"Girls, We're Going to Disney!...(And a Supercross Race.)"

So, for those who don't know, Ben loves motocross, aka dirt bike racing.  He's hoping he can make some part of it a job after football, be it, marketing, agent, sponsorship, promotion, sales.  I think he'd pretty much do whatever to just be involved.  He loves it and the girls and I are learning a lot about it.  Anyway, he also, for those who don't know, has had this dream of renting an RV and travelling as a family.  I mean for a few years now, this is all he has been talking about, but the ages of the girls just seemed, let's say, not pleasurable for RV'ing.  But now, they're at a much better age to handle it, or should I say, for us to handle it.  So, we decide we'll RV to the Daytona supercross race, stay on the in-field and have a great time bonding as a family.  Then we find out, it's the same day as the start of bike week in Daytona.  Probably not the most appropriate place for family vacationing, but we figure, "it's just the beginning of the week and we're staying at the track, so we should be fine."  Then Ben comes up with the idea of taking the girls to Disney for a day.  It was just a couple hours away from Daytona, so we decided to make our girls dreams come true!  Disney World to meet Ariel and Minnie Mouse!  We wrapped up t-shirts and pjs and told them that when they opened them, that would let them know where we were going.  They went bananas!  Whitney especially.  She figured it out immediately. She had been asking to go for a few months, but we had been telling her we had to wait until Lindsey got bigger so she could ride the rides. And it was so sweet, when Whitney figured out where we were going, she was excited, but then quickly said, "But mommy, we have to wait until Lindsey is big enough." She was so sweet thinking about her baby sister, so loving.  Lindsey was screaming because her sister was screaming.  I think she was just excited because she got a new Minnie Mouse shirt.  Then we explained to them about how we were going in an RV and that it was like a house on wheels.  Now that I think about it, they may have been a little confused considering they live in a house with wheels...hmmm....Anyway, they were super excited about the RV.  No car seats and lying in bed to watch tv the whole trip!  And on their way to Disney!  Yahoo!

And my husband, well, he was absolutely beside himself.  His RV'ing excursion was about to come to fruition.

Oh, geesh...

Whitney with Mike the Mouse (her class "pet" that got to come with us)

Making daddy happy to see his girls about to load up in the RV

And so, we were off for a fun filled family weekend in the that, there, RV.  We were excited.  The girls were on overdrive.  And I had a happy hubby in the drivers seat.  Then it happened.  Traffic.  Atlanta traffic.  Slowed us down big time.  But, hey, no biggie.  We finally made it south of town and found open road.  Arrival time into Disney's Fort Wilderness, around mid-night.  And then it happened.  "Mama, the TV just went out!"  I went to the back and tried to restart the movie, nothing.  Then we realized certain lights were out and the battery light on the dash was on.  Not good.  We exited, Ben made some phone calls, the TV and lights came back on. Problem solved.  We take off towards the highway on ramp, get stopped at an intersection, get the green light, and nothing...Ben was pedal to the floor and nothing.  Thankfully, and I know this was the Lord totally looking out for us, I spotted a Walmart just to the right, so I yell "Walmart!" and point with an outstretched arm, like it's the best thing I've ever seen in my entire life and we somehow manage to creep into the parking lot safely.  Now what.  My poor hubby...His fun filled adventure, now in jeopardy in Forsyth, GA.  There were several phone calls to and from the owner and then a decision that he was going to come meet us and replace all four batteries and hopefully that was the issue.  Hopefully.  We were "only" two hours away from him.  In the mean time, we decided to let ol' Wally World entertain us.  We wandered around looking at stuff, bought a watch, played with toys in every toy aisle, emptied the change from my wallet in the coin spinner thing, and got some dinner, Subway.  All this not too soon before Lindsey decided to put her hand on the hot plate at the Walmart fresh food counter.  Three little fingers, bubbled up. But, at least we were at Walmart.  We just walked right over and bought some Hello Kitty band aids and cream and fixed her right up.

Playing in Walmart

The owner arrived around 10 pm, he and Ben swapped out the batteries and we did a few hot laps around the Walmart parking lot.  It had to be the strangest thing to see, this big RV flying around the parking lot, however, one must remember it is a Walmart parking lot.  And as the night went on, we were not the only RV there, just the only one doing hot laps.  We got back on the road at 11 pm, got the girls tucked into bed and Ben pounded a couple of Red Bull's to push through the night.  New arrival time: 5:30 am.

All snuggled in

The girls slept, I'm not sure how well they slept, bobbing around all over the place, but they slept none the less.  I laid down on the couch, tried to sleep and probably did get an hour or so.  But I'm a very restless sleeper to begin with so it really wasn't the best sleeping environment for me.  And I wanted to keep checking in on Ben.  I was official snack and Red Bull distributor lady.  He was a trooper.  Not once complained.  He was determined to get his girls to Disney as planned!  Such a good daddy!  We rolled in to Fort Wilderness around 5:30 am and by the time we got "plugged in" it was 6 am when we both officially turned in for the "night".  We got about an hour of  sleep when Whitney came in asking when we were going to Disney World.  Then Linds woke up.  I managed to hold them off for an hour or so.  Daddy came out around 8:30.  We slowly got ready.  And had to make a quick stop at CVS for make-up.  Somehow I had forgotten it.  I make it sound like it was an easy thing to do, it, of course, was not.  In hindsight it all makes perfect sense, because even though we were in good spirits, pretty much nothing had gone smoothly up until this point.

Whit waiting for daddy to wake up 

And reading up on the Disney guide

But now the time had come, we were off.  We took a boat from Fort Wilderness to Magic Kingdom.  The main goal of the day was to meet Ariel and Minnie Mouse and because we had limited time Whitney chose to focus on meeting characters instead of riding rides.  And thankfully, we were able to do a lot of both.

Boating over to Magic Kingdom

Oh, the memories

The sun was directly in our faces

First ride, Aladdin's Flying Carpet

Then Pirates of the Caribbean.  Not too much fun for them.  Poor Lindsey is really processing all this darkness.

We had lunch while we waited in line for Ariel.  I looked down and saw Lindsey doing this...just like her daddy does.

The moment.  I love this.  Just staring.

All smiles

We took a break to pout a little

And finally decided to cooperate :)

Rode several rides in between and then got to meet Mickey and Minnie!  So excited!

Yay!

Then off to meet the other princesses.  They were all so sweet, talked with the girls, hugged on them.  They LOVED it!  Silly daddy even snuck in a picture!

Then it was time for some crying and pouting.  Look at those sweet little fingers all bandaged up.  Sweet girl.

Then we tackled more rides, tried to pull the sword from the stone and ate dinner while we waited for the fireworks and light parade.  By far our favorite part of the day.  Whitney would just wave her little hand off and scream as loud as she could at the characters going by.  Somehow they would see her and wave or blow her kisses and she was in heaven.  She'd look up at us with the biggest smile on her face.

And after it all, she couldn't even make it to the boat ride back to the RV before her little eyes closed.  I don't know how we survived the day.  Ben especially, on only two hours of sleep.

We had an absolutely great day with our girls. We loved seeing the excitement on their faces.  The day, uh, well, the trip hadn't gone exactly how we had planned it, but it didn't matter.  The girls didn't know we weren't "on schedule" and they didn't know they didn't ride every ride or meet every character.  They had fun and we made memories.  We're not sure how much they'll ever remember, Lindsey probably none, but Ben and I will have them always and treasure them forever.  So thankful for memories.  Now onto the next leg of the trip...Daytona.