Catch Up Post #1: NASA! and Disney! Oh my!

We took a family vacation to Disney at the end of January. The boys have a long, 4-day weekend for teacher work days during that time and it is a great time to go - nice weather, low crowds. The last time we went, January 2010, we were just two months from bringing Lyla home!
This time, John's parents and his sister and her family joined us. All together, there were 11 of us - six adults and five kids ages 10, 7, 5, 2.5 and 3 months. The amount of people and the age spread (and gender mix) of the kids presented some challenges. We had two boys who wanted to go on all of the thrill rides, my 5-year old niece who wanted nothing to do with thrill rides (or anything even remotely scary) and everything to do with princesses and parades, a 2.5 year old Lyla who turned into a disaster after about day 3 with no naps and staying up late each night (this is a girl who likes to sleep!); my 3-month old nephew who needed to nurse every 3 hours and have his diaper changed constantly; my FIL whose main objective was taking as many adorable photos of all of the grandchildren as possible (I'm not kidding, he took 800 pictures!!!!); and 9 of us who were all on different bathroom break schedules! ahhhh! Between all of that, (plus eating) we  literally stopped like every 15 minutes for one thing or another. It was kind of a show. Oh, and I should be upfront and honest and admit that I'm one of those crazy people who likes to get to the park when it opens and rush to get on as much as possible. I am a woman on a mission, except no one else (except the kids!) wanted anything to do with my mission and walked as.slow.as.humanly.possible. I thought I was going to go mad.

But before I get to the Disney pics, let me back up. Our family and John's parents arrived a day earlier than his sis and fam, so we headed to the Kennedy Space Center for the day.  I admit, I thought it would be boring. I'm not really into all of that space stuff. I was so wrong. It was awesome! And really almost too much to see and do all in one day. I may have even (gasp) learned a few things. The boys loved it too. It was really cool to see the launch site/pads and all of the familiar things you see when you watch a launch on TV. They have a main visitor center complex that has an IMAX theater, shuttle launch experience ride, large kids play area/structure etc., and then you take a 2-hour bus tour that takes you out to the launch pad sites and some other attractions. I was really pleasantly surprised at what a nice job they did with it for visitors. I didn't get a whole lot of pictures. I relied on my FIL for that, and he hasn't sent them to us yet. But here are a few...

Getting ready to watch the 3D IMAX film about the Hubble Space Telescope (which was really awesome, by the way).The boys were totally mesmerized by it; they loved it. Lyla was interested for about 2.5 seconds and then spent the rest of the time playing musical chairs and dropping her goldfish everywhere.

 

The HUGE NASA Vehicle Assembly Building. Just to give you some idea of how big this building is, each one of those stars on the flag is 6 FEET across! It was so cool to see it in person.

The boys with a launch pad in the distance.

This is a full size Space Shuttle model that was being prepped to move down to the Houston Space Facility.

We also found out that the Space Shuttle Discovery is moving to our neck of the woods, to the National Air and Space Udvar-Hazy Facility.


Once my SIL and family arrived, we headed to the Disney parks. Day one, we did Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios; Day two, Magic Kingdom, including a princess luncheon at Cinderella's Royal Table for the girls; and day three, Epcot. We ended our trip with Lyla throwing up all over herself and I when we arrived at the Orlando airport. But on the positive side, we had just gotten out of the rental car. That's what family memories are made of, right? The kids of course all had a great time and, as usual, we all came home exhausted vowing that next time we would build in some extra "days off" in between park visits (which we never follow through on). Again, I didn't get many pictures since I was relying on my FIL, but here are some.

Always exciting to drive under that Walt Disney World sign!

The kids with their cousin. Not sure why Lyla is doing "jazz hands".

  

We scored a very short line at the Character Spot at Epcot and took care of pictures with all of the characters in one fell swoop (I highly recommend that!). Even the boys were really into it, which I was a little surprised about. Lyla loves Mickey, Minnie and the rest of the gang, but considering how freaked out she was over Santa, I wasn't sure how she'd do. She walked right up to every one of them and gave them a huge hug!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are a few pictures of the girls at their princess luncheon at Cinderella's Royal Table. Again, I didn't get many pictures; they're all on my FIL's camera.

 

 

 

 

 

I have to admit, I wasn't too thrilled about paying big $$ just to eat with some princesses, but they do a nice job there. The food is actually very good, everyone gets a professional photo package with Cinderella (which they develop while you are eating and present to you before you leave), all of the other princesses come around to your table and pose for pictures, and as you can see in the last picture, they have a make your own sundae option for dessert for the littles. Really nice. The girls loved it, especially my niece who was the perfect age. Lyla was still a little young to appreciate it fully, but was really excited to see her favorite princess, Snow White.