April 30th, part 2

 

Back at the hotel that afternoon, we all put on swimsuits and headed down to the pool.

 

Becca loved the water and had a blast going up and down the "stair-steps" as she called them and splashing around with whoever would drag her through the "cool" - her word for "pool."

 

Anna enjoyed an opportunity to relax in the sun - something we haven't seen much of this year in Oregon.

After our swim we all fell alseep for a couple of hours and then headed back to Disney's Hollywood Studios to meet the family for dinner and then watch the fireworks show Fantasmic, which again proved too scarey for little Becca who just wasn't having a great time yet with these Disney creations.

Hollywood Studios, April 30th, 2011

 

On the 1st day of our 4-day pass, we all went to Hollywood Studios. We headed to the reputed best ride there first, Toy Story Mania. The wait was about 40 minutes and Becca for some reason was not at all happy about being in line. She must have had some bad memories from our visits to theme parks in previous years because she just didn't want to do the ride.

 

Abby and Anna weren't at all worried about it.

 

And even Max held up OK. But Becca hated the line and hated the ride. The rest of us thought it was pretty fun. We enjoyed shooting up the targets and spinning to the next area. Becca wanted nothing to do with any other rides after that. So we dragged her into the Little Mermaid show. She hated that too. Too dark and too much time spent on the Sea Witch. She wasn't very impressed with the whole theme park idea. All our kids voted to just head back to the hotel at that point and we finally gave in and did it.

Florida, April 29th, 2011

The Killpack family reunion for 2011 was a trip to Disney World in Orlando. We decided to try out the option of taking a red-eye and getting there with time to settle in before our first day of hitting the park. We put the kids to bed at 8pm then went in and woke them up at 11 to head to the airport for our 1am flight. The goal was for them to stay drowsy on the way and to fall back asleep in flight. It didn't happen. All three kids were too wired on the first flight to sleep much. And Kip and I couldn't get comfortable. The second flight, the kids may have slept a little. I was too tired to stay awake, so I'm not sure. In any case, by the time we reached Orlando, got in a line for a bus to the hotel, waited for our room to be ready and finally got inside, we were all exhausted.

 

We all took about 2 hours of a nap piled on top of the covers because it was just too much work to even pull them down.

 

When we woke up Chad, Angie, Abby, and Max had arrived from Ft Lauderdale and Grandma and Tasha had gotten there from Utah. We all got on another Disney bus and headed to Downtown Disney, ready for the fun to begin.

 

The kids begged me to let them ride the carousel. At $2 a piece, I didn't want to do it, but I folded. So they got one ride. But no more!