Christmas in Florida

We left on Christmas Eve to drive all night to Orlando. One thing we learned is that the only thing open on Christmas Day is the Waffle House. Matt really didn't want to eat at the Waffle House, so from 7:00am-10:30am, we drove through each town looking for even a McDonald's or Wal Mart open. This picture is at the Waffle House. It was super crowded, but the cooks thought Charlotte was cute, so gave the kids official Waffle House hats.


The first day we went to Magic Kingdom. There was one point where I literally couldn't walk because it was so crowded, so this is me holding up my camera and snapping this shot of the crowd.


This is Charly donning a Micky Mouse hat from the Pirates of the Carribean ride.


Charlotte was a trooper during this entire trip. In fact, we called her our "golden ticket" because she enabled us to get rider swap passes on rides she wasn't able to ride on. This was like a fast pass for three people with no specific return time. This was especially valuable because on some rides, the fast passes would run out for the day by 9-10am or you would get it early in the morning, but the return time wouldn't be until 8:00pm. So she helped us out!

In Animal Kingdom. This was a rainy day, and on the Safari Jeep ride, it started to seriously downpour. The animals, especially the elephants, started playing in the rain which was so great. We saw an elephant go completely under water and then stick it's snout out to spit water. What a treat!...Until we got off the ride and entered into the downpour without ponchos or umbrellas :(.


This was Jedi Training at Hollywood Studios. This was a highlight for Sydney, Nathan, and Spencer. They have this at Disneyland, but you have to get a reserved time at Disney World. Then all of the kids can participate. They thought it was awesome to be able to fight Darth Vader and Darth Maul. The Jedi Trainer was so awesome and funny...we loved him! In this picture, Spencer is on the very right.


This is Sydney and Nathan being trained. Sydney isn't a huge Star Wars buff like the boys, but had fun doing this also.


In the middle of the week, we took a Disney break and drove to Cocoa Beach and met my mom, brother Mike, and his friend Becky there. The kids LOVED to play in the waves and sand even though it was cold. They would have stayed there all day if we would have let them.

Sydney and Matt.
Sydney and Nathan loved playing in the waves. I was hesitant at first because they aren't super strong swimmers, but the waves were pretty mild.



This is what Spencer did the entire time at the beach...played in the sand. He had sand everywhere by the time we went home.



This was in the Canada section at Epcot. We usually love Epcot, but it was too crowded for us this day. We did have fun though.



This was in front of the lake at Epcot. The weather was nice and the crowds were thick. The kids liked going from country to country getting their paper Duffy bears stamped and written on in different languages.


This was taken just as we were loading up the van to drive home. We drove home New Year's Eve. We thought of our fun times that week and wished we could have joined you all for your celebrations on New Year's Eve. We imagined banging pans from our car.