One of my 101 goals was to take the girls to Disney World. With only a little over a year left living in Florida, we figured it was time! Abbie and Ellie are the perfect age to really enjoy it, plus they are able to go on most of the rides!
To be honest, I had a lot of internal struggles about buying our tickets to Disney. From the beginning, I had planned to buy the Florida 4-day pass. That way, we could spend one day at each park and then be done with it all - no more pressure to go all the time to make season passes "worth it". However, we have several friends who have seasonal (or annual/no-blackout) passes to Disney, and I was feeling a bit of pressure to follow suit. As a result, I hated myself for feeling that pressure, since I'm not usually into "keeping up with the Joneses". Most of the time, I really didn't mind not having the passes. I was fine seeing my friends go frequently, we would just stay home and have fun ourselves. However, sometimes I would feel guilty like I was maybe depriving my children of some magical childhood adventure - we may never live in Florida again, after all. I was also feeling a lot of anxiety about packing everything into one day at each park with the 4-day pass. What if it rained? What if someone was sick on the ONE day we were supposed to go? What if... what if...?? It was killing me. And THEN... I started feeling guilty that I was feeling guilty. I was disgusted with myself for thinking that "depriving" my children of Disney was even a problem. Because it's not. I NEVER went to Disney growing up, and neither did most of my friends. Even still, all these anxieties and guilty feelings were building up and I couldn't stand it. I'm not a "guilt-feeling" mom. I don't guilt trip myself very often. I think I'm a good mom and I do my best. But, for some reason this was really getting to me. I was putting way more thought into it than I wanted to.
In the end, it was my sister who saved the day. Emma called me and said that they are hoping to surprise their kids with a trip to Disney next December (at the end of this year), and that she would love for us to come. Right away, I knew that of course we would, and it made the most sense for us to go ahead and just buy the seasonal passes (we can go any time, any day, except some blackout dates, which is basically the whole summer but it's miserably hot then, anyway!). That way, we could take some day trips here and there as a family, or with friends, and then we could go for a good chunk of a week next December with Emma's family. It will definitely be worth it.
So, when I went down for my Disney 10k race in January, I bought our tickets. Garrett drove the girls down that Saturday morning and we met up after my race and took the kids to Magic Kingdom.
I'm not sure why these pictures uploaded like this and I'm too lazy to crop them, but I just loved when the girls met the princesses:
All in all, a very magical day! I really loved the Magic Kingdom and I'm excited to go back again! It was so much fun to see the magic through my kids' eyes. I will admit, I got a little nervous when Ellie got scared during the thunder/lightning part of the Winnie-the-Pooh ride (our first ride!), but thankfully she got a little better as the day progressed. :)
We also went to Animal Kingdom (a few weeks later), which was also okay but not my favorite. It was a lot more zoo-like than I thought it would be (yes I know it's called "Animal Kingdom" but I thought there would be more rides/attractions, rather than mostly just a big zoo). It started pouring around 3:30pm so we had to cut our day there short, but hey we can go back any time so it's not a big deal!
So... if ANYONE has been considering a trip to Disney World in the next year, please let us know! We would love to come down and meet up for a day! :)
No comments:
Post a Comment