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Who: The Bishops--Becki (me)-32, DH Brad-30, DS Jonathan-6 (but turned 7 on July 1st), DS David-4; also, meeting us there, my DB Chris-29 and nephew Tommy-8
When: June 12-18, 2004
Day 1:
This was our travel day, so we got up fairly early to head out. Pixie dust was already working because I thought I would have to go into school (I'm an elementary media specialist) to put in some hours, but the day before when school finished for the summer, my principal told me to just document that I'd put in the hours elsewhere and I could not come in! YAY!! We didn't have to wait until after lunch.
Anyway, we loaded everyone up, DH dropped off a report at work, we dropped the dog off for boarding at the local vet, got Hardee's breakfast to go, and headed south from Henry County, VA. Along the way, I kept in touch with my brother who was traveling from the Fredericksburg, VA area. None of the boys knew that we were all going to meet, and my nephew didn't know he was coming to FL until the night before. It was a fairly uneventful trip. Thanks to those who recommended the DVD player with two screens from Wal-mart. We got one the week before the trip (had a tv/vcr combo that took up too much space), and it was wonderful! We stopped south of Columbia, SC for lunch and switched drivers (my turn). Of course, it decided to rain off and on through SC and GA while I was driving! Stopped at the FL welcome center, but we were a few minutes late, and it was closed. Took a potty break, though, and headed on to our hotel in Jacksonville.
We stayed at the Holiday Inn-Baymeadows (exit 341/old 100) off of I-95. We had a coupon from one of those hotel books you can pick up in restaurants, etc. We are also priority club members, so we got points for staying there. At check-in, I told them my brother would arrive soon, so she put us in rooms on the same floor. We went ahead and had dinner (kids eat free!) and then went back to the room. Chris and Tommy arrived and called. While he was talking to me, they knocked on our door. You should have heard the noise when the boys all realized what was going on! It made keeping it a secret very worthwhile. After Chris and Tommy ate, we all went for a swim and then off to bed so we could get an early start in the morning.
Day 2:
We got up fairly early, all had breakfast in the hotel restaurant, and we headed out. Chris and Tommy detoured to Daytona Beach for a little while, but we headed straight to WDW. We arrived at ASMovies before noon. I figured we'd have to wait to get our room, but after about a 5 minute wait in line, I was at check-in. The cast member helping me changed us to a room that was already ready (instead of the one the computer had us scheduled for), so we immediately got to get into our room! More pixie dust! Then to make it even better, we got the Buzz Lightyear building--talk about happy little boys :) Only downside was that we were on the 3rd floor, but our room was on the end by the parking lot. We all grabbed a few things and headed to our room. We absolutely loved it. It was just the right size for the 4 of us (especially since we didn't spend a lot of time there anyway). Jonathan was fascinated by the "popcorn box" light on the wall. While Brad unloaded everything else, the boys and I headed downstairs to visit Andy's room and take some pictures. We also explored the food court and gift shop and bought our souvenir mugs.
Since we had time before Chris arrived, and we had dinner PS at O'hana, we used our option to play a round of mini-golf at Winter Summerland. This was something we had planned to work into our week. We enjoyed the unique decor of the courses. We played winter first. The boys really liked the water-squirting snowman. Then we used a discount coupon from Birnbaum's and played the summer course. Some of the holes were a little frustrating for the boys, and David got tired toward the end, but overall we had fun.
Chris and Tommy arrived, checked in, and came over to our room. We drove to the Polynesian for our dinner. We thought we'd have a long wait, but about the time we decided to take the boys downstairs to explore, our pager went off. The food was delicious. We got recipes for the salad dressing and pineapple bread. The boys had a blast participating in the coconut races, too. Poor Tommy had to use the stick part of his broom, though, since he was 8 :( They were able to do the race two times while we were there. We also got to watch a rainstorm move through (6:30PM or so) and made a dash for the van in the rain when we finished. We made it back to Movies, Chris and Tommy went to Music, and we got everyone ready for bed. I also set up our wake-up call for the morning.
Part 1, 2, 3, 4
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