Is this the last year. . .

that Dallas will be able to lift Griffin to put the STAR on top of the tree??

A trip to Costco

This is how Griffin traveled through Costco today. He was enjoying the life of luxury while I was stressed out at fighting the huge crowd at Costco. I had no idea how crowded it would be but Thanksgiving shopping was in full swing. Of course, I went there for three specific things, left with 7 and forgot to get one of the three. I'm losing my mind!

I also spent the morning in Griffin's classroom. It is always such fun being with those kiddos. They make me laugh and smile. I truly admire Griffin's teacher for her dedication to the kids. She really loves them and it shows.

We cut out of school a little early for G to get a flu shot. He did awesome - the nurse looked at me like, "are you going to hold him down?" Not necessary for Griffin. It took about 5 minutes total which was very nice. He got to pick the lunch place afterwards, so we headed to Chili's.

We are looking forward to the next 5 days off of school.

Cathi

Even More Disney Pics

More Disney Pics - Animal Kingdom

I wanted to show a few more pictures from the trip but since I don't use Picasa, I don't think I can show one of those neat slideshows. I'll have to just post them one at a time. Here they are.

ANIMAL KINDOM - oh, and something I forgot to mention in the previous post. Griffin's most favorite ride. The one where you get ALL wet. I forget the name. He and Dallas rode it 3 times, I passed on it.

A Magical Place

You know all that stuff I read prior to going to Disney World about it being a magical place was just, you know, stuff. Whatever. Well now that I have experienced it with a 5 year old, I have to agree, it is just magical. We refer to it as "the happy place." Everyone there is happy - the workers, the visitors, the hotel staff, the people in the airport. We did not run into one uptight person in the 8 days we were gone. All weekend, as we were getting acclimated back to Chicago weather and life in general, Dallas kept saying, "I want to go back to the happy place." We even had Griffin saying it! So with that said, let me tell you about our amazing trip.
We arrived on Wednesday night and stayed at an airport hotel which worked out great. My parents drove down from Hilton Head so they had a car and were able to pick us up.

Wednesday morning we drove to Animal Kingdom Lodge to check in and most importantly get our passes to the Parks. We decided to tackle Epcot first. We hopped on the bus and were there is a jiffy. First stop, "Honey, I Shrunk the Audience" in 3-D. This is actually important to the whole story so this is why I'm sharing this. Griffin did NOT like this at all. He did not like the things coming at him in 3-D. He actually cried and I had to take him out.

It was not crowded at all so we were able to do everything we wanted and only had very short lines to wait in. The Test Track was probably our favorite and we did that 3 times. We ate lunch in Mexico (which wasn't very good.) We only visited Mexico and China because these areas weren't too interesting to Griffin. He was much more interested in things like "Mission:Space" and the aquarium. We are Disney Visa card-carrying members so we had a private character meet 'n greet which was fun. Here's a pic from it.

We ended up back at our hotel room around 8pm and Griffin was anxious to go swim in the amazing pool at AKL. The adults were able to sit at the bar AND watch Griffin swimming at the same time - very smart on their part!

The next morning we headed right over to Magic Kingdom. Our first stop, Stitches Great Escape. It was a movie type thing like the 3-D movie from the day before. Guess what? Griffin hated it, cried and I had to take him out again. Poor guy. But then we hit the rides and he was happy as can be. He loved them all. The faster, darker, louder, the better for him. He loved Space Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. We stayed here most of the day then headed back to Animal Kingdom Lodge for dinner at Boma. It was awesome and I highly recommend it. We went BACK to get in some more rides and to see the parade. We walked over 10 miles this day (and actually the day before as well!)

Our final morning was to Animal Kingdom, just a short ride from our hotel, the Lodge. We went straight to the Tree of Life to the "It's tough to be a bug" 3-D movie. Can you guess? Griffin hated it. I can't believe the three (RANDOM) things we picked to do first at each park where things Griffin did NOT like at all. He said, "Mommy, I get to pick what we do first tomorrow on the cruise!" I can pretty much say without a doubt, my son is NOT a fan of 3-D movies!
We did all the rides here and took in the Lion King Show and the Nemo Show. Both were awesome, amazing actually. And I highly recommend them to anyone (young or old) who goes to AK. We stayed until about 6pm. I was so tired and ready to rest but not Mr. G or Dallas. They hopped on the bus and went over to Magic Kingdom and took in their favorite rides one more time. They stayed until 10:30pm! It was all I could do to stay awake before they got back!
Sunday morning we spent some time on the grounds of the Lodge - the playground, the lookout areas and of course, the pool. Then we headed out for the Disney Cruise. I think I'll save that part of the trip for a new post!

DISNEY

Disney update coming soon! (I promise!)

And we're off!

Back in a week full of great times and great memories!!

Disney World, here we come!

Cathi

All My Bags are Packed

I'm ready to go . . . . What song, what song? Come on . . . you know. Think way back.

Well we are ready to leave for Disney World tomorrow. I ran to the store this morning to get a few little travel items and I'd like to get to the library to get a book, but other than that, let's go. Oh wait. I'm still waiting to hear from a neighbor to see if they can drive us to the airport. I guess that's a pretty major detail I don't have taken care of yet.

Please pray for safe travels for us and for the seas to be calm while we're on our cruise. See you in a week!

Cathi

PS. The answer is Peter, Paul and Mary - Leaving on a Jet Plane written by John Denver.