Wednesday - So after a good night’s sleep, we awoke ready to tackle The Magic Kingdom.  Unfortunately the kids were still on AZ time so we didn’t get to the park until 11ish or so.  The park wasn’t that crowded.  We brought a 2 person stroller on the trip, but opted to rent one at the park.  Ooops, $31 a day to rent a double stroller.  The first ride we went on was Pirates Of The Caribbean.  The kids loved it.  The rest of the trip they kept saying ‘pirates, pirates’.  We then went on the Aladdin Magic Carpet ride.  It’s like the Dumbo ride, but with magic carpets.  Of course we had to do the Jungle Cruise.  It’s neat seeing all the rides I grew up riding at Disney Land recreated at Disney World.  I think for us and the kids, lunch cost around $40.  That’s actually not that bad of a price considering it filled us up.  By the time we finished lunch, the kids were getting tired.  We headed over to Fantasy Land.  We got to ride the carousel (which they always love).  We noticed there was no line for Mickey’s Imaginarium (or something like that).  Turned out it was a 4-D movie experience where you had to wear polarized glasses.  Drew fell asleep right away on Liz.  Cole was scared by some of the 3-D effects.  It was funny and sad at the same time to watch him watch the show because he was jolting and sobbing every time something would “fly” at him.  It took Paige till around the last quarter of the movie to put her glasses on.  Once she did, she really enjoyed it.

By the time we left that movie theater, the kids were toast.  It was nap time.  That’s when we carted Drew around sleeping in the stroller.  Everyone we passed was smiling at his cute passed out body.  We ended up going back to the hotel.  But not before Cole went bezerko from being overtired and threw himself on the sidewalk in a tantrum.  No big deal until he was on all fours and slammed his forehead onto the pavement so loud that people walking by gasped in horror.  So like clockwork, Cole and Paige passed out on the bus ride back to the hotel, and Drew woke up.  So Paige and Cole could sleep, Drew and I went to the pool together.  I realized that was the first time I’ve ever been alone with the big guy.  He just turned 18 months old last week, and I’ve never been alone with him.  Isn’t that weird?   I guess that’s one of the drawbacks of having 3 kids under 3, very little one on one time.  It was great hanging with him, we swam and got a beer at the pool side bar.  OK, he drank apple juice.  He was really chill without Paige and Cole.  It was fun, we’ll have to do it again sometime; maybe when he’s 15.

We had planned to go back to the Magic Kingdom after nap, but decided to hit the Disney Boardwalk instead.  It was just a hop, skip, and a jump from our hotel.  It’s a re-creation of an Atlantic City boardwalk.  We ate at this place, Spoodles.  Food was decent, but took over an hour to get it. The one thing about Disney is the food service.  It sucks.  There are long waits everywhere and then when you do get a seat, the staff is overworked and takes forever to get served.  Additionally, they automatically added the tip to our bills because of the size of our party.  Great, 18% gratuity, OK food, shitty service.  What a bargain. Side Note:  The first night we ate at the buffet, we were in a rush to get out of there and I gave a huge tip to the waiter, not realizing it was already included in the bill.  Bargain!

Joe and I won the kids a basketball and football by playing some of the carnival games.  It only cost us $40.  Bargain!  There was this little grass area where we let the kids run around while we ate funnelcake.  It was awesome and the kids really appreciated being let free because we held them pretty close to us all day while at the park. 

Don’t let the media fool you.  There is no recession.  People are getting mortgages.  People are making money.  People are spending money.  I have proof!  After braving Disney World for 4 days, I’ve witnessed sky high food prices, unreasonably expensive hotel rooms, packed airplanes, insanely priced park tickets, and thousands of people who willingly were walking around accepting every bit of this existence while It’s A Small World played in their ears causing convulsions while standing in 40 minute lines prompting the need to buy $30 mouse ear hats.

We knew the trip to Disney World was going to be tough.  Turned out it was really tough.  There is a reason why kids under 3 get into the park for free.  There is not much for them to do and they don’t understand why they have to wait in line and be patient for everything fun.  The silver lining of the trip was we went with our friends Joe and Liz and their 2 year old.  This gave us 1 extra pair of adult hands which meant one kid per adult.  That saved our butts more than once. 

