Downtown Disney

I ♥ Disney World. Seriously. Mark asked me if we could move there at the end of this trip and I was right there with him. It's just so magical, for lack of a better word.

This trip was the brainchild of one of my closest friends, Katie. She and I have been friends for 8 years now, but it seems like much longer. (I think it was that first year of teaching together that simultaneously bonded us for life and aged us 5 years!) We met sitting through the endless torture called New Teacher Orientation and Inservice. Nothing like sitting on backless benches in freezing school cafeterias for hours to help you make friends! And what started at school all those years ago as first year teachers has evolved into discussing pregnancy, babies, diapers, discipline and all those other riveting topics so near and dear to every stay-at-home mother's heart. Between us we have 5 kids 5 and under - hers are all girls and mine are boys. So we when get to see each other back in Dallas, it's not exactly easy to spend time together.

Katie had the idea though to take a trip with just our oldest kids for their birthdays. Hailey turned 5 a few weeks ago and Mark turns 4 in a couple weeks. (Plus, Katie and I both have birthdays in September!) We thought would be a fun trip to celebrate and some great quality time together with our kids and each other. Let me tell you. We had no idea how great it would be.

Mark and I drove down to Orlando in time to pick them up from the airport. We decided to head over to Downtown Disney to have an early dinner. Hailey's favorite restaurant is "Rainforest Cafe" so we headed there first. After a bit of shopping in the Disney store they each picked out one toy for themselves and one for their younger siblings. Hailey chose a Cinderella princess pillow and Mark chose a WDW bus, that he later drove on 85% of the surfaces in Magic Kingdom. (Reese and Luke got stuffed animals.)

And of course, we couldn't walk past the Ghiradelli shop without ice cream. Hailey, Katie and I shared a huge brownie sundae and Mark got his own cone with sprinkles. Then we headed out to "Shades of Green" to go to bed early and get ready for two full days at the parks.

Hailey did not understand why Mark was so concerned with driving his new bus on the princess dress instead of posing for a picture!