Friday, October 16, 2009

The beginning of my big birthday weekend

This past Tuesday I turned 30 - a moment of silence please for this momentous occasion ---------------- thank you. :) Ha, ha. Anyway, any unpleasant parts of turning 30 were easily forgotten because of such a great weekend. As soon as I picked Kaelyn up from school last Friday, we headed up to Orlando. Kevin had already gone up earlier in the day because he had a convention up there to attend. We met up at the hotel. Just as a sideline, we are still benefiting from Kevin's many years of traveling for his previous job. We were able to use motel points (yet again) for a nice motel with a small refrigerator and microwave and a free full breakfast in the mornings - never underestimate the power of a free full breakfast. :) Coupled with our Disney passes and our killer ability to make great sandwiches/lunches to store in a locker for later consumption at the parks, we had a great time for not a great amount of money. :) But first, there was the surprise. After much stalling, extra "shopping", and unpacking Friday night, we went to a nearby Cici's pizza for a late supper. Part of the way through our meal, most of my family walked in. My mom and Joy were already down here but everyone else came in from all directions: my brother flew in all the way from California so that was pretty big for me; my sister from Indiana made the long trip down with her family after she had been terribly sick for days and days prior and I'm sure she just wanted to stay home in bed; even my sister from FL was making a pretty big trip since she and her husband are trying to adjust to a newborn schedule (interpreted: a little bit of sleep here and a tiny bit of sleep there); my dad had also flown in a few days earlier and was at my house one day unbeknowns to me. Well, now that I have made all my family members sound like they were martyrs for the cause, I'm sure you can tell why I was so thrilled that they all came. :) Unfortunately, the surprise had been planned just a few days prior whereas our disney trip has been planned for months so I had to say goodbye to most of them that same night. :) I kind of wanted to cry about that part of it but I was just thrilled that they had all come. I didn't really think that they would but I guess way down deep a little part of me had hoped they might come at some point for my birthday. So that started the weekend off with a huge bang and lots of excitement. For the rest of our trip, we went to Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, and Epcot - our first time to Epcot. We really had a great time and I thoroughly enjoyed my birthday trip. We got back home quite late Tuesday night. We have hundreds of pictures of course but I will spare you all. For now, I might just try to post a few new ones every day or two. If I feel compelled later I might make a slideshow but I'm pretty sure you all feel as if you've seen enough disney pictures from this particular blog. The following pictures are basically the beginning of the weekend.


Kaelyn, Emilee, and Joy. Kaelyn was so disappointed
when we had to leave the restaurant Friday. She
couldn't figure out why Emilee couldn't come with us.


My parents, brother, and so on and so forth... :)


My Dad, brother, brother-in-law, and sister Rachel
(and new nephew Wyatt).


Ahhh... Welcome to the Magic Kingdom.


A quick picture by some "scenery" on the
way up to the ticketing area.

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