Shane Willard

This morning started off with an apology to all persons on the trip. I had to suck it up and apologize to everyone for ruining one of their evenings. Surprisingly it went VERY well. KO didn’t seem very upset at all, Darin and Kodi weren’t upset, McCall was over it, and Tyson and Heidi seemed as almost as apologetic as me. Thank goodness. Now if only Kelli will get over it. HA.

This morning was to be special because KO wanted us all to have the breakfast buffet at the Swan Hotel. He had eaten there several times and wanted us all to be able to experience it, so he offered to pay. Since the Swan is just across the way from where we were staying it only took us a couple minutes to get to the restaurant. Kelli started off. She went for food that would work for both her and Kate. The kids were just going to get French toast, and I was waiting for Kelli’s return. Well, as soon as she got back Boston said that he needed to go to the bathroom. I asked one of the waitresses where the bathrooms were and the proceeded to give me instructions. I took Bubba to the bathroom and asked if he would be OK by himself. He assured me that he would be just fine, so I took off back into the restaurant to fill my first plate. I filled it with hashbrowns, gravy, French Toast, Eggs Benedict, sausage, and I made sure to have an omelet made to my specifications. When I finally returned to the table and started to eat Kelli asked, “Where’s Boston?” Crap, I had totally forgotten, and obviously he didn’t make it back. I calmly got up and walked out to find him. I talked to the janitors, and was in the middle of telling a security guard Boston’s description when I heard in the distance a faint, “Daaaaaad…….DAAAD……Daaaaaad. Dad….” I ran to where I heard him and started calling his name. He was SOOOO dang cute. He had a very insecure, worried, and helpless look on his face that broke my heart. I swooped him up and apologized for leaving him. He just clung to me and said, “It’s OK dad. I just got lost.”

Boston and I returned to the restaurant and sit down to start eating again. WOW, was breakfast GOOD!!! It had to be the best breakfast buffet I have ever been to. The food was to die for. I had some of the best hash browns I have ever tasted, the omelet was fantastic, the fruit was perfect, the Belgian-Mickey-Waffles were unique in shape and taste, the French toast superb, the yogurt was scrumptious, and to top it all off, they kept our glasses brimming with OJ by refilling them as fast as we could empty them (I thought I was in heaven). However, I didn’t get even half way through my first plate when Luci started grabbing herself and whining that she needed to go to the bathroom. So off I went again. I don’t seem to think much too sacred to capture, so I actually took a small video of Luci grunting on the toilet. It was hilarious.

INSERT GRUNTING VIDEO **Update: Grunting Video wasn’t near as funny as real life.  It will not be uploaded.

I finally got Luci back to the breakfast table and everyone was starting to finish their food. I was SO sad because I was going to have to scarf all this wonderful food down faster than I wanted. No matter. It was still amazing!!!

After breakfast we jumped on a ferry boat that took us directly to Universal Studios. For whatever reason today we weren’t as aggressive at getting on all the cool rides, and we were much more relaxed about doing whatever. This may have been because Universal is mostly for adults, and we weren’t very interested in going on rides without the kids. We only ended up going on a few rides, but we did see a couple shows that were great (Beauty and the Beast, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, and another). The last ride we went on for the day was the Buzz Lightyear one. It was AWESOME. It is a giant 3D video game. I went on it twice. We ended up leaving Universal at around 7:00.

After dinner Boston, McCall and I went back to Magic Kingdom. He is soooo funny. As soon as we got there we checked out the stroller that we rented earlier, and I told him he could choose whatever ride he wanted. Guess which one he picked……ok, I didn’t think you’d get it. He picked the Dumbo ride. I couldn’t believe it, but I wasn’t about to try to change his mind. We didn’t get 10 feet inside the park and notice the parade. So, we stopped and watched the parade for 10 minutes. After the parade we headed up toward the Dumbo ride. Along the way we stopped in at the Monsters Inc. show. It was really funny. Then we found the Dumbo ride, and it was AWESOME!!! Boston loved it, and I think it was the first time in my life I actually rode Dumbo. It was kinda fun being so high and seeing all the rest of the park.

