Have kids. Will Fly--To Florida and back again--Pt 1

It all started with the Pink Pig.

Well, not really, but the Pink Pig really pitched in and helped.

Luke's parents announced last Christmas that they were planning on taking all of us to Disney World in Florida this summer.

All of us.

Luke's brother and his family and all 6 of us.

13 people on an airplane and visiting Disney World together.

7 of those 13 are 8 and under.

We began saving our pennies for things we would need to buy or souvenirs might want, so hence, we turned to the Pink Penny Pig.

Luke and I had planned on cashing in that Pink Penny Pig for our 10th wedding Anniversary this next year, but we figured that this was a worthy cause and cashed it in early.

I've had this Pink Penny Pig since I was about 10 and I've taken it to 2 different colleges and every different place we've moved.

Pennies have only gone in; never out.

Being the somewhat obsessive compulsive person that I can be, I never put anything in but pennies. I've wanted to see since I was about 10 how many pennies this thing could hold in dollar amount and I wasn't going to cash it until it was full.

Well, we decided that since we wanted to use it for this trip and since it was up to it's literal eyeballs in pennies, that we could cash it early.

I was a rather poor college student, so most of my money disappeared to college tuition, but pennies went in here.

A whole $126.oo worth once it was all counted and returned in a neat (and may I add disappointingly small) stack of bills.

My first thought was 20 years and only $126.oo dollars?

Then my dear and not-so-obsessive-compulsive husband pointed out, that if I'd allowed myself to put in all kinds of change instead of just pennies, I might have not only filled it a lot faster but had a lot more money.

Hmmmm, we're going to give it a try again and see how long it takes to fill and how much $.

Needless to say, it did pay for all the souvenirs we bought for the kids and ourselves.

Hurray!

Last Monday finally arrived after months and weeks of waiting . We left our corner of the world 6:30 Central Time with 7 very excited children in tow.


My sweet sister-in-law found these adorable little tops and shorts for her girls and matched them for the flight out.
My oldest has gotten to old for me to dictate what she can wear.
Only if she can absolutely match her cousins will she wear what we ask.
The kids did amazing waiting over an hour in one little spot in the airport for our flight.
Grandmama can take the credit for that one.
She had bought each child a new toy and they happily played while we waited to board our plane.


The kids were nervous and excited and a little stressed about flying, but awed by boarding the plane by an outdoor ramp.
I was just hot and a tad stressed trying to help keep track of 3 carry-ons, 2 backpacks, 2 strollers, 3 incredibly wiggly little boys, and 1 very excited 8 year old girl who was firing question after question at us.
Thank goodness they let us check the 3 car-seats!!


The book of choice on Nater Mater's flight---the airplane emergency flyer. Hmmmmm.....

The next morning dawned.......late. We didn't get everyone into bed until around 1am after the flight and then drive from the airport to the hotel.

But, by noon we made it to our destination with kids shrieking in their car seats behind us, "There it is! What does that say? There it is!!" Why are there so many other cars? Look daddy! Look mommy! Do you see the castle? LOOOOOOOOOOK!"

Just the drive into the park is about a mile or more!

Then we parked in the Daisy Duck lot and took bus/train looking thingy another mile into the park entrance.

My mother-in-law and sister-in-law either bought or bought and added decorations to T-shirts so we could match all the kids.

It made it a whole lot simpler to keep track of them in the massive crowds.

Actually, that wasn't the official entrance either.

That ride simply took us to the Monorail (the transportation to and from the entrance which is the ride I think they enjoyed the most).

It was then another mile to the entrance where you scanned or bought your entrance tickets!

I was so glad to have nearly 1 adult to every child.

The sheer number of people was overwhelming.

My sister in law brilliantly thought of or read about and made these little bead bracelets for each of the kids with their names and phone numbers on them if they got lost.

Now we get to enter the actual park!

I think this was one of the boy's favorite rides.

The Speedway.

It was loud.

It was a ton of cars.

And they got to drive all by themselves---fast for them---but in a lawn mower slow sort of way.

Papa was hilarious!

Precious Jewel loved driving for him because he kept hollering she was going to crash and kill him.

Another favorite was the Flying Dumbo ride.

The wait took forever (like an hour for a 3 minute ride), but the kids begged to go again once it was over.

We adults decided that standing in line for 2 hours was not worth 6 minutes of fun and took them to the Carousel instead.

They had all these fun parades that they did at different intervals of the day.

Nater Mater thought they were a tad to loud and was a bit intimidated by the huge larger-than-life characters, but was a trooper.

Other than plugging his ears and refusing to look at the camera, he did great!

Just to show you the sheer number of people.

We bowed out early from the Electrical Parade and Fireworks due to some exhausted little ones.

The kids were too tired to care.

The monorail was closed to exiting traffic, so we were directed to the ferry.

I honestly think that the rides they are going to remember the most are the transportation rides to and from the park.

And after a quick fast-food dinner and a dip in the pool once we returned to the hotel, we tucked everyone in bed early.

We had plans to get them up and hit the park early the next morning.

The Celebration Parade where everyone got to street dance at the end!

The kids loved it!