They all wanted to play on the beach for a while before we had to check out, but Jared isn't as much of a beach bum and decided we'd done plenty of that the day before and now we should head out. The kids convinced him to let them go down to the water and say "good-bye" (of course as soon as the boys touched the edge of the sand- they were instantly up to their thighs in water- how did that happen?). It was so funny. Jared kept saying, "Guys, we're leaving for Disney World, not home!", but they might have been just as happy staying right there on the beach for the week. A passer-by snapped a few pictures of us as a family near the water with our pant legs rolled up before we finally tore the kids away.
Good thing the drive to Orlando was only an hour away. We barely had everyone settled in, when we were there. We didn't check in for our official Disney vacation until Sunday afternoon, but we had booked an in-between hotel for Saturday night just on the edge of Disney property so we'd be nice and close for the next day. And we could start enjoying Disney before the actual start of our stay. Anyway, as we approached the Disney Main Gate, we excitedly (Jared and I) pointed it out to the children. Mickey and Minnie greet you over that Disney arch. Soooo exciting. Coleson and Hunter were busy playing on their electronics and literally wouldn't look up. Coleson was like "Uh-huh, ok". Jared nearly came out of his chair reprimanding him to at least look up and give it the full excitement such an event required. When we were kids and came to Disney for the first time, Jared and I both remember the tingles-up-our-backs excitement as we officially entered DISNEY WORLD. A child's mecca. And our kids couldn't be bothered to look up. (Of course, now you aren't allowed to stop and snap pictures like we did back then, but still). As we drove on, we of course delved into a conversation about how ungrateful our children are (and our children's generation in general is) and what we could do to curtail that. I'll let you know if we come up with something. (Although I must say that I think sometimes I just have unnatural expectations of how our children should behave, because this probably seems to be of a cultural thing than just my kids. And my kids are not really all that ungrateful really).
Anyway, we drove up and checked into our hotel. We got a great room, explored the hotel, and went into Orlando for some awesome seafood. Note to self: awesome seafood does not equal buffet to save money. Results are unpleasant. We thought we remembered going to this exact restaurant on our first trip together- Boston something or other. It was just down the sidewalk from our (notice the possessive tense) Wyndham resort from our amazing first trip to Disney together (we oooed and awwed as we drove by at our memories there). So we had to go to this restaurant again. But, either our memory failed us, or we had the wrong place. The concierge had tried to warn us- good seafood equals money, less money equals less quality. Point taken.
On our way back to our room, we found a Wal-Mart, because even Disney World knows you have to have a Wal-Mart. Actually, it was just a local Wal-Mart in Orlando, but you could tell they served a lot of tourists too. I had counted on finding just such a spot to finish buying our souvenirs. I had been stocking up for a while. The Disney Store online always has a huge after-Thanksgiving sale where I picked up a few things for the kids for Christmas. This year I stocked up even more and stashed it away in a box for Disney World. I snagged a few more things at the Wal-Mart there and the box was complete. A few tees for each person and a few stuffed dolls or characters and whatever else to make it all even. I probably had less than $75 in the whole box. If I'd waited to buy it in the parks, I would've bought it all for over $500. So, money well spent. Every morning I would either pull something out of the box for each person or stash it away in the stroller. Then when we got to the exhibit in the park that I knew that child would love the most, I pulled out the advance purchased souvenir and walked away with a happy child and WAY less money dropped than if I'd done it right there. Happy child, happy mom. We did have our daily allowance to use each day on anything park exclusive that we thought we had to have. But with our food, tickets, and souvenirs all prepaid we only took like $30/ day with us to the park. It actually made the purchasing way WAY more relaxing. I didn't have to stress about who wanted what and what I couldn't afford. I already had something to make them happy and it cost a fraction of what it could've. And anything they thought they HAD to have, we either agreed to buy or the boys bought with their Christmas/vacation money. Seriously, one of the best things I did for the trip. I must stress about money a lot, because I've mentioned it a lot. But prepaying for as much as possible really removed a ton of stress. It made the whole thing SO much more relaxing. I saw plenty of those poor moms doing the "talk-'em-down" speech with their wailing children. Not I. Did I mention it was a great idea?
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