After that we decided to go to Splash Mountain. We rode Splash Mountain once, and all the rides closed for the evening. It was only 11:00 PM. Fortunately for us there was going to be a parade in 10 more minutes. We waited. Boston LOVED it. He waved at EVERY character that walked by. It was so fun watching him because he is still so enchanted by the whole experience. Well, I was actually thinking about how exciting it was to be witnessing Boston in such a euphoric happiness when all of a sudden he started scratching vigorously at his neck. Some bug must have fallen from the tree onto his neck. It bit him and then got slapped away by Bubba. I tried to roust up some insect bite spray, but no one near us had any. He cried for a little bit, but then he was just fine. It still hurt, but, “Dad, I don’t think we need bite spray.” Okay, Boston.

Boston Intently Watching the First Parade of the Evening

Dripping Wet After Splash Mountain

Waving at EVERY Character in the Closing Parade

He LOVED Waving at the Disney Characters

The little tike fell asleep on me on the bus ride home. What a privilege.

Oh yeah, Kate is stealing my heart more and more each day. She LOVES snuggling her daddy, and I LOVE it even more. When she is tired she snuggles her face right into my neck, and starts to bounce and pat my back. It is PRECIOUS!!!! I’m a lucky dad. I also had some really sweet moments with Luci….I just can’t remember them right now.

Today was the second day of rides. Today we were going to Magic Kingdom. KO really gets excited about all this stuff and talked a bunch of us into taking a LONG walk on the Boardwalk over to the Epcot Center where we were going to take the monorail. A walk that we all thought would take 10 minutes probably took about 30. We were all pretty winded already because the sweltering heat was kicking our trash…no t to mention the 100% humidity. Yeah, that’s right. Just before we boarded the monorail it began pour. So we ran as fast as we could to the monorail to escape the rain. On board we had a very pleasurable ride. Then we got off. There was no rain. We were happy. But then, we found out that we got off one stop too early. So, as we wandered around clueless we ended up dividing into two groups; followers of KO, and the mutinous group. They (the mutinous dissenters) ended up jumping on the monorail that takes you to the Magic Kingdom, and we ended up on the monorail that took us AWAY from Magic Kingdom. Go figure. So we rode the danged monorail until we got to Epcot. We got off, boarded another monorail and headed back….but we weren’t going to be able to stay on that monorail the whole way, so we got off again, and instead of boarding the next monorail we jumped on the ferry. Again, our morning was stolen by transportation.

Monorail Photos

We rode a few rides and then we decided to take the kids home to give them naps because, as Dolphin residents, we were entitled to stay at the theme parks 3 hours longer than everyone else. So everyone headed back to the hotel, and I went to pick up Splash Mountain Fast Passes. I wasn’t fast enough, so we ended up taking different buses back to the hotel, and I got lost. It took me 20-30 minutes LONGER than it should have for me to get back to the hotel. Oh well. Once we were back at the hotel, we slept a couple hours and started back to the park. In the mean time Tonya was having a really bad time with her neck. It was hurting her really bad. Because neck pain is a symptom of heart attacks Kelli made them call the local physician to visit her. He was to show up in another 1.5 hours. So off we went.

We weren’t enchanted with the boardwalk nor the ferry nor the monorail this time…so we boarded the bus and got to the park in about 35 minutes.

Waiting For The Bus

One thing needs to be pointed out, Heidi and Tyson seemed to be annoyed with the whole group concept so they were doing all they could to go by themselves and follow their own plan. In fact, when the whole group went back for naps they stayed at the park by themselves. Once at the Magic Kingdom we went on one ride and then Heidi and Tyson called. They wanted two of our fast passes. To make a long story short, I got mad, said some things I shouldn’t have, and caused Heidi and Tyson to hate me. Whoops. This also caused Kelli to hate me and McCall to cry. I need to learn to control my anger a little better.

The next 2 hours were VERY awkward as Kelli would not really talk to me, and all of us were on edge from the verbal fight. It finally died down though. We went on SO many rides that night because of our special privileges for being Dolphin residents. We went on Splash Mountain 3 times, some railroad ride about 3 or 4 times, 2 haunted houses, a Buzz Lightyear ride, It’s a Small World, and several others. The kids had a GREAT time, and so did the adults.

Today was our first full day at Disney World. WOW, what an adventure.

