Day 3: Hollywood Studios

The downside to day 3 was that our shoes got soaked from the previous night at Magic Kingdom, and I only brought one pair of tennis shoes per person. So, the boys had to wear the only other pair of shoes I packed: their water shoes. Caleb's flip flops gave him a blister but he did a good job of being a good sport despite that. I should add that we told Carter before the trip that we were bringing one stroller and it was for Bryson so Carter would have to be a big boy and walk everywhere. He did it too! He only asked me to carry him once during the whole trip!

After the previous night's experience, we went ahead and purchased ponchos and set out for the day. It sprinkled lightly in the afternoon, but overall, a great day of weather. Much cooler than the previous day!

Waiting for the bus to take us to Hollywood Studios

We did what everyone else did once the gates opened--head to Toy Story. 

We had a 25 minute wait--not too shabby. Lots of decor to take pictures in front of.

We love the Toy Story ride! It's so awesome. Matt schooled me again by getting a higher score than me.

This toy soldier freaked Bryson out.

Next we headed to Tower of Terror to use a fast pass.

I think the boys were definitely scared on the ride, but they said they liked it. They rode it again with Matt.

While I rode Rockin' Roller coaster, Matt took the boys over to see a magic show. They actually got to participate in the show!

None of the boys were tall enough for Rockin' Roller coaster so Matt and I took turns.

Picture opportunity with Sven

We split up for lunch since Carter was determined to have a ham and cheese sandwich with mustard (his favorite food). So everyone else went for a pizza lunch and Carter and I went to a sandwich place. It was right next to the "Honey I Shrunk the Kids" playground, so Carter played after lunch.

We enjoyed the car show. Caleb and Carter got to meet one of the stunt guys!

Beauty and the Beast

The boys enjoyed the Indiana Jones show and their first funnel cake while watching the show!
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We ran to do Tower of Terror one more time before we planned to leave. The boys had a chance to ride it twice and Matt and I wanted one more ride each. Caleb rode it with Matt while Carter, Bryson and I hung out by the exit and played with bubbles.

Then I used the rider switch pass to ride it again with Carter. When we were less than 10 minutes a way from our turn, Carter told me he didn't want to ride it. When I asked him why, he said he was too scared. I was confused--Carter is our little dare devil and had already been on the ride twice. He claimed it as one of his favorite rides of the day! He started getting more and more adamant that he didn't want to ride it. I was torn because I knew if I got out of line, I wouldn't make everyone else wait for me again, and I really wanted to ride it one more time. I called Matt, and we were trying to figure out if there was a way for Carter to head down the real elevator and meet Matt by himself (which I wasn't really comfortable with) or if I should just get out of line with Carter. A lady next to us heard the dilemma and decided to try to help. She told Carter that she had never been on the ride before and that she was really scared. Carter told her it was only a little bit scary, and she asked if Carter would ride it with her so she wouldn't be scared. That seemed to appease Carter and we got on the ride. Once the ride started, Carter kept saying over and over again that he wanted to get off. Needless to say, I did not enjoy the ride either because I was feeling SO guilty that we didn't get out of line. This picture absolutely breaks my heart--a terrified little boy clinging to his mother for dear life. Biggest regret of the trip; it definitely wasn't worth it. :(

[I asked Carter today if he was mad at me for making him ride Tower of Terror that last time while we were at Disney World. He said no, it wasn't scary, and that he really liked the ride. This picture begs to differ!]

We left the park late afternoon and decided to use our dining points to order room service for dinner when we got back to our resort. It was nice to have a relaxing evening since the previous day/night was so long. I put Bryson to bed early while Matt and the other boys explored the resort.

Disney World Day 2: Magic Kingdom

We had some difficulty getting to Magic Kingdom on day 2 because everyone planned to go to Magic Kingdom on the same day for that early magic hour! By the time we got in line for the 7 Dwarves ride, the wait was already 45 minutes. We weren't able to get a fast pass for this ride, so we decided to jump in line. After getting the rider-switch pass, I took Bryson to ride the Tea Cups and the Dumbo ride while they waited. Then I rode it with Caleb; Carter preferred to do the Dumbo ride with Daddy and Bryson. Because it's the newest ride at Disney World, it's pretty popular but Matt and I didn't think it was all that great actually. We thought it was comparable to Big Thunder Railroad, but prefer Railroad which is a longer ride.

Splash Mountain

The kids had a lot of fun on the Haunted Mansion ride. I love that there are so many rides to do as a family in Magic Kingdom!

Matt and I had a little bet going on who would come out with the highest score on the Buzz Lightyear ride. Unfortunately I had the baby with me, who was in charge of the controller that spins the seat. We went around in a lot of circles which led to my defeat.

