Our Trip to Florida

Our trip to Florida was wonderful! We had such a great time, but it does feel nice to be back at home!

We stayed for 5 nights at the Hilton Grand Vacations Club in Orlando. Jeff and I got sucked in to buying a timeshare with Hilton a few years ago, but we've been happy with our purchase (note: don't ever go to a timeshare presentation if you don't really want to buy one, because you WILL end up with one! They have very talented sales people who don't take no for an answer!). It basically forces us to take one or more vacations every year, and that's pretty much why we did it. Jeff works SO much, and it's hard for him to get away. But if you've prepaid your vacation for the year, you don't want to lose the money, right?! And we're always so happy when we eventually take the trip. I honestly don't think we'd really plan a vacation every year if we didn't have this, unfortunately!

The units are sort of like condos, so we had a kitchen, living room, eating area, and two bedrooms, but we were still crowded -- I had so much STUFF! Actually, I'm really happy with everything I packed for Brendan even though his suitcase weighed almost 50 pounds! I even brought the video monitor, and I was SO glad I did. I love that thing!

I had heard about rental companies that rent out baby stuff for your trip, so a few weeks before we left, I Googled "rental, crib, Orlando" and found a few companies that would deliver baby items to your hotel. Great! I didn't have to pack a crib, high chair, or stroller. I was afraid to bring or use the hotel Pack-n-Play because he hasn't slept in one of those in a long time, and what if he decided to climb out? He is soooooo NOT a kid that will just climb in bed and fall asleep with me... every nap time and bed time would be one giant party if that happened!

They had regular cribs you could assemble in 20 minutes with no tools. It looked very similar to the crib I have at home, and the mattress dropped down REALLY low, thank goodness! I brought his favorite crib sheet and the rental company sent a Disney bumper, so he loved it! He called it his "Mickey Cubhouse Kib" (Mickey Mouse Clubhouse is a show on the Disney Channel he likes) and every time I needed him to go to sleep, I'd say, "Let's go get in your Mickey Mouse Clubhouse crib" and he'd get all happy and excited! It was great!

I also rented a toy package for Brendan so he'd have all new toys to play with in the condo, plus a box fan for white noise and somehow I still managed to pack TWO, almost 50 pound suitcases?!?! I must have issues. I'm not sure how many rental companies there are around different vacation areas, but I would definitely recommend using them. If you have a baby, you can even rent a swing or exersaucer. Those of you with little ones know those are necessities if you'd be traveling somewhere!! And the company I rented from advertised the good condition and cleanliness of these items. I'd have to say they were definitely nice, and in great condition. The website I rented from was called A Baby's Best Friend.

Onto the trip itself... my toe wasn't as great as I would've liked by the time we left. It was still pretty swollen, but it wasn't hurting unless I did a lot of walking. And sometimes if I didn't have it elevated, I would feel this rushing feeling of blood, and it would feel like my toe was being blown up like a balloon. I could actually feel my toenail lifting up -- it was the creepiest, grossest feeling! Luckily that stopped the day after we arrived there, and I could definitely tell the steroid pack was reducing the inflammation. I had already bought my sister and myself tickets for Universal Studios (I bought them online the day before my toe thing happened! Go figure.) and I really wanted to try and go. So, I rented a wheelchair scooter and zoomed around Universal all day! I only almost hit one person, but he totally stepped in front of "my ride!" I tried to get a pass to the front of the lines, so I wouldn't have to stand and wait for long periods of time, but they don't do that there. Bummer! There are certain rides where you can take your chair through the lines, but I didn't want to do that. So, I just parked my scooter with all the baby strollers and walked through the lines. I was in a little pain, but it was worth it! My sister and I had a great time.

Check out my ride...

Kelly and I at Islands of Adventure, which was the amusement park at Universal Studios

Each day my foot felt better. By Friday, when we planned to go to Disney, I opted against the wheelchair and was able to walk the park for 13 hours with minimal pain! I was so thankful that I was doing so much better. Brendan LOVED Disney World! I'm sure he has no recollection he was there 4 days ago, but we remember and have plenty of pictures!

Since we only had one day, we bought Park Hopper passes, so we could do a few of the parks "marathon style!" We started off the day in Magic Kingdom at 9am, went to Hollywood Studios in the afternoon (the new name for MGM) and then back to Magic Kingdom at 8 to get a spot on Main Street for the 9pm Electric Lights Parade. We thought if we had some "extra" time (what were we thinking?!) we'd go over to Epcot and walk around in the countries... we never quite made it there! We were exhausted, but it was worth it!

Brendan was a trooper and finally passed out around 2:30 and napped for about an hour. He fell asleep on my lap during the bus ride over to Hollywood Studios and when we got there it started down-pouring -- this was a typical happening every afternoon and evening in Orlando. I guess when it's 90 and extremely humid, that's bound to happen! Well, buckets were falling, and flooding the streets of Disney. We found shelter and put on our ponchos! I had an umbrella I had purchased at Universal when it began pouring the afternoon we were there too! I noticed when we were at Universal if you didn't have a poncho when it started raining, you were the minority. Everyone comes prepared for rain with their ponchos at the theme parks, and I thought we were going to look stupid in the bright yellow ones we brought! Good thing my mom thought to bring them!

Something I had registered for when I was pregnant with Brendan and had never used was a rain cover for the stroller. I've always kept it in my car, but I never had any use for it. If it's raining, I'm not walking with the stroller! It was one of the MANY things I packed and thank goodness I remembered to throw it in the bottom of the stroller the day we went to Disney. It covered the entire stroller, and he slept through the entire storm.

It was a great trip, and I can now say I survived a round-trip plane ride and a vacation with an active 2-year old! If I can do that, I can do anything, right?!

Having fun at Disney!

Riding Dumbo... surprisingly, he was allowed to ride several rides. We also rode Small World, Peter Pan, Winnie the Pooh, Pirates of the Carribbean and The Haunted House rides.

We had lunch with the Pooh characters at Disney's Crystal Palace restaurant.

Brendan's first 3-D movie called Mickey's Philarmagic... actually, his first movie in a theater ever! He sat so well, and loved it! He kept his glasses on 75% of the time. He also saw other shows like The Little Mermaid and Playhouse Disney (which was his favorite!)

Getting in a power nap so he could stay up for the parade!

A picture from the parade. It was awesome!