Surprise Trip of a LifeTime!!

So, the last time I posted, I mentioned that we had big plans for our future but I could not write them at that time. Well, now I can (actually I could have a month ago but have been so busy). We took our family on a surprise trip to Disney World in Florida! We have been planning and saving for our trip since last January. Of couse the girls had to know so they could make arrangements to miss a week of college, but no one else knew. I say no one...cause it was not just my family. My siblings..Tina, Coby and Scott and their families as well as my parents all went. What a site - 26 of us! It was such a blast and I would love to go again.

Like I mentioned, we did not tell our boys that we were going. They were under the impression that we were going to Las Vegas for the weekend to spend a few days with Brittnie. We told them she had not time off and we had an entire week. We also told them I had to work all week long so the time in Vegas would be our Fall Break. We drove to Vegas on Friday night and had dinner with Rich and Kim. We always love doing that. After dinner, we had the boys come to the living room where we gave them each a bag with goodies in it. They had to take each item out of the bag one at a time and try to guess what it was for. They had all kinds of Disney items but still had no clue. Finally Boyd guessed that we were gonig to Disneyland in California. We told him we were not and asked them to get the final item out of their bag. It was a shirt that Rob had made (for all 26 of us) that said DisneyWorld 2010 on it. They started to scream and yell and asked us if were seriously going there. They were so shocked and had not clue that is what we were doing. It was great!!

We left Rich and Kim's to spend the night in a hotel since we had to be at the airport at 4:30 in the morning. Surprisingly, everyone fell asleep fast and slept well. The alarm sure went off early though. We looked so cute wearing our Disney shirts walking through the airport pulling our suitcases. We looked like tourists :-). Boyd has only been on a plane once in his life and that is when he was a tiny baby; Skyler had never flown. They were excited to get on the plane and both wanted the window seat - but their sister beat them out. The plane ride was long but very smooth. (Thank goodness cause I am not one who likes to fly). The worse part was not being able to walk around and stretch our legs. We landed in Florida about 4:30, rented a car, and headed to our first hotel. Here we met up with Tina and Coby. We were only staying here the first night until our condos at Walt Disney World were ready for us. (It is nice to have a sister with connections and a time share). Our condos were absolutely beautiful. They were huge!! We definitely did not feel like we were in a hotel room. We had a full kitchen, huge bathrooms and bedrooms and a full living room. We even cooked some at our condo to save money.

Our first day in the park was somewhat busy. We had to take rental cars back and meet up with the rest of the family - including Cortnie. She flew out with my parents from Salt Lake since she is going to school up there. The boys got tired of waiting at the gate for everyone to get there, so they actually were laying on the sidewalk - you would think it was our last day and they were so tired. Finally, everyone had tickets and we were off and running.

Disney World is composed of five different parks unlike Disneyland that had two. We choose to go to one park each day and then repeat our favorite one. I can not really say which was the best but probably it was Magic Kingdom. The Animal Kingdom and Epcot center were nice, but they were definitely only a one day park. There were a couple of rides in those parks though that we loved. We are all big on roller coasters and fast rides. I think one of our favorites was Fast Track and Everest. Fast track races you along at top speeds in a car testing out a new race car. Everest is a roller coaster that actually goes backwards - through a loop even - part of the time. We will never go on a space ship ride again though - can't remember the name - but even now it makes me sick. It was way bad.

It was so much fun having out entire family there. How we wish Shawn could have brought his family though. We just had so much fun. The kids all got along well; we laughed and played together. We were able to sleep in some mornings and spend some afternoons just in swimming pools. We are definitely spooled now and will always want to stay in the condos. One of my favorites was when we went to the two buffets. The pocket book did not like them but they were a blast. The first one was a Polynesian buffet where they just kept bringing food - pork, steak, shrimp, rice, vegetables, ice cream. The kids were able to do a hula dance and we all got leis. The next morning (no we really were not that hungry), we went to a breakfast buffet with Winnie the Pooh and his friends. The food there again was wonderful!! To see the kids laugh and have such a great time was so worth the money.

Vacations are always wonderful and so are there memories. I pray the kids will always remember this one. It was so much fun and I look forward to another vacation soon with my family. To see them happy and just being together is priceless.