Poor Carter wasn't tall enough for Space Mountain. I'm actually really surprised that Caleb was willing to ride this ride twice (once with me, once with Matt) because I think it's pretty scary. It had even less lights in the mountain than I remember from last year making it mostly pitch black.

We didn't take as many pictures in this park because we were busy running around trying to do everything! It was SO crowded and wait times were quite long--we were trying to use fast passes as best we could, but they changed the fast pass system since we were there last November. We don't like the new system! When we scheduled the trip, we were told that September was the least busy and the best time to come. Unfortunately the week we picked was Atlanta's Fall Break (new to their school system's this year), and we ran into so many people from Atlanta! I kind of think Magic Kingdom is always going to be the busiest of all the parks though.

So our plan was to take advantage of our Memory Maker photo pass by taking lots of family pictures on the way out. At around 8:30pm it started sprinkling. We were waiting in line to do Peter Pan's Flight, which is a ride we were really excited about doing with our kids but it had been a super long line all day. We finally decided to wait in line when it got down to 40 minutes. When we came out of the ride, it was pouring rain and there were huge puddles everywhere. Needless to say, we didn't get any more photos for the night. :( We were completely drenched from head to toe--it made for an uncomfortable ride home!

We did ask someone to snap this picture of us while we waited for a bus to take us to our resort.

Despite the wet ending, we were able to ride all the rides in the park; it took us 13 hours to be able to do that though! The kids did remarkably well for such a long day. They all zonked out on the bus ride home and slept very well that night.

Family Vacation: Disney World Day 1

We arrived in Orlando at 11pm--our thought behind taking a late flight was so all our kids would fall asleep on the plane, thus making it an easier flight. As you might guess, the plan backfired. No one fell asleep on the plane. No one fell asleep on the bus from the airport to our Disney resort. By the time we finally got settled into our room, it was 1am (felt like midnight to us). The boys fell asleep quickly except for Bryson who Matt took out and walked the halls with--he finally fell asleep at 2:30am. Not a very good start to our vacation! Despite the fact that none of our boys slept on the plane/bus ride, they were pretty well-behaved!

We slept in until 8am and then got going for the day. Our first stop for breakfast was to a character dining. (We got a Disney dining plan, something I'd totally recommend. You can get some great deals on them and it's so nice not to have to worry about paying for food the entire time you're there.)

On the bus

A beautiful double rainbow we saw on our way to breakfast.

We took a quick photo opportunity while waiting to be seated.

In the 30-45 minutes we ate breakfast, we only had one character come over to our table--lame. We had another character dining scheduled for another day but decided to cancel it, especially since Bryson freaked out about Winnie the Pooh when he came to say hi.

We then headed to Epcot. We knew this park would be the least interesting/fun for the kids so we decided to do it first and make it a shorter day. Here are some shots from the day:

A rare smile from Bryson--in fact the only picture I think we caught a smile the entire trip.

The boys had a great time on Test Track and Soarin', both of which they got to ride twice because of the rider swap system for families with toddlers/babies. Here's their ride on Test Track with Daddy.

Caleb was tall enough to ride Mission Space, but not Carter, so Matt and Caleb ran off to do that at one point. Matt convinced Caleb to do the more intense version. Caleb is a little more timid on rides than Carter, so we were surprised that Caleb claims it as one of his most favorite rides in all of Disney World.

Bryson was asleep in his stroller for this picture.

A visit from Tinker Bell!

We went to Le Cellier for lunch/dinner at 3pm, which is a steakhouse in the Canada section of Epcot. It was our favorite restaurant last year when Matt and I went to Disney World. We enjoyed it again! After our meal, we headed over to Germany to get some caramel treats for the bus ride back to the resort and called it a day. We knew the following day was going to be a lot busier!

We stayed at the Animal Kingdom Lodge. It had a lot of really cool features.

Our bedroom

The back side of the lodge

Viewing the animals from our balcony

It was so neat to wake up and find animals right outside our building.

Shurtliff Family Reunion Part 4

On the drive home, we decided to stop at the Corpus Christi Aquarium.

Touching the sea urchins

Watching the big fish

Visit to the sea turtles

This was a whale's blow hole at the entrance of the aquarium. The kids loved anticipating when the water would shoot up.

 Family picture in our matchy-matchy shirts :)

Kara snapped some family pictures of all of us

Our growing family

Silly one!

13 grandchildren and one more coming end of October

Siblings with Mom and Dad

And the "outlaws" who wanted their own picture :)

Just like last year where pink-eye spread around, this year did not disappoint and a stomach virus passed around throughout the family. The only saving grace (sort of) was that it didn't hit until after the vacation. So we were all able to still enjoy the vacation and not be sick. After vacation, it hit me like a freight train. I've never been so sick at a time in my life where I couldn't afford to be sick! Somehow we all pulled through and are so grateful it's over!