PA in July

I never posted about our annual trip to the farm last summer.  Garrett made a fun video, so I'll just post that.

Girls' Trip

The week after Thanksgiving, we took a "girls' trip" to Disney!  The girls and I met up with my sister Emma, her daughter Marian, and my mom for 3 days of fun!

We rented a nice condo just a few minutes from Disney.  It had 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, a full kitchen, 2 living room areas, 5 TV's, a dining area that seated 6, and a laundry room.  It was SO nice to have so much space at the end of the long days!  We also rented a minivan so that we could all drive together.

The first day, we went to Magic Kingdom.  I made plans for all our days ahead of time, so we had fast passes and a schedule ready to go!  It made the days go really well, and we were able to do EVERYTHING that we wanted to do.

                                          

After the Buzz Lightyear ride:

 Waiting in line for the Dumbo ride:

Riding on the train:

"I'M LEARNING HOW TO DRIVE!!!" she said:

The teacups:

The castle was all lit up at night, which was SO gorgeous!! It was completely covered with white lights.  So magical!

We did so many other things that day that I don't have pictures of yet.  Space Mountain, the Monster's Inc show, Barnstormer (a little roller coaster), Winnie the Pooh ride, Mickey's Philharmagic Show.

The second day, we went to Hollywood Studios.

Emma in the "Honey I Shrunk the Kids" playground:

I don't have any pictures of this, but we also went to the Frozen Sing-a-long, which was one of the main reasons we decided to go to Hollywood Studios.  It was SO much fun.  I did it with the girls at the end of the summer and we loved it, and I knew that Marian would love it too.  It's so cool!

For some reason, Ellie decided to ride on the Tower of Terror again.  She HATED it just as much as the first time.  She started crying as soon as we buckled our seatbelts.  Man I love that ride, though.  It's so thrilling.

Olivia was so worn out by the end of each day.  This is the only nap she took all week:

 The Toy Story ride:

We also got to see the amazing Christmas lights at Hollywood Studios.  Every couple of minutes, the lights would "dance" to a song, it was really cool.  There was also (fake) snow falling!  Magical!

Other things I didn't get pictures of: The Little Mermaid show, the Beauty and the Beast show, Rock'n Roller Coaster (the only one that goes upside down!), Star Tours, the Disney Junior show.

On the last day, we went back to Magic Kingdom (it really takes two days to see everything in that park).  Here we are on the "It's a Small World" boat ride.

Emma doing tricks on the Carousel:

Tomorrowland Speedway (again):

Teacups (again):

We watched the parade on this day, too.  Olivia waved to all the princesses as they went by:

After the "Pirates of the Caribbean" ride:

Street party!

Dancing with Chip (or Dale?):

Marian waving to Minnie:

Emma & Olivia on the Peoplemover:

Other things we did that I don't have pictures of: Splash Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain, Jungle Cruise, the Bear Jamboree, and a bunch of repeats that the girls wanted to do again from Wednesday.

Emma, Marian, and my mom left early on Saturday morning.  Garrett had driven down on Friday night to meet up with us, so on Saturday we went to Animal Kingdom as a family.  We have only gone there once before, and I felt like we needed to go at least one more time before our passes run out.  It's basically a giant zoo, which really doesn't appeal to us (me) much, but they do have some fun rides and activities for the kids.

Ellie climbing up the ropes:

Safari:

Ellie waving to the people on Mount Everest.  Abbie loves this ride, too.

We finished up the day by driving over to Hollywood Studios again so that Garrett could see the awesome Christmas lights.  I also wanted Abbie to go on Rock'n Rollercoaster with Garrett (she didn't do it earlier in the week with us, so this was her first time).  Whew!  Two parks in one day... after 3 full days of parks.  It was a long, tiring, awesome week!  I will probably be posting more pictures soon because we also have access to all the pictures from inside the park (the professional ones).  I'm excited to see how they turned out!

10 years

Garrett and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary in August.

We took "a trip around the world" at Epcot.  Gotta use those Disney passes as much as possible while we're here!

We visited China, Germany, Norway, Italy, Japan, Morocco, Mexico, France, Great Britain, and Mexico.  Ate dinner in China and Morocco, and had amazing desserts in France!

 Garrett channeling his inner Sherlock Holmes.

 Epcot closed at 8 to the general public, so after the fireworks we took the monorail over to the Magic Kingdom and went on Space Mountain and Splash Mountain and just walked around a bit.  Space Mountain was closed for technical problems when we arrived, so we kinda just stood around for a few minutes deciding what we should do.  Suddenly, the opened the ride up again and we were able to literally walk onto the ride - we were in the first car to go! (I guess maybe that's not what you want to do after a tech difficulty? haha)

The next day we went to Hollywood Studios and spent the day doing whatever we wanted - Tower of Terror a couple times, Rock'n Roller Coaster, the long "backlot" ride that I wouldn't want to take the kids on, etc....  It was so fun to be there without kids and just go at our own pace and do whatever we wanted.

I would have loved to go on a longer trip with Garrett, but the timing didn't work out very well.  Maybe for graduation next Spring?!

Anyway, I'm so glad we got the chance to go away, even if it was just for a day and a half.  It was a ton of fun!