Disney Day One: Road Trip and Epcot!

 I am finally getting around to blogging about our wonderful trip! Blogger is slowly letting me upload pics, so that's a little frustrating. I apologize in advance for the onslaught of pictures; there are TONS. As you know, this is my record of everything, so they are all here!! ;) 

I can't TELL you how magical Disney was! It was awesome. We were so in love. William adored it, and did so great. Every morning, he was up in the stroller at the door, ready to go! His word for Mickey is "La" (don't ask why) and we must have heard it 1000 times. We are already discussing with our travel agent our plans for next year - but in the FALL!! It was SO HOT! It was not what I would call a "cheap vacation", but worth every single penny. Saving for things like retirement are wonderful and necessary, but I urge you to take some money when you can and make some memories like this! It was unbelievable. We met SO many families who were there as a last trip together because the children or spouse was sick. It broke my heart. Disney definitely has some sort of magic, that can make the biggest grump happy! William had NO schedule and seriously didn't care. I just gave up, ha! He ate whenever, whatever, slept in the stroller if needed, etc. We were not traipsing back to the resort for naps, haha! That place is TOO big!!! Such an awesome place, yall!

We left Sunday night around 3am. Robbie is a nighttime traveler, and didn't mind driving. Sunday, when we picked William up from church, he was covered in a rash! Little spots! I was so nervous and thinking, "What are the odds that he would get SICK right before our trip?!" So, we had lunch, and they were still there. Since I'm a nervous person, I took him to the Urgent Care. I wouldn't have if we hadn't been leaving. They diagnosed it just as a viral rash, and that we could still go to Disney!! At this point, there was no fever. They sent us off with a prescription for an antibiotic just in case, and we went home to pack!!

 The car ride wasn't too bad. We all slept a lot of the way, except Robbie. ;) Once we stopped for breakfast, Hannah drove for a while. The van was packed down!!! Poor William had a fever that morning, so I was stressed and pumping him with Tylenol and Ibuprofen. He was pretty good in the car! We watched one Disney movie after another.  We got to Disney around 3!

Finally in FL!! So glad!

We're here!!!

 We stayed at the Art of Animation resort. We knew we wouldn't be in the room much, so it just didn't make sense for us to spend a ton on the room. We got a family suite, so we had two bathrooms, and 3 sleeping areas. William slept in his pack and play in the bedroom with Mama and that worked out great! The resort was huge and had a wing for The Little Mermaid, The Lion King, Finding Nemo, and Cars. We stayed in The Lion King. It was awesome! You would never have known it was a value resort. The check in was seamless. We got our Keys to the World...which are so neat. They double as your park ticket, room key, and debit card. You can link your card to them and just pay at all the parks for whatever else you need. We had the Disney Dining Plan, so everything was covered, except tips, anything we ordered for William, and souvenirs. Just walking around our area of the resort was so cool. There was a Finding Nemo pool right by our room that William was just dying to get into! We had an incredible gift shop there, and all of the artwork was just awesome. We were all just enchanted! I don't have anything bad to say!!

So happy to be out of the car!

Poor baby didn't feel good! :(

Ready for Epcot!

 As soon as we got changed, we headed off to Epcot! At this point, I just felt terrible for William and was sending up tons of prayers that he would feel better, and fast! I was so worried about him! He was miserable. We had dinner reservations at 7, so we had a couple hours to mosey around the park. We picked Epcot on this day since we knew it would have the least amount of kid stuff and we were only there a couple hours. About the time we got off the bus, it started pouring. I mean, like a hurricane. Poor Mama got soaked! Robbie and I bought ponchos and William was in his stroller covered by another poncho, haha! He always has the best seat in the house. ;) We met Mickey and Pluto in a building we ducked into right before the rain started. William was a little scared. He was obsessed when we were far enough away, but as we got closer he clung to me and started fake crying. Oh! Disney tip - get a PhotoPass card ASAP. We got one at this stop (they're free) and every time you take a picture by the Disney photographer, they load your images to that card and then you can choose to print, download, etc. later. I am about to order our CD of images, because I can't help myself!! You can even get it on your ride pictures! So awesome and that way I wasn't constantly pulling out my camera for those important pics. We stopped in the Coke tasting world (don't know the official name lol) and they had tons of Coke stuff! And different Coke's from around the world (We have the best one, FYI). Hannah and I picked out hats here! We made it to the restaurant after the huge storm and luckily they had towels for us to dry off with. I went to the bathroom to change William and check his temp. It was 103!!! At this point, I wanted to CRY. I was so stressed about him, and he was just miserable, and we were wet. I was like, was this a mistake!? Just keeping it real. He sat on our laps for the entire dinner, which he hasn't done in months. Luckily, he ate and drank, so at least there was that. We had dinner at Teppan Edo, a Japanese steakhouse. I thought we would never get to Japan. It was wayyyy on the other side of the lake, haha! It had good food!! Fried rice, filet, veggies, noodles, the works! And ice cream for dessert!! The dinner was delicious!! I tell you, I don't know how people eat there without the Dining Plan. It was $170 for four of us to eat there that night!!! We didn't have to pay a thing except tip! And we got desserts and everything with each meal! After dinner, the sun was shining and William perked up a little, thank goodness!!! We walked around to the other countries, just browsing. I didn't know if William would last through Illuminations since it didn't start until 9 pm and he had had a long day. But he was so into it! We watched for a few minutes and then headed to the buses back to the resort for bath and bedtime!! We all crashed in the beds! We had a great first day!!!

Look at my pitiful baby!

Dinner at Teppan Edo

This one just tickles me. I am being serious deciding what to do and Mama is just wanting to squeeze William.

Pretty Illuminations!

Disney Photo Pass

Disney Photo Pass

 Next up, Hollywood Studios!!!