Before we took off, we all met in the lobby. Grandma Tonya had a surprise for all the kids. She gave them each $10 to spend on whatever they wanted. Boston immediately disappeared, but he didn’t go far. When we found him his head was buried in the couch and he was crying. Grandma Tonya went to get him and when she asked him what was wrong he just sobbed and said, “Grandma, you’re just too nice to me……you’re always just too nice to me.” Sweet kid.

Shortly thereafter, we decided to go to the Animal Kingdom. Because we were up so late the night before we ended up leaving the hotel a little later than we would have liked. Around 10:00 AM or so, we boarded the buses headed for Animal Kingdom when Kelli gasps and says, “Oh, shoot. I forgot Kate’s bottle.” (Now, there is only ONE bottle that Kate will eat from, so this was trama.) Our plans soon changed, and I was going to be swapping buses and heading back to the hotel so Mom and the kids could get started at the park. I was in the line to get on the first bus back to the hotel when Kelli called me on my cell phone and told me that I had all the park hopper passes and that I should hop on the next bus headed towards the Animal Kingdom so that they could get in the park. 15 minutes later when we were all at the Animal Kingdom I boarded another bus headed back to the hotel. Needless to say, our morning did not transpire according to plan. About 12:00 or 12:30 PM we finally reconnected. Funny!!

The Animal Kingdom was a lot more fun than I had expected. The only thing I missed through my travels back to the hotel was a musical play about Nemo. Kelli said it was REALLY good; it was a broadway-style musical. From there we went on various rides and watched several shows. It turns out Luci is quite a fraidy-cat. She didn’t like very many rides at all.

There were three attractions that we really enjoyed: the Bug’s Life 3D show, the Lion King’s theatrical show, and the Jungle Safari. Because we didn’t have our “Fast Pass” faces on, we ended up spending a lot more time in lines than we should have. Oh well it was still great!

So I think we actually went on the Jungle Safari before the other two attractions. The jungle safari was WAY better than I expected. The line was long, but worth standing in. Inside the ride we saw all sorts of real live animals such as: lions, tigers, ducks, flamingos, rhino’s, elephants, hippo’s, antelope, wart-hogs, wildebeests, alligators or crocs, and giraffes.

We went on a ride or two then ended up at the Lion King theatrical. This show was GREAT!!! It featured singing, dancing, trampoline gymnasium stunts, and lots of Lion King characters. Near the end of the show one of the dancers ran up into the crowd and picked Boston to help her out. He was SOOOO proud. See below.

INSERT LION KING PICS

A little later in the day we went to the Bug’s Life 3D show. It was a great show, but Luci was scared to death the whole time. It was really funny. For lunch we all sat down under a shaded picnic area and ate food from one of the nearby shops. The food was only marginal, but what did we expect? While there I found a pair of sunglasses on the other side of a fence. I lowered Boston down the other side, had him pick them up, and hoisted him back over. They were great. I wore them the rest of the day.

The Animal Kingdom closes at 8:00 PM each night, and at about 7:00 it was obvious that the majority of the patrons had left. This was best evidenced by the short lines. At one point we decided to go on a river rafting ride. A group of us went on it and since we got through SO fast we decided we could go on it a second time before our wives noticed we were gone long. Luci loved this one. We ended up going on that ride 3 times in a row. It was fabulous, but it got us all drenched. The last ride we went on was Everest Expedition. This ride was a really wonderful roller-coaster. Unfortunately, when we got off this ride and were on our way to another I realized that I had left my newly-found sunglasses on the ride. After 25 minutes of waiting for them to find the sunglasses I gave up and found the fam heading toward the bus stop. We showered the kids and slept like babies.

Today we packed up the van and hauled the kids to Grandpa KO’s work so that he could tell us all about the surprise. The kids didn’t know what was going on, but they DID know that we were going on a trip somewhere. The following video shows what happened when Grandpa broke the news to the kids.

After the kids settled down, we packed up in to the passenger van and headed to the airport. The kids were pretty good, but they didn’t really know what to expect. The flight was roughly 4 hours long, and the kids did pretty good. Sure, the coulda been better, but I think Kelli and I were both impressed with how good they were. While we were flying Boston turned to me all perplexed and said, “Dad, how far is Heaven from here?” I just told him that Heaven was straight above us.

We arrived in Florida at about midnight Eastern. As we were waiting to check in Boston said, “I love this hotel!!! I wanna stay here forever!!!” We checked in to the hotel and ZZZZZzzzzzzzzzz…..