Disney World - Part 1

Photobucket is still importing pictures, so here is the first bit of what we did:
We had a FABULOUS time in Florida! We left on Friday, September 25. First of all, we woke up around 3 a.m. to catch our 6 a.m. flight out of Salt Lake. This was Boston's first airplane ride and I thought he might be a little scared. But, he wasn't, he feel asleep while the plane was taxi-ing to the runway, and he stayed asleep for the first hour or so. I discovered on this flight, that although the airplane bathrooms are VERY small, they still have a baby changer. We landed in Dallas a couple hours later, and only had like an hour lay over, so we were back in the air before too long. We made it to Tampa around 2 p.m. their time, picked up our HUGE 12-passenger van, and started the hour drive to Orlando. We stopped by Wendy's for some lunch, checked into our Orlando hotel, and headed out for Epcot. The first thing to hit me was the HUMIDITY! I knew it was going to be humid, but I was not expecting it to be SOOO bad! It was also still very hot! It was like 95 degrees and 100% humidity! And that was just evening time. I wasn't sure how I was going to make it through a whole week of Disney World in this kind of weather. I decided to not care how my hair looked and just wear a ponytail the whole week - that helped a little. Boston's first ride at Disney World was Journey Into Imagination. It has this little dragon "Figment" that comes around throughout the ride and "messes things up". Boston kept laughing whenever he would appear - it was too funny. So, we were able to ride quite a few rides that evening and then we watched the fireworks show. It was awesome.
Saturday morning, we checked out of our hotel (because we were checking into our condo later that day), so we had all our luggage in the van while we went to Magic Kingdom. We wanted to make it a point to ride all the "kiddy rides" for Boston, while it was just the three of us. He loved the rides, he just didn't like waiting in line. The lines really weren't that bad. I think the longest we waited the whole trip was like 20 minutes, and that was only like once a day. Most of the lines we were through in about 5-10 minutes. But, Zariph knows how to work the system with the Fast Passes. Anyway, we were only at Magic Kingdom for half the day (which was fine with me because I was getting a little overheated), because we needed to go to the airport and pick up the rest of the family. We picked up Zariph's parents and Teliece from the Tampa airport, did some grocery shopping, checked into our condo, then Zariph went to pick up Misty and her family from the Orlando airport while I stayed back and got some things ready for our SURPRISES that night.
We wanted to have like a big vacation kick-off party once everyone got there. I made dinner for everyone - BBQ chicken, baked beans, salad, and biscuits. It turned out okay, but was a little stressful because I didn't have all the right pans. Anyway, once everyone got there we ate and first gave Destiny her birthday present. Then we had presents for all the adults. Zariph and I had made everyone "matching" t-shirts. We picked a character that we thought each person liked and put that on their shirt on the front. Then we photoshoped a big picture of everyone's characters on the back. We used the iron-on transfer paper that you just put through the printer and ordered pastel colored t-shirts off the internet. We made everyone two shirts, because I wasn't sure exactly on what sizes to get. Anyway, we gave them to the adults first and the kids kind of just sat there like "I want that, too". Then we told the kids that we got them all some pins. Disney does this pin trading and we got a bunch of cheap Disney pins from ebay so we could trade them out. So we explained the rules of pin trading and then gave the kids each 10 pins and a lanyard. We gave Miranda both the pins and t-shirts, we said we didn't know if she was a kid or an adult so we gave her both. And people thought she was pretty lucky to get both. Then Zariph asked if the kids wanted t-shirts too and they were like "Ya". So then we brought out their shirts. And then he asked the adults if they wanted pins, too and they were like "Ya" so we brought out all the pins for the adults. For the kids, we had them in a little competition to see who could get the most of their character. But, the adults can just trade to get whatever they wanted to. It was a good night. Everyone was totally surprised, and it was fun because when they thought we were done giving out gifts, we brought out more.
Sunday morning, I had to drive Roy and Zariph to Epcot earlier than the rest of the group. We told Roy that we had early passes for just the two of them to get in early, but actually they were going on a Segway tour of the World Showcase. Unfortunately, Roy didn't know to bring his admission ticket, so we had to go back to the condo and get it. Luckily, they had another group going out an hour later and they just hopped in on that group. Then I went back and picked up the rest of the group. Everything went really smoothly. I got the fast passes we needed and we rode the rides exactly like the schedule that Zariph and I had rehearsed several times - I know that may sound weird, but it works. It was, again, another hot day. When we rode Test Track (an indoor and outdoor ride), it had started to rain while we were waiting inside (we didn't know). So we were riding along and when it started for the fast outdoor part, we started screeming, not because of the speed, but because we were getting sprayed with little fast water pellets! We stayed in the front part of the park until 2, when we went back to Italy for lunch. Then we roamed around the World Showcase and saw a few performances and shows. It was awesome. Then that night we watched the fireworks show (again, for Zariph, Boston, and me).
Monday we went to Universal Studios. They have two parks in Florida. One is set up more about the movies (similar to the Hollywood Universal Studios), and the other park is all about roller coasters. We went to both parks in just one day. I thought it would be too much for one day, but it really wasn't. The weather was hot, but not as humid, it was starting to feel a little better. My favorite rides of the day were the Spiderman ride - it's a 3D ride, where you're in a vehicle flying, and like the villans jump on your car, it was pretty cool. My other favorite was the huge roller coaster. It goes straight up to begin with, then straight down. It's awesome because you can choose your own music. Each person sits in this comforable chair and the speaker system comes down around you, so everyone can hear their own music. Then after, we saw that they took video of you during the ride, so we watched our video. It was hilarious, I probably should have bought it, it was way funny watching yourself scream, not knowing that I was being video tapped.
Tuesday, we went to the Disney water parks. First, to Typhoon Lagoon, then Blizzard Beach. They were lots of fun. I really enjoyed spending some relaxing time with Boston. I mostly, stayed and played with him in the kiddy area. But we did ride this way fun family raft - which Boston could go on. He even was tall enough to ride the ski lift up to the top. He had to be 32". And he was even a little over the measuring stick - standing in bare feet. I was kind of surprised he was actually tall enough. At Typhoon Lagoon, there is a pool that you swim across that has little sharks in the bottom. I was a little scared of this, but tried to talk myself into it. You get snorkel gear and everything, but when I actually put my face in the water I couldn't calm myself down enough to do it. Anyway, we still had a good time.
Well, that's all for now. I didn't proofread this at all, so hopefully there aren't too many typos!