These Little Moments...

On Wednesday morning, we had breakfast at Chef Mickey's. This was a character meal featuring Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, Goofy, and Donald Duck! Ethan did much better with the characters this time. We had originally planned to head back to our resort after the meal to take it easy, let the kids nap, and spend our day at the pool. Once Gracie saw Cinderella's castle from the monorail, and then again from the windows during breakfast, we knew our plans had changed. It would have seemed cruel to allow her to get that close, and still make her wait another day to visit Disney's Magic Kingdom. (I absolutely adore her smile in this photo.) (This was our view during breakfast.)  After breakfast, we took the monorail to the Magic Kingdom, where we spent a good part of the afternoon. It was so exciting to finally be there! Ethan wanted to see "big Buzz" again, which worked out wonderfully since we found him! Ethan was su...

On Tuesday morning, we had breakfast at the Hollywood and Vine restaurant in Disney's Hollywood Studios. Disney Junior Play 'n Dine was our first "character dining" experience. Handy Manny, June from Little Einsteins, Jake the Neverland Pirate, and Special Agent Oso were all present to welcome the kids and treat them to musical entertainment during our meal. Ethan was scared to death. Jake, the friendly pirate, was the first to come out of nowhere. He startled Ethan and left him in tears. Minding his own business, eating his banana... Then,  BAM , some freaky pirate kid is standing over him. Poor Ethan. :)  Gracie's expressions are pretty funny, too. I think she's thinking if she uses her "ignore" tactic, he'll go away. No such luck. He kept coming back, I'm assuming to see if the kids had warmed up to him yet. Basically, Ethan was not a fan of the characters coming up to him, touching him, looking in his direction... We t...

A couple of weeks before our trip, we received an offer from Disney, an opportunity to be part of the testing phase of the very new Magic Bands and FastPass+ service. We agreed to try them out since they seemed fun and convenient. Each member of our family received a personalized wrist band in the mail. With the FastPass+ service, Sean easily chose specific rides or shows that we wanted to see using his iPad at the resort. We arrived at each location within our chosen time slot throughout the week, used our Magic Bands, and jumped ahead in line... I realize we got very lucky with this. It made life with two tired kids in the hot sun much, much easier. Our first FastPass ride was the Kilimanjaro Safari at Disney's Animal Kingdom. We boarded our safari vehicle for a tour of the Harambe Wildlife Reserve. One of the highlights was seeing a group of giraffes, which included a few babies. When we drove past them, I could have literally reached out my hand and touched the neck of an ...