for any ride we wanted to ride on (of course, none of those were the megarides, which still held 90 minute waits). The one benefit to taking a Disney trip in October!

After our two favorite rides, we spotted the Speedway. Now, we hadn't tried this ride in the past because we knew Will was too short. But this year, we knew he would be fine so we decided to give it a try. Both kids became first-time drivers! And let me tell you, those rides were the scariest car rides of our lives. After several corners turned where we were convinced our children would figure out how to actually jump the track, we decided we'd wait until the kids were the legal age limit before attempting to put them behind the wheel again!

From there we did the obligatory "It's a Small World" ride before deciding to head for lunch. Now, Brian and I have our favorite lunch spot in Magic Kingdom: Pecos Bill. They make an awesome hamburger and have a toppings bar filled with some wonderful stuff (can you say sauteed mushrooms? My favorite!). But both kids declared they wanted hot dogs and not hamburgers. Since this was Will's favorite time of day for a meltdown and I could almost see that look in his eye, we decided it wasn't worth the argument. So instead we headed to the best hot dog place in all of Disney - Casey's Corner.

I used to think that Casey's Corner only had outside tables to eat at. Brian was the only one who had ever been in there since he'd always brought our food outside to us where we'd grab a table. But this time, Brian said he'd found a table inside that would help us escape the sun. What we discovered is that Casey's Corner also has a topping bar for their hot dogs (with sauerkraut - my hot dog favorite!!) and also had a TV where you could watch old cartoons. What a perfect way for Will to just sit, eat, and veg for a little while.

From there, we headed to ride on Aladdin's Carpet (a 15-minute wait - YIPPEE!!), stopping only to take a picture with Lilo and Stitch. Of course, Stitch was being a little ornery and wouldn't give the marker back to Brian after signing the autograph books. Lilo eventually had to trick him before she could steal it from him. It was pretty funny watching my grown husband get embarrassed because he couldn't figure out how to get a pen away from a character!

At this point in time, I could tell that Will needed to head to a place where he could just run around and blow off some energy. So we headed for a nearby area of the park we'd never visited before but I thought I'd read had included a play area for kids: Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse. I'm not sure if any of you have ever been here but...ummm...it's not a playground. It's a replica of the treehouse that the Swiss Family Robinsons lived in for the movie. Basically it's a huge amount of steps and twists and turns where you basically stay along this path and climb a tree to the top. Which was a lot of fun for me since I loved that movie as a kid. And Will enjoyed climbing all the steps. Ann Catherine enjoyed it as well for one reason: her daddy's reaction. Unfortunately, I forgot to consider that Brian has a fear of heights. A really BAD fear of heights. By the top of the tree, my poor hubby was trying hard not to hyperventilate. There was really no way to get off the tree without continuing on the path to the top and then back down. All of us had a good case of the giggles before we got to the bottom of that tree because of my poor hubby's reaction.

Since this attempt at a playground had successfully failed, Will was now DETERMINED to get to a playground. Ann Catherine, on the other hand, wanted nothing to do with a playground - especially when she heard it was time for the parade. So, despite my love of Disney parades, I volunteered to take Will to an area I KNEW had a playground for younger children while Brian and Ann Catherine watched the parade. Will and I headed to Pooh's Playful Spot where he had the opportunity to run, play in a toddler version of a treehouse, slide on a slide, climb into hollowed out trees, and play with the water fountains shooting from the ground.

After the parade was finished, it was time to head out for our dinner reservations at the Grand Floridian Hotel. We wanted to take Ann Catherine to eat with Cinderella at the Castle but those reservations tend to go quickly. So Angela, my Travel Agent, suggested that we try 1900 Park Fare where you dine with Cinderella, Prince Charming, Cindy's stepmother, and her two stepsisters - Anastasia and Drusella. We had heard really good things about the interaction with the stepsisters so we thought we'd give it a try.

If you've never been there, the Grand Floridian Hotel is the EXCLUSIVE hotel on Disney property. There are restaurants there where children aren't even allowed to eat. Their restaurants have dress codes! There are crystal chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, a small band that plays on the second floor for guests' entertainment, and exclusive elevators just for Hotel Guests (which we found out the hard way). Yeah, we TOTALLY felt out of our element. We also made it there about 45 minutes too early so we knew we had to kill some time somehow. Luckily, we found a small little table and chairs with a small little TV with cartoons playing for children to enjoy while their parents are checking in at the hotel. The kids had fun watching the TV while Brian and I explored to find the Hidden Mickey's in the floor. Actually, they had Hidden Mickey, hidden Tinkerbell, hidden Goofy, Donald, Minnie, and my absolute favorite. Can you tell who it is?

Once we made it inside to the restaurant, we found a wonderful dinner buffet where they even had a stir-fry beef I decided to try and promptly realized it tasted like bulgogi. I could have eaten my entire dinner off that beef!

We discovered that there is an enormous difference between character dining with the costumed characters and dining with the maskless characters. Even though Cinderella and friends had to remain in character, the really cool thing about being there is that they can actually TALK and interact with your children. They don't just sign your book, take a picture and move on to the next table. The coolest thing about it? I had a talkative son on my hands that night and I think both Cinderella and Prince Charming would have stayed there all night listening to him if we had allowed him to continue talking before helping them get a chance to go on to the next table. Will even stopped Prince Charming on our way out to show him that he was on the placemat Will had received. And Prince Charming knelt down and ooh'd and aah'd over that placemat like he had never seen it before.

The weirdest thing for me was my reaction to Cinderella. Now, I've been to Disney four times now and I've seen Cinderella numerous times. But I had never talked to her. And I'd never been in a place where she could stand and talk to my kids and take pictures with us. And what you need to realize is that, as a child, Cinderella was always my favorite princess. I loved the movie and always fantasized that I could someday wear her beautiful blue dress and would find my own Prince Charming and Castle someday. She was always my favorite Disney character. So when Brian suggested that I get my picture made with her (payback for the numerous times I've teased him and made him take his picture with Mickey), I suddenly was startled at my reaction to standing next to her and smiling for the camera. I actually started to tear up! I actually felt a little emotional at that moment. And I'm not an emotional person! It was the weirdest thing in the world! Made me rethink all of my teasing Brian for his tears over Mickey.

After dinner, we headed back to the park and had just enough time to find our place on the sidewalk in front of Casey's Corner - the best place in all of Magic Kingdom to watch the parade and fireworks. Even though Will was fidgety and we had to take two potty breaks while waiting, it was so worth it. The kids LOVED the parade. And Ann Catherine loved the fireworks. I think Will would have enjoyed it too if he had managed to stay awake for them! He fell asleep on Brian's shoulder after the parade was done and while we were waiting for the fireworks to start.

Given the mass exodus out the door, we knew we still needed to stick to our plan to ride a few rides while people left the park. So Brian held a sleeping Will while I rode the Tea Cups and Dumbo with Ann Catherine one more time. We barely had a wait at either place and it was wonderful riding those rides at night with everything lit up so beautifully.

Coming up tomorrow: Animal Kingdom. A shortened day, a shivering Will with blue lips and WAY too much money spent!