Disney Day 1

Actually, I should start with the night before we arrived at Disney. We spent the night at a hotel outside of Disney World so that we could get started at the park early the next day instead of having to waste a park day with travel. Ethan slept in my mom's room that night, and we thought that would leave in our room one bed for David and me and one for Joshua and Lauren. Then, they discovered the sofa bed. My kids have never slept on a sofa bed, so this was quite exciting. Josh begged me to let him sleep in it, so I did, and then Lauren insisted she wanted to sleep there, too. So, we ended up with an entire empty bed in our hotel room that night. If I'd know a sofa bed would be such a thrill, I could have saved a lot of money on Disney tickets!


In the lobby of our hotel, The Grand Floridian, there was a beautiful tree:


and a life-sized gingerbread house:


Skipping toward the monorail:


We filled up many an elevator:


Riding the monorail:




We spent Day 1 in the Magic Kingdom where we rode Pirates of the Caribbean first as it's what Joshua and Ethan had been most looking forward to. They loved it, but as we would find out during 90% of rides during the trip, Lauren did not like the dark parts. She was scared of the dark parts, the loud parts, the interactive parts . . . you can't even imagine what she was like during the fireworks. She trembled from head to toe the entire time.

Here's Ben and Renae at the MK entrance: (Renae, if one of your pics of me and David here turned out well, I'd like it. The ones on my camera don't have the MK sign in the background . . . among other problems.)


Lauren on the Mad Tea Party teacups, her favorite ride by FAR:


Ethan on the carousel:


Lauren and her Gaga on the carousel:


Josh and Ethan at the Monsters, Inc. show:


With a nutcracker:


Cinderella's Castle with icicle lights: