So, we left off with Nick and I planning the huge surprise of Disneyworld for the girls. They knew we were going to do something "fun" on Monday, but had no inkling of what it was. I had arranged a friend to keep Fiona for the week, so we took her over there on Sunday night. (side note: you know you have a true friend when they offer to keep your rambunctious puppy and don't even bat an eyelash about it, and won't let you pay them!) The premise for this was that we were going shopping down in Brunswick, wanted to leave early, and wanted to take our time, not worrying about the dog being in her crate all day. So Fiona went for a "sleepover" for the night.
I had been doing laundry and packing in stealth mode. Hannah got suspicious when I took a bunch of clothes off of her dresser. She asked me what I was doing with them, and I told her I was washing them. She said they were already clean. I pulled something out of my hat, told her she had put some dirty clothes on her dresser with the clean ones, and now they all needed washing. She looked at me like I was crazy, but at least she didn't ask any questions.
I had already made the reservations for the room, we made reservations for our sit down meals, and Nick had picked up the tickets on Friday. We were shopping for snacks and breakfast foods to take with us (kitchen in the room) and that was not questioned because we were running out of those as well.
Then a small issue came up. The girls have certain stuffed animals (1 each) that they sleep with. I wasn't sure how to pack those without them knowing. So we decided to tell them that since we were leaving early (you know, to be there when the stores opened up) they could bring along their "friends" in case they wanted to go back to sleep in the car.
As soon as the girls were in bed Sunday night, Nick and I packed up the car, set the alarm for stupid early, and tried to get to sleep through our excitement. Morning came too early, and we got the girls up, dressed and herded them into the car. They wondered why I put out 5 bowls of water and 5 bowls of food for the cat. Sophia said, "Man, she sure does eat a lot in a day!" Thankfully no one looked in the back of the van and saw the suitcases back there.
We truly expected someone to guess, especially Hannah, but not a word from them. When we passed the exit to Brunswick, Hannah did say, "Um...excuse me, but I think you missed the exit." to which Nick replied that he thought maybe we'd go further south, down towards Jacksonville.
I wasn't sure how much longer I could stand the suspense, but breakfast time was looming and we stopped at a Cracker Barrel outside of Jacksonville. This particular restaurant is the same one we stopped at when we went to Disney last time. The conversation happened like this:
Hannah: Hey, I remember this place! We stopped here when we went to Disney!
Nick: Say that again, Hannah.
H: Hey, I remember this place! We stopped here when we went to Disney!
N: The last part...
H: We stopped here when we went to Disney?
N: Okay, now add one and one, Hannah...
H: You mean....we're.....going to Disney?
N: Yep!
Other girls: Disney? Huh? Disney? What did we miss? followed by laughter and cheering.
I brought the maps I had printed out in with us and while we ate, we went around and they each initialed one ride/attraction that they really wanted to do/see. Following some good advice, we planned to hit the one thing in each park that each kid really wanted to do, and anything else would be considered extra. It really was a relaxing way to do it, and it took the pressure off of trying to do everything in a day at each park.
So we trucked right along down the road and headed for Orlando.
Destination: Disneyworld!!
(I'll post separately about our trip. Suffice it to say that it was an amazing vacation and just what we needed as a family, and as individuals. It truly is a magical place. I have yet to find another place where you can just forget your life for the duration of your stay and be filled with the wonder and awe of being young and carefree!)
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