Day 3-Epcot

I need to finish up these Disney posts!  So on Day 3 we went to Epcot.  Laura was healthy enough to join us.  Here we are waiting for the monorail..we took it to most of the parks, it was awesome!

 

 We were a little late for our breakfast reservation so we had to run here!  It was the castle in "Norway" part of Epcot.

 

 

 There were a few princesses to meet here.  This is how Jackson felt when we tried to get him to stand by them.

 The other kids loved it though!

 We eventually got him to show them his muscles. :)

 The princesses did a little parade around the restaurant and the kids (except for Jackson) joined in.

 Jackson tolerated Ariel.

 But still no picture.  The other kids loved it though!  Especially our princess Elizabeth.

 For Snow White he showed his muscles again.  She was appropriately impressed :)

 It was Benny Boy's birthday so we celebrated his bday!

 Had to try to get a few pics of my boys!

 It was very hard to get them to stop and pose for me.  Jackson LOVED his ears and didn't want to leave without them.  Cooper wanted to leave his in the room though.

 All four kids in front of the classic Epcot ride! We actually rode it this trip and it was really fun, we all loved it!

 We went to get on the Nemo ride and to look at all of the aquariums.  They had dolphins swimming around-just beautiful!

 Everyone went on the Soaring ride so I stayed back with this cutie.  Think he liked his mickey ice cream bar?

 We checked out all of the countries in Epcot.  They were really fun and interesting!

 As we were walking around we happened to see some familiar characters! Jackson knew who they were so he was ok with meeting them!

 Then everyone went on another big ride (can't remember what it was) and I stayed with my mom and Jackson while we checked out China!  Made me really excited to see the real thing!

 Oh these crazy kids, they have such a fun time together!

We rode a bunch of rides and really enjoyed Epcot! 

Day 2-Hollywood Studios!

We headed to Hollywood Studios on our second day.  Poor Laura was sick (had strep most likely!) and couldn't go with us so now she'll know exactly what we did!

 

Cooper was SO brave and rode the Tower of Terror!  When we went last year he was terrified of it, and this year he was scared at first and then enjoyed it.  Here he is with cousin Elizabeth.

 

 We took the kids on the Starwars ride, it was awesome.

 Dad, Elizabeth, and Tom rode it too. 

 We went on the backlot tour, it was really amazing at this part.  They were showing us how they can make things catch on fire and then had all this water come falling down.  We were in this open truck/tour bus thing and the people closest to the water got a little wet.  I was sitting on the inside and I had all three boys sitting next to me.  My mom took pictures of how they reacted-they all immediately squished back against me leaning as far away from the water as they could-they were pretty scared. 

 We met some characters while we were there!  Jackson did NOT want to meet them, but the other kids did!

 Jackson however did want to meet Phineas and Ferb!

 However when we tried to take the pictures he refused. :)

 The favorite ride at Hollywood was the Woody ride!

 Jackson and I sat across from Cooper and Ryan so I could take a picture.  I admit..I love this ride too!

 All of the kids outside of the woody ride.

 When we arrived back at the hotel I had the  kids pose in front of the water, if you look VERY closely you can see the Cinderella castle peeking out in the background.

This is the kids' favorite thing about our hotel.  The mini table/chairs in front of the television!  It makes eating pretty easy for the parents too :)

First Day at Disney World!!!

My parents are the best and took our family (and Laura's family) to Disney World this year!  This year was the easiest year we've had there!  Jackson being 3 1/2 made it so much easier this year.  He didn't need to nap and we just made sure he got to bed at a good time so he was happy and well rested! :)

 

We met everyone at the airport and needless to say, the kids were excited!!

 

Here are all the kids getting ready to get on the airplane!

Jackson was so cute pulling his little suitcase.   :)

The boys did wonderfully on the airplane and then we took a bus ride to the hotel.  We sat in the back row and the boys were a little squirrely...

After we dropped our stuff at the hotel we immediately headed to Magic Kingdom!

 The teacups are one of our favorite rides!  This was the FAST teacup  (Elizabeth (my niece), Tom (my BIL, and Laura hopped in here too)

 This was one was pretty fast too, I rode in this one.  (Ben-my nephew, Cooper, and my dad) Jackson, Ryan, and my mom sat this ride out.

 One of the new Dumbo rides!!

 I look a little crazed..Jackson was totally flipping out and wouldn't ride on Dumbo!  I did get off, I didn't force him to ride.  Some days he was so willing to ride lots of rides, and some days he did NOT want to do the majority of the rides.  We just went with the flow! :)

 I just thought this photo was funny.  We went on one of our favorite rides at Magic Kingdom-the Buzz Lightyear ride.  See how into it Ryan is?

 There's Laura and my mom, then Ben and Cooper.  We rode on this ride, I don't know, maybe 10 times?  Maybe more?  Ben and Cooper had to ride together every single time. 

 Magic Kingdom at night!  We hurried over to get a place to watch the light parade.  It was beautiful!

We headed back to the hotel and got ready to get up bright and early for another park!

Guess What...

Just 1 day after I posted about our long awaited LOA, guess what happened???

 OUR LOA CAME!!!!

Thank you thank you for any prayers you said...the power of prayers is amazing! :)

Our agency overnighted some paperwork we need to complete the next step in the process, so I'm hoping we can overnight our next step on Monday!   The LOA is the big hurdle in this process so it's all downhill from here, yay!!!

I believe now our timeline is 2-3 months to travel, so I'm praying for the beginning of April...that's a longshot but can't hurt to hope!