Tuesday - I think it was a 4 1/2 hour flight from Phoenix to Orlando.  That’s about 4 hours too long if you ask me.  The kids were good for the most part, but we had our share of meltdowns.  We had a car service waiting for us at the airport to take us to the Swan hotel.  He almost left because it took us about 45 minutes from when we landed to get to baggage claim.  Lots of bathroom visits and the need to get an impromptu cheeseburger because some one’s 21weeks pregnant.  We had 2 adjoining rooms reserved for Tobie and I and the kids.  When we got to the hotel room, it was nice but missing one thing, a door to the other hotel room.  When I came up to tell Tobie we were changing hotels, the hotel room was trashed. The kids released every ounce of pent up energy they were holding from being on a plane most of the day.  After many apologies from the staff, they moved us to a 2 room suite at the Dolphin Hotel. Very confusing names and setup if you ask me.  They have two hotels separated by about 150 feet, one hotel has giant swan statues on it, called the Swan (makes sense right?) and the other hotel has giant fish statues on it, and they call it the Dolphin.  Seriously?

By the time we were officially checked in and settled, it was dinner time.  We ate at a buffet on the premises.  They had characters like Goofy and Pluto walking around taking pictures with kids eating dinner.  I was on the other side of the buffet when I heard Paige and Drew screaming.  I think Drew was scared because Paige was scared.  $30 a head later, we went back to the hotel room.  The resort was supposed to have heated pools.  Maybe in the brochure they meant heated spas, because the pools were cooooolllldddd.  We hung out a little in the spa and went to bed.  Not before the kids destroyed the hotel room.  Did I mention I had to unplug every phone because they wanted to call grandma?  What age do kids need to be before they stop opening every drawer, stop climbing on and dancing on tables, stop opening and slaming the closet doors on each other, stop tearing apart every piece of paper they can find, and stop flushing the toilet every 2 minutes saying “bye bye poopy”?

Next up: Wednesday - Visit to the Magic Kingdom! 

Starbucks before a flight = good stuff!

Sleeping Chicago style!

Aunt Nancy and Aunt Amy both kept crap stuff from when their kids were little.  Turned out to be real convenient for us!

Drew kept falling asleep before naptime!

GG-ma and the her great grandchildren.

Paige taming the dinosaur

Even slides are different in Chicago!

Here are some pictures from our first family trip to Chicago and New York. They are shown no particular order. After reviewing all the pictures from the trip, we didn’t really take many pictures at all. We didn’t take any shots with family. That’s kind of weird, isn’t it? Most of these pictures actually come from Aunt Nancy’s camera. Oh well, next time more pictures, right?

Always read up on the safety instructions when flying.

They love airplanes!

Sometimes we start contemplating other things near the end of a 3.5 hour flight with kids.

Baby, green blankey, nighty night.

Peek-a-boo!

Cole tames the lion!

So does Paige!

Roy and Cole at the zoo.

Polar bears.

Here fishy fishy fishy!

So on Monday we drove from NJ to Brooklyn to stay with Aunt Amy and Uncle David. Thank god we brought our girl Hertzy with us. She’s the GPS unit Hertz puts in their cars. We just plugged in the address and we were off. I can never get over how crazy driving is out here. The whole time we were driving, Tobie and I were talking about the Amazing Race. There must be so much fighting between team members, because traveling in NY is stressful, traveling around the world without GPS, forget about it. Now GPS units are great, but you have to put in the correct address to bring it to your location.  I forgot to put an East in front of the street address and we were taken to another house.  Luckily that house was only 10 minutes away from our destination.

Aunt Amy’s house is a death trap.  There I said it!  I kid, I kid Aunt Amy! But the kids did get hurt a few times.  The first night, Cole was screwing around on the stairs inside and fell about 7 steps.  He was fine though.  The next morning he took a tumble down about 7 cement steps outside.  We took him to a friendly doctor that cleaned him right up. He might have a scar on his forehead.  Luckily chicks dig scars.

Bring on the steps!

We had a good time, lots of family to play with the kids. The kids take about 10 minutes to adapt to a new person. Cole met his new best friend Dan, who is around 13 years old. Have we ever mentioned Cole’s fascination with older kids? If we’re out in public and he sees an older boy, he’ll just go up to him and stair. It’s cute and creepy at the same time. Anyways, with Dan in the house, Cole was able to live the dream and hang out with him all day long. Dan was fantastic with Cole! We might have to adopt an older brother when we get back to AZ just to keep Cole happy.

What came first, the Cole or the egg?

We didn’t do much site seeing in NY. Maybe next time when the kids are older. However, we did go to Prospect Park Zoo. It’s a little zoo in Brooklyn. Cole as always loved it, the other kids, meh!  Not having a consistent nap schedule really caught up with us today.  Did we ever tell you the kids drink from the same style sippy cup, but each kid has their own color and they won’t drink from the other kids’ cups?  Earlier at the zoo, we threw out Drew’s blue cup because it stank really bad, too bad he was really thirsty when we were at a restaurant afterwards.  He wouldn’t drink without it and had a complete meltdown.  Made for an interesting day.  Well, tomorrow back to Chicago for the last leg of our trip!  I’ve triple checked our departure time.

Bye bye porcupine!