DISNEYWORLD!!!!!

This year's Disney trip was SO much fun!. I've always loved Disney and Chris and I have both been many times since we were kids. But I think that of all the trips that we have taken with family, friends, to Night of Joy, on date nights once we were married, when Chris was working there, no trip has been as much fun as this one with Cadence. Kids make everything WAY better!!  She is at such a fun age and adores the Disney princesses so to see it all come to life - thru her eyes -  was amazing. We started at Epcot where we went to the Seas to ride the Nemo ride. 

This was her reaction to the outside of the Nemo exhibit. 

She didn't really like the ride part of Nemo so after we finished looking at all the fish we decided to head to Magic Kingdom to see the Very Merry Christmas parade. 

So, after a monorail ride and a boat ride..............

WE MADE IT!!!

Eating lunch waiting on the parade (chicken strips and sushi)



We had perfect seats for the parade and she was it coming from right in front of Cinderella's castle. Shae immediately started waving and yelling at everyone. :)






I think she could have peed her pants when the princesses came by. She was SO excited. 

When she saw that Santa was coming she threw her arms open like this. We loved it!



Playing with Daddy waiting for Belle's storytime to start. The Belle on this day was the girl from the movie FireProof. She did a great job and Cadence loved hearing the story. 

We stood in the uber-long line to meet Cinderella and got in there and only Sleeping Beauty and Belle were there. Cadence was pretty unsure about the whole princess thing and a little disappointed that Cinderella wasn't there. She kept asking the other two where Cinderella was. 

After leaving the Princess house, she told us that she was tired and laid down in her stroller and went to sleep. So, we took advantage of the time to head back to Epcot to the candlelight service. 

the Candlelight service is my favorite thing about Disney World. It's amazing to me that I can stand in one of the most liberal places on earth and here straight scripture read to thousands of people. And to think that it happens for almost 2 months blows my mind and reminds me of just how great our God is. He finds his way even into "mouse" country and the people around us at the ceremony sang his praise right along with Chris and I. It's amazing that we can literally worship Jesus out loud with other people at Disney and they probably don't even realize that we're doing it. :)  Seriously, one of my favorite things ever. 

After the Candlelight service, we had a couple of hours to kill before the fireworks (another favorite) so we rode the boat rides in Mexico (which Shae loved) and Norway (which she didn't love as much) got Daddy a pretzel and Mommy a crepe (because they were out of candy apples in Germany) and found a place to sit down and wait.   I laughed when as we sat down to wait for the fireworks Cadence said that she had to go potty for like the 100th time that day and I took her into the same bathroom that we had started in 12 hours earlier. 

These last pictures are of her enjoying Chris' ice cream cone that he got to balance the salt from his pretzel :)

Cadence and Kagan

We started our time in FL by hanging out with Kagan on Monday. We went to lunch with some friends in Lakeland (which included 2 busted lips, a bloody nose, and poo poo in Shae's pants) and then on we went to Orlando to Kagan's house. After a fun art project :)  and some pizza for dinner, we took the kids to Gaylord Palms to look at all the Christmas lights. Gaylord Palms is one of my favorite places in Orlando because of the atmosphere inside the hotel so I thought this would be lots of fun......

   

The decorations were less than exciting but the kids seemed to make fun along the way. 

Here they are looking at real fish in the Key West section. 

  

Kagan loved the fishing pole but Cadence was a little more into the big fish. 

We then ran (literally) over to the Everglades area. 

Along the way, there were these flowers and they just needed to be walked around :)


Here we are in the Everglades. There were live alligators and so here we are looking at them. 

Afterwards, the kids had so much fun running thru the hotel like crazy people that we just let them. Luckily, Kagan's daddy, Chris, played with them so they didn't seem like they were just out of control kids.  To see a video of it click HERE

Here they are back at home picking out a snack before bedtime.