Magical Families Weekend

We had heard about this really fun thing at Disney called Magical Families that we wanted to be a part of. It's  basically a weekend where anyone who has adopted or fostered or is interested in adopting or fostering go to Disney World together. And there are lots of different fun activities and meet ups to do. It also gives you an opportunity to connect with people from all over who have similar interests/lifestyles/concerns as you do in your own life when you foster or adopt. 

And it's at Disney so how could that be bad? 

So we went to FL and the first night at the pizza party we hooked up with Tink/Jayden's family. Tink has been a foster child who lived with us the better part of a year and has now moved to a new family with her sister and they are being adopted by that family!  So, they were there too :)  We spent a good chunk of the evening playing in a window - because at Disney World even the windows are fun!

We got these awesome goodie bags at the pizza party and by far, the favorite kid thing in it were the rubber duckies. Mostly because you could make them stick to your ear…..

Because of the ages of our family at this point in the game, we opted out of paying to go to one of the Disney Parks and torturing ourselves there :)  Instead we went to Downtown Disney and had all kinds of fun!

We had lunch at the T-Rex restaurant. At first it was a little intimidating with all the sounds and big dinosaur stuff but once we got used to it, it was lots of fun! 

 Cadence has asked to have her face painted at multiple places we have been at and we always say no. Either we don't want to pay for her to have paint on her face for a few hours, or the other kids will all want it too, or someone is acting up and we don't have the time to wait for it, any number of things could play into our decision but because we were having a super fun family day as we walked past the face painting booth and she looked longingly (without asking) at all the options to be painted, we surprised her by telling her that today was the day!  She was so excited!! We just might have to spring for that more often...

While we waited for the face painting Shaun entertained himself playing with Rebeka. 

and after face painting and because everyone was so patient while she got her face painted,

 it was train rides for everyone!!

 Then on to the Toy Store to begin thinking about what would be the best purchase 

to take away from the weekend. 

Magical Families day 2 consisted of hotel tours via the monorail with the whole family! 

 The Contemporary already had their Ginger Bread House set up so it seemed like a good place for a picture :)

 This is what we all look like in a monorail car. 

 GiGi/Grammie with most of her babies looking and acting normal!~

 This one is way more the reality of what the pictures looked like :)

Magical Families Day 3 was largely made up of a trip back to Downtown Disney to settle on a purchase/souvenir from the weekend. I love how everyones choices are so different and so "them" all at the same time. 

I think this hayride was technically the night of Day 2 but I am having blogger issues so those pictures will just stay here. All the Magical Families people met us at Ft. Wilderness to go on a hay ride and have smores. It was really a fun thing to do!  At least the hay ride (which didn't actually involve hay) part was. The S'more part at the Chip and Dale sing along/movie time was a  little crowded and chaotic so we opted to just eat our s'more pieces away from the crowded area and head back to our hotel. 

I have no idea where this picture was taken. I'm assuming Chris took it… :)

Overall it was such a fun weekend to spend with our family and to be with other families who have been affected by adoption/foster care. We are so grateful for the way God has put our family together and love all the avenues He has used to get us to where we are.