Our Disney Days

This post has been a long time coming and was a long time in the making. I started it last Friday and finally finished today. Not gonna deny that I was a little overwhelmed about putting it all into one concise, yet picture-filled, post. Please keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times, cause here we go!

We drove down Friday afternoon. Eli was beyond excited.

After checking in at the hotel, we hopped on the bus, (which was a thrill in itself for Eli) and went to Downtown Disney for dinner and some shopping. While waiting for our name to be called at the T-Rex Cafe,

we just had to check out the Lego Imagination Center. Eli quickly found some blocks and started building....

and who could resist the WALL-O-LEGOS?!?!?

Literally, every shape, size, and color Lego piece imaginable on a huge wall. Eli couldn't help but want to stick his hand into each one and feel them all. You can guarantee that we didn't leave empty handed.

As we waited the final minutes for our table to be ready, Eli dug for dinosaur bones.

We thought Eli would LOVE eating here, but it was a big mistake. Turns out, our little sensory sensitive boy was a little too overwhelmed and scared of the dinosaurs. He had to sit as far away from them as possible, and even then he barely ate a thing.

While walking around looking at all the dinos, Eli would tell me, "Keep going, Mommy. They are too scary." I can't help but feel a little guilty for doing that to the little man. Who knew?

The next day was our day at the Magic Kingdom. We were all super duper excited and managed to get there a little before the park opened. We didn't know that they do a song and dance show to open the show. We got to see the characters come in on the train and open the park. What a treat!

Again, our little man was just a wee bit overwhelmed by it all. We knew he would be, but he warmed up quickly and had a blast all day long.

Eli truly was an angel all day long, and despite being up way past his bedtime, he managed to stay melt-down free all day. Yippee!

We slept in a little bit later on Sunday, but Eli was still too excited to sleep too late. Off we went to the Animal Kingdom for another day of fun. Our first stop was right outside the gate for some coffee and some hugs from Rafiki

and Timon.

Eli hasn't seen The Lion King yet because it is a little too scary at times, but he was ALL about Timon. So cute!

Animal Kingdom was a hit, but definitely didn't take as much time as the Magic Kingdom, so after Eli's nap (which we had to wake him up from each day so that he didn't sleep through dinner!), we decided to have a quick swim,

and then head back to Downtown Disney for dinner and fun.

Eli is quite the photographer these days!

Did you know that a 3-day pass from Disney is cheaper than 2 1-day passes? So, you know we just had to get the 3-day passes. Initially, we figured we would just skip Monday and not use the 3rd day, but as the time got closer we decided to head to Epcot for the morning and take in a few rides and shows.

Animal Kingdom put on an AMAZING Finding Nemo musical that we loved, so we just knew we had to do the Nemo ride and talk with Crush while at Epcot. Eli was having a low key morning, but he really perked up and got into the Nemo ride. After seeing Nemo and Crush, we got Eli his long sought after and desired Mickey Mouse ice cream. He'd been asking for one all weekend long. His patience paid off.

We got a kick out of watching him enjoy it. He was hilarious....he and I both ended up with it everywhere as it fell off the stick. Daddy saved the day with napkins, a spoon, and a paper dish.

After that, we did a quick walk around the countries only stopping for a couple of rides in Mexico and Norway, an awesome drum show in Japan, and can you guess which country we had lunch in?

A highlight of the day was the brief line that got us in to see 5!!! characters.

And finally, after being sure to stop by the "big golf ball" one more time (forgot to mention how smitten Eli was with the Epcot ball...he loved going inside it!), we made our way back onto the bus one last time to get back to our car at the hotel. We hit the road, and shortly after leaving Disney property, Eli was zonked until we woke him up for a quick dinner stop.

It was a whirlwind, jam-packed weekend full of fun, adventure, imagination, and excitement. Eli loved it and was sad when he realized it was over. We look forward to taking him back....maybe in a couple of years!