Our First Trip to Disney

We got back last Saturday from our first family trip to Disney and it was great. I had to go to a conference for work (Microsoft TechEd) and since I had the plane ticket, hotel room, and rental car, it made sense to bring the crew along.

On the flight down, Maysie got sick and threw up next to the window seat. About ten minutes later, a woman in back of us called out "why is my computer bag WET?!" So we handed her our bottle of water and a bunch of napkins...and gave a quick apology. We got off the plane before she could complain directly to us (but we also said we'd give her money if she was really really mad). I didn't want to tell her that her computer will probably stink like rotten milk for awhile.

We got our rental mini-van (Dodge makes a nice car these days - we got one for Julie/Kevin's wedding too) and drove to the Peabody... a real nice hotel. Every day at 11am and 5pm they did a duck walk through the lobby - I was there twice and Liz and the little ladies went almost every day.

Monday night was fun, Liz's brother and I went out to do this thing called TechEd Jam Sessions where a bunch of techies at the conference play music together in a rented out music club. I played drums for two songs (Dont Give Me No Lies and Mustang Sally) and Chris sang Proud Mary, which was received very well by the crowd.

Tuesday night we hit the town - Walmart and Sonic! and got lost a bit because there are two International Drives within the same city.

Liz was psyched to have a Sonic nearby in order to get her favorite slushie in the world - Lime with fresh lime chunks - and she quickly turned me into a Sonic fan. I liked the Coney Dog with Chili - yum yum. I thought it was weird how they put sugar on their onion rings. We ate there twice.

Wednesday - I had a work event/dinner/party thing to go to. Fun stuff. I had a drink or two.

Thursday dinner - Went out with Liz's brother Chris and stopped at a Indoor Bounce House. Basically a bunch of those giant inflatable bouncy houses/slides all combined into one place. Piper had a blast. So did I! Later we went back to Chris and Vics house and made pizzas with the kids.

Friday was our day at Disney. We got there right when it opened, and grabbed the kids and hopped on the people mover, to the Monorail, and then arrived at the Magic Kingdom. We had a lot of fun walking around, seeing Winnie the Poo, Tigger, Goofy, PLuto, and some of other characters. Piper had the most fun chasing around some ducks outside a small lunch spot. I couldn't believe how little had changed since the last time I was there.

One story I keep telling people is when I tried to get Piper comfortable enough to go on the Dumbo ride. I wanted to warm her up by going on something small and simple, so in FantasyLand we found a Snow White ride... I figured "this looks easy." Not quite! It slammed through the doors hard and dropped a few feet and the darkness all around got Piper real warmed up - to scream for Mommy! So the ride got worse - the creepy mirror on the wall, the freaky Queen, lots of dark woods... the one pleasant scene with the Dwarfs sitting around drinking didn't cheer her up all all. When we finally made it out, I looked up at the name of the ride - Snow White's SCARY ADVENTURES. Oops. Other parents shook their heads at me... oh well.

As a sidenote, I'm glad Piper is not yet aware of Ariel or the Princess or Cinderella, because lines to see those people were hours long!

Saturday was our flight back - pretty uneventful, but the end of Maysie's first trip on the plane, out of state, and a good little adventure - our first trip to the Magical Kingdom.

Got some videos up in our YouTube page... check em out!