Deal #2

My sister-in-law, Melanie had to go back to work after spring break (she works in an elementary school cafeteria). My mother-in-law was going to watch 6 week old Elizabeth while Melanie was at work. My mother-in-law had 2 weeks worth of vacation already planned from now until school got out. One week in the end of April beginning May and another one 2 weeks later. So with that being said Jon's mind started formulating a plan on how we could (rather I could after all I guess it is my turn since Jon redid most of my parents bathroom) watch their baby for some sort of trade.

THE BIG TRADE

This is what we came up with. I would watch Elizabeth for the 2 weeks Jon's parents would be out of town minus one Friday (so 9 days total). Thomas (Jon's brother and yes he goes by Thomas now) took off that Friday (He could do that easily since Jon is his boss.). Then on Friday (May 2ND my birthday), Thomas came over to our house with Elizabeth and watched our 2 kids, Talmage and Hayden who are not in school while Jon and I drove down to Disney World for a long weekend (Friday-Sunday). Thomas and Melanie and their kids would spend the weekend at our house watching our kids as well as theirs (10 in all). The best part is (well besides getting away from the kids for a few days) Jon's parents are Disney Vacation Club Members and they happened to be there that week. So we crashed in with them. We got there around 2:30 pm (about a 7 hour drive if there is no traffic) and basically threw our things in the hotel room (we stayed at the Old Key West Resort) and headed off to Epcot (and yes our year passes were still good they didn't expire for another 22 days). We went to Epcot with Jon's parents. Well, we started out with his parents but split up later. They went to Epcot in the morning while we were driving. Since we were staying on Disney property Epcot had the extra magic hours that evening so it was opened 3 hours later just for people staying on Disney property. So it closed at midnight for us. Most of the people I know are night owl. I am not, so staying awake till midnight was a tough one for me. I am lucky to still be awake at 10:30 pm during the week and 11:00 pm during the weekend. We were able to see and go on everything we wanted except for test track. When we got to Epcot (about 4 pm) all the fast passes to Test Track were already given out and the lines never went down enough for us to do that and Soarin. So we chose to do Soarin. This was the first time Jon and I have been able to do Soarin together (by the way this is Jon's favorite Disney ride). We usually have to baby swap it because Hayden is too short. I am proud to say I made it till the park closed (all thanks to the 45 min Universe of Energy ride we did at 10:30 pm Zzz!) The next morning we went with Jon's parents to Magic Kingdom. The last time they went to Magic Kingdom was when Jon and I went down with them 4 months after we were married in 1994. We did rides with his parents and had lunch and then they headed back to the hotel and Jon and I hopped on a bus to Animal Kingdom. We only did a few things there. We wanted to do Everest since we have only done it one time for me and 2 for Jon. The line was too long and the fast pass distribution times were for a time much later than we wanted to stay at Animal Kingdom. One of my favorite rides in Animal Kingdom is the Safari ride. They really do an amazing job at the way they keep the scary and dangerous animals (lions, cheetahs, elephants etc) looking like they could leap right on top of you if they wanted to, all the while there is a pit that is camouflaged. I saved the safari pictures for this post since I didn't take very many pictures of this trip.

After Animal Kingdom we hopped back to Magic Kingdom and did the rides we had gotten fast passes for that morning (Space Mountain, Buzz Lightyear) and a couple more rides by then the lines were way longer than we wanted to wait so we headed back to the hotel.


Jon and Gretta on Buzz light year ride Yeah Yeah I know I cheated and took of a picture of the picture they want you to spend $15.00 for!!



Once back at the hotel we took a boat from our hotel to Downtown Disney. I wanted to eat a big Ghiradeli sundae for dinner. When we got there, the ice cream parlor part of Ghiradeli was closed for refurbishing. They candy shop was open (so I grabbed a couple free samples and left). We had to settle for some other ice cream place (I think it was Hagen Daz not too sure). It wasn't the same the sundae wasn't meal size so we had to get some other food to tied us over.
Sunday morning we finished packing up our things and loaded the car up. Jon's parents took us out to breakfast at Fort Wilderness. We drove to Fort Wilderness and from there took a bus to the restaurant. While an the bus we passed by the camp grounds, cabins, horses for horse back riding, and the night show Hoop De Doo Revue. A little further is the Fort Wilderness Resort Hotel and Suites (for those of us who like the wilderness feeling but love a good nights rest that would be me). I would love to stay in one of those cute little cabins. The buffet was excellent. Love the Mickey Mouse waffles. They are too cute. Then it was time for the drive home. Traffic wasn't bad since it wasn't a holiday. So we made it home in about 7 hours. I felt very refreshed and was happy to see my kids again. We had a wonderful time with Jon's parents. This was the last time we used our Disney passes for real this time. I know I said that after Spring Break. Until next time Disney. We love you.

Two weeks later I was on baby duty again. Which by the way was the last week of school. So that was kind of crazy. Thanks to Jon who helped out a bit with watching the kids so I could go to Payton and Kennedy's end of the year parties (it worked out great they were on the same day back to back). Brenton had his party at someones subdivision pool after school.

Talmage feeding Elizabeth

Well that is it for our deals. We are always on the look out for deal #3. Any takers?? We may have a couple in the works.