We recently got back from our winter getaway to Orlando, FL. We had an awesome time soaking up the sun, visiting with Mickey and Friends, playing with Grandma and Grandpa, riding rides with Great Grandma, Conquering Water Slide Fears, and building our first "Build-A-Dino by Build-A-Bear!" That is a lot of activities packed into a weeks worth of vacation. The boys were excellent, with the exception of our plane ride home where Luke's attitude left a lot to be desired....but in his defense it was a week without much of a schedule! Here are some pictures from our adventures!
We stayed at an awesome golf resort called Ginn Reunion. It's just 10 minutes from Disney and couldn't have been more perfect for us! We had a 2 bedroom villa that was very spacious and had lots of great amenities not only for Chris and I but for the children as well. Playgrounds though out the resort, several pools but one very exciting and very fun water park....Water shoots out from all different angles and you never know when that big bucket of water at the top is going to drop TONS of water all over you.
On our first day there Chris and I took the boys. They had a fun time swimming around and Logan had a blast going down the water slide on Chris' lap. While Chris was enjoying a round of golf on another day I took the boys to the water park myself. The boys entertained themselves in the water and no mention of the slides came up (I physically can't take 2 boys down the slide by myself not to mention that Luke didn't find the water slides fun). On the third day Logan kept looking up at the slides. I knew that he wanted to go down but I had no one to watch Luke so I couldn't take him myself. I would consider Logan a cautious kid. He takes a while to warm up to things and certainly I never imagined him conquering the water slide by himself. But that he did! He looked up at me and said, "Mommy, I do that all by myself." He climbed up a little ways but turned around and came back down. He did this 5 times (at one point the lifeguard came over to me and said, "I really thought he was going to do it that time!" On the 6Th attempt he told me, "I a big boy...I do this all by myself with NO HELP from you mom!" The 6Th time is the charm apparently. I saw that he was climbing higher and higher so I quickly scooped up Luke from the water, ran to my bag to get the camera and these are the pictures that I got of Logan conquering his first water slide - all by himself and with no help from mom! We were so proud of him but most importantly he was so proud of himself!
Water park. It sprays and dumps all kinds of water at you at any given moment
Look closely, that's Logan at the top climbing the ropes
And down he came!
He was so proud of himself. He hopped right up and proudly announced for the whole water park to hear, "I did it!, I did it!" This is him pleading with me to let him do it again! "I go again, please!" My little boy who is almost 3 went about 5 more times right in a row!
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Gotta love the static
Our resort had playgrounds throughout - this one just happened to be right outside of our Villa.
Gotta love the static
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Downtown Disney recently opened up a new restaurant named T-Rex. This is by the same people who opened up Rainforest Cafe. The food is similar and the atmosphere is awesome. The boys are loving dinosaurs and play with their figurines often as well as just pretending they are dinosaurs themselves. When I heard of this opening up this past fall when we were in Florida I knew that next time we visited we would have to bring the boys there. They loved it! Not only did we enjoy a great meal surrounded by very big and very loud Dino's but the boys enjoyed "building" a dinosaur themselves.
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Build-A-Dino by Build-A-Bear located inside T-Rex
This is the boys first "build-a" experience. They loved it and continue to drag their dinosaurs all over the house.
Build-A-Dino by Build-A-Bear located inside T-Rex
This is the boys first "build-a" experience. They loved it and continue to drag their dinosaurs all over the house.
Here the boys are picking out their heart which gets placed into their Dino
Placing the hearts in the dino after giving them a kiss
Logan is watching the worker sew his dino up as Luke is giving his completed dino a great big kiss!
Hugs all around...they LOVE their dinosaurs!
"Thank You Dad!"
This was our last night spent with Grandma and Grandpa Esbenshade. It was so nice that we were able to meet up in such as fun place like Orlando. We enjoyed Magic Kingdom together, the men did some bonding while golfing, us ladies and little boys got some shopping in and we enjoyed nightly dinners, some together and some separate while Chris' parents watched our boys. Chris and I, as well as the boys, enjoyed spending time with them. The boys especially loved Grandma's "Mary Poppins Goodie Bag!"
