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Heading home was not my favorite thing. I always want the fun to go on and on. But if I had to pick 5 people to go home with. . .

And now, back to real life. 

For Emme, that means wearing her Minnie costume and reenacting roller coasters using an upside down step stool.

Way to keep the magic alive, Ems.

Hollywood Studios and a Groin Punch

Friday was our last day in Disney World. The week went by way too quickly, but it couldn't have been a better trip. 

Faves from Friday:

1- The tower of terror. It's a twilight zone style haunted elevator that drops you multiple floors over and over. I was holding my camera bag in one hand and it was pretty trippy to watch it float up over my head every time they dropped us. Way fun.

2-Watching the big motor stunt show. Professional car and motorcycle drivers did crazy stunts, driving off the back of semi trucks and the like. Even better was watching my kids watch it. Kinda blew their minds.

3-Toy story mania! My bro Joey set up a competition in the family for this ride. You sit in a rotating car and shoot stuff video game style as you go through and rack up points. He had a gift card, a hand-dyed disc golf disc, and a bag of candy for the highest point winners in various age groups. I was nowhere close to winning, but Caleb and Malan did pretty well for first timers. My bro in law Mike took top prize, nephew Brigham for the teens, and niece Meredith for the under 10's.

4-The Honey I Shrunk the Kids playground was awesome. We really did feel tiny wandering around through giant blades of grass and huge pebbles.

And the highlight of the day-

Caleb and I were walking out of "Star Tours" with our kids walking a couple steps in front of us. Then for no apparent reason, Jane suddenly turned around, took two running steps back towards us, and punched Caleb in the groin as hard as she could. He of course doubled over and let out
a muffled, "What the he**?!" as nearby strangers winced.

I marched Jane to the curb, sat her down, and asked her what in the world she was thinking! She actually looked quite surprised herself and was very penitent. She wouldn't talk for a minute and just drooped her head down and looked at the ground. 

When I asked again, "Jane, why would you do that?!" she looked at me with the most sincere, teary little eyes, shook her head, shrugged her shoulders and said, "I just got a swing in my arm."

Well, i was too mad to laugh just then, so I told her the next time she got a swing in her arm to punch a tree or a rock and not her dad. 

She mumbled something about how that would hurt as we walked back to join our group, and I was laughing before I even started to explain to Caleb our little Jane's motivation. 

Sad to say she had to sit out much of the Honey I Shrunk the Kids playground time to think about following impulses.

Our last day-

 Malan hula hoops in the main square.

Olivia cheers for the stunt show.

Emmerson is down to her last unfilthied layer and Jane and Luke experience being the size of a bug.

Last pictures in Disney World. Sorry if your eyes go buggy, they're blurry.

Little Emme looks how we all felt. Pretty worn out. But it was just a fantastic week and we're so glad we were able to go. I hope this isn't the last time we can manage extended time with family like that. The parks were super amazing, but the best of all was being with my sisters and bro and their families for a whole week. Did all of us some serious good.

The end! Thanks for following along, hope you enjoyed our slide show.

Animal Kingdom

Disney's animal kingdom was was so green and lush and gorgeous. It was kind of like an enormous zoo with jungle pathways that connect all the different rides and areas.

Top moments:

1-Running to the "Everest" roller coaster with our whole group when the park opened and then riding it over and over since there was no wait. It is the coolest ride I've ever been on. The line takes you through a replica of a Tibetan base camp, with cool articles all about Mt. Everest and people who have hiked it, yeti footprints, petrified yak poop, and other cool stuff like that. I wished the line wasn't moving so fast so I could look at everything. The ride itself is so unique with a gorgeous climb up to view the whole park and then lots of scary fast stuff. Awesome.

2-The bone yard. We spent more than an hour here just letting the kids dig for fossils in a glorified sand box. They were in heaven.

3-Everyone in our group but the Mckays managed to arrive at the safari ride at the same time, so we all went together. It was amazing! The animals are all just out there roaming around and some of them are close enough to your safari jeep that you could reach out and touch them if you dared. Plus our guide wasn't annoying.
4- Probably my favorite of the whole day was "Nemo" the musical. It was Broadway caliber, but only about 40 minutes. Stunning sets and puppetry, super talented cast and beautiful music. And since that story is all about parenting and stuff, I totally got teary eyed. I loved it.

Really well done, Disney. We were impressed.

Epcot

Um, wow. That valentine was pretty fantastic, hon. The girls are still laughing about themselves on baby bodies. Jane, "I'm so tiny!! Look at my tiny fists!"

Anyway, we spent a shorter day at Epcot partly to recover from our first two days and partly because Epcot is just more for grownups.
 Still really enjoyed the day.

Our faves:
1-The HUGE aquarium with dophins, sharks, and giant sea turtles
2-Eating crepes and playing in the fountain in "Paris" with cousins.
3-Going home early to swim and relax with family back at the house.

Anything for Love: Kate's Valentine 2013

I would do the dishes

I would scrub the tile

I would take a flying leap

I would make babies smile

I would arm myself with love

And shout it from a crate

That I do not need cupid

To be in Love with Kate

Magic Kingdom

By day two the kids let me know they were pretty much fed up with posing for pictures, so the quality of people shots plummeted rapidly. I'm ok with that. I left my camera stowed more and we just enjoyed the day. Also, squirming kid pics make me happy because that's the real us. Just after these first pictures were taken Olivia hug wrestled Emme to the ground. Vintage them.

Top moments:

1-Space Mountain. The kids and I absolutely loved it, but Caleb screamed like a little girl and dubbed it the most terrifying roller coaster in the world. Uncle Mike agreed.

2-Emme riding on the barnstormer roller coaster. She's so tiny and it is so fast and wild,
but she just tucked herself under my arm and screamed "Wheeeee!" the whole time.

3- Olivia pretending she wasn't scared after every scary ride she was tall enough for so she could look brave like the big cousins.

4-Mckay boys (my nephews) carrying my kids everywhere and running after strays. Those boys are total studs, ladies. Get your little sisters/nieces in line.

5-Holding hands with my girls and running with them to go on their favorite rides again. It does me good to feel like a friend instead of a mom sometimes.

Walking out of the park at the end of the day was also so neat. We were tired and the kids were totally done, but Main Street at night just has ridiculous atmosphere and it was a neat last image of our day. Emme and Olivia fell asleep in the car on the way home, sticky and happy.

Islands of Adventure

Monday- The Wizarding World of Harry Potter and Universal Studios Islands of Adventure

I think we were all most excited about this place, and it did not disappoint. It was incredible.

Top 5 moments:
1- All 30 of us arrived together and walked/ran from the parking lot straight to the Harry Potter section of the park in one huge pack.
2- My kids' faces when we walked into Hogsmeade. They were absolutely swept away. Every detail of the place is so perfect. Buying treats at Honeydukes, walking through Hogwarts castle, watching the wand choosing demonstration at Olivander's. . .any fan of the books should put this on their bucket list.
3-Walking on to every ride all day because there were no lines.
4-Frozen butterbeer. I've been pinning copycat recipes. . .
5-Pawning off our kids on their aunts and uncles just before closing time so Caleb and I could catch a couple of big roller coasters together. I felt like a teenager on a date.

Bravo, Universal. We were so impressed.

p.s. We dressed our kids in the same colors each day. It was a tip we'd heard was helpful, and it really did help a lot. It was like herding bunnies all day with all those cousins, so being able to pick out my bunnies in a hurry made life easier.