Our last night was at the Magic Kingdom. We had dinner at Tony’s Town Square (the Lady and the Tramp restaurant), and Owen ate more calamari than you could ever imagine (we actually ordered him a second order after he devoured the entire first one in about 3 minutes flat). After dinner we watched the Electric Light Parade from the front porch of the restaurant, then found the perfect spot to watch the castle light show and the fireworks. The boys rode Space Mountain once more, and then we stayed until the park closed (9pm), riding Big Thunder Mountain over and over until they officially shut it down for the night. As we were walking out of the Magic Kingdom we had one last chocolate-covered-Mickey-ice-cream-on-a-stick.
It was a great time.
But here’s the best part: by the end, we were ready to go home. The end is always bitter-sweet. This trip seemed especially so. It was especially bitter for it to end (it was so so so much fun and a dream come true and just such pure pleasure!), but it was especially sweet too (we are in such a good place in our lives right now, and were so happy to be coming home to our “real life”).
The next morning we set the alarm clock so we could get up early to fit in one last swim. We were the only people in the pool at 7am on a very brisk, beautiful, early February, Florida morning!
We quickly packed up, had our last Disney breakfast, and headed for the airport. All of that day felt like part of the Disney trip. It didn’t feel like a sad “ending” day, it felt like another adventure day.
Our kids have the travel bug real bad. It is all our fault– Braydon and I know that. There is truly nothing that Kyle and Owen love more than traveling. And there is nothing that Meera loves more than vacation (or, in her words, “when we don’t have to go to school and Mommy and Papi don’t have to go to work and there are no babysitters and we’re hanging out with just our family”). For the bambinos, an airplane ride is just as awesome (if not more so) than Big Thunder Mountain, Everest, or any other Disney ride (which is saying a whole heck of a lot).
We could not change our original flight home. For those who have been reading along (GOD LOVE YA!), you might remember that our original flight to Orlando had been cancelled and we drove to Newark to catch a different flight. The upshot of this was that our car was parked at the Newark airport, but we were flying into the Lehigh Valley airport on our return flight. You might also recall that I noted how Braydon has, in recent years, become The Master of Trouble Shooting. He had the whole thing figured out before we left Florida– he had made reservations with an airport shuttle service to pick us up and drive us home. Because we are five people, with lots of luggage (we do not pack light!), he had asked for a van. Well… apparently a van was not available at the time of our arrival, so they sent a… LIMOUSINE… instead. (!!!)
So, our trip ended on a very, very, very high note!— with the bambinos getting their first limo ride! Never ever a dull moment with us. Never ever.
So the end was not that bad. The post-vacation re-entry blues set in big time the next day, but that is just to be expected when you come home from a trip like that to the dead of winter and a whole half-a-school-year/full-semester ahead of you and a snowstorm brewing. But you know what? It sounds so corny, but it is so true: we have a whole bunch of memories to last a lifetime. Hopefully these posts will help remind us of just how much fun we had that time we went to Disney when they were 8 and 4.