Our last day in Florida

Saturday was our last day in Walt Disney World! We packed up the car and drove to Disney Hollywood Studios to use up our last park ticket. It was cold and windy, but most of the rain had stopped. We got to see Beauty and the Beast, and got to ride Rockin' Roller Coaster and Tower of Terror again--we even got Jessica on it!! We were hoping to ride the Toy Story ride again, but the line was too long and the fast passes were too late, so we did the Back Lot Tour instead. It was not a good day for that--it involved getting WET, and we'd had enough of that the day before. We huddled together the best we could and avoided most of the water. One fun thing that day that we hadn't seen before was little skits on the streets of Hollywood. They were really into their characters, and so funny.

The "washed-up actress" next to Mikayla said her name was Tootsie, like Tootsie Roll, 'cause she was brown, round, and sweet.

And then it was time to head for home!

We spent the night in Pensacola, at a little hotel we just found using our GPS, and we got a great price and a free upgrade to the penthouse suite, which was a 2-story room, with 2 bathrooms and 2 TVs, a full kitchen, a queen bed, hide-away bed, and Murphy bed. The girls thought they were in high cotton, as my Mom would say! We had a hot breakfast the next morning and then made it home sweet home, and back to the real world.

Magic Kingdom on Mikayla's birthday!

On Friday of our vacation, we woke Mikayla up and spanked her. Birthday spankings, of course! We also gave her the present Rebecca had got her at a gift shop earlier in the week, but she had to wait until we got home for the rest of her presents.

It was cloudy when we first got to the Magic Kingdom, and we headed straight for Cinderella's castle--Mike had told Mikayla and Rebecca they could go to Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boutique!! That's a shop in the castle where little girls get pampered like princesses.

We offered it to Jessica, too, but she decided to get a sweatshirt instead (they were about the same price).
They got to choose how they wanted their hair ...
(Notice Mike's rain poncho...this was our rainiest day of the trip.)

nails...


and make-up.
I liked the "magic mirror" they used to protect the girls from hairspray.

Everyone was excited when Cinderella's fairy godmother popped in for a visit!

And look who changed her mind! When Jessica saw how much fun the other two were having, she asked if she could take her sweatshirt back and join in. I was glad she did.

Mikayla was done first. She chose hair like Ariels's, and was given a special birthday princess sash. This is when they first let her look in the mirror.

Look at the back...there were Mickey heads in it.
And those are bejeweled Mickey bobbie pins in front.

I enjoyed watching Mike watch the girls.
He asked Mikayla's fairy-godmother-in-training if she could do anything with his hair, and she said, "Of course! I have fairy dust. In fact, I'll let Mikayla do it!" So she had him kneel in front of her and "make a wish." Then Mikayla waved the magic wand and put fairy dust all over Daddy's head! He was veeeerrry sparkly that day. Everyone was but me!

Rebecca and Jessica chose the classic fairy-tale princess look.

Here's Rebecca seeing herself in the mirror--


And here's Jessica seeing herself in the mirror.
She and Rebecca had blingy Mickey head barettes in the back, and they were told that if you turn it upside-down, it's Cinderella's coach.


Their face jewelry was pretty cool, too.


My lovely princesses! What a shame that we had to go out in the rain and cover everything up. :/

While they were getting all dolled up, the step-mother and step-sisters were outside the castle. They were hilarious!! A baby started crying, so they all burst out crying too. Mike told them they were his favorites, and they said, "We know!"

When we left the Boutique, it was just drizzling a little, so we were able to ride a few rides before the monsoon hit!

OH, it poured and poured. And we stayed anyway. We had rain ponchos and bought a huge golf umbrella (I've been wanting one for a while), but we were still all soaked from the knee down. We managed to find some rides and shows that were inside. We rode Space Mountain again, and even got Jessica and Rebecca on it. But you should have seen us go through the Swiss Family Robinson treehouse! It was hilarious!! And some of the shows were awful. Especially Stitch's Great Escape. Ugh.

We were all glad when we could finally leave for Disney Hollywood Studios, to eat at the 50's Prime Time Cafe.

This was perhaps my favorite time of the day. The restaurant was decorated like a bunch of living rooms, with TVs in each area. Our waitress welcomed us "home," and said to call her Mom. The food was good home cookin' (I got fried chicken). When she saw Mikayla's birthday button she got a card and had everyone in our sitting area sign it!! Called us their cousins. Once I was talking to my Mom on my cell phone and she walked by and fussed at me, saying, "No walkie-talkies at the table!" When she was clearing the table and I still had a few green beans on my plate she took my fork and had everyone make airplane noises while she fed them to me. Then she took Mikayla's plate without saying anything, and when I said, "Hey, she didn't eat all her food!" she said, "Ooh, we got a tattle-tale! Everybody point 2 fingers at her and say 'Tattle-tale, tattle-tale, shame on you!'" It was hilarious. Later I got in trouble for having my elbows on the table. It was a lot of fun.
But it sure felt good to go back to the room and put dry clothes on!
(I just figured out how to use the pictures WDW took! Most of them are the same as my own, but look at this one taken on Epcot's Fast Track Ride--I love Jessica's face!!)

Animal Kingdom

On Thursday we went to Animal Studios. We were met just past the gate with a castmember teaching the kids about poop! She had them guess what kind of poop she had in her hands, and then let them touch it. It was lovely. (And shellacked--she said it was probably cleaner than the railings in the park) Another castmember showed them horns and antlers. Can you tell it was another chilly day? We went to Dinoland first, and rode Dinosaur and Triceratop Spin. We wanted to ride Primeval Whirl, too, but they weren't doing fastpasses and the line was already 40 minutes, so we skipped it. We were on our way to Expedition Everest (a FUN roller coaster-type ride that felt very realistic with our teeth chattering) when we saw Finding Nemo--the Musical was starting, so we watched it and loved it! Then we just made it into Flights of Wonder, the bird show, and that was really good, too. The birds would fly right over our heads! Then we ate lunch at Yak and Yeti, which was pretty good Chinese noodle-type food, and where I got pooped on by non-exotic, Florida pesty birds. It was quite a poopy day. Then we saw Devine, and she was amazing!

 We also found some more drums to play.

Then we took the safari ride, and saw lots of animals and heard some corny jokes.
After the safari Mike, Jessica, and Rebecca made it into "Festival of the Lion King," but Mikayla and I made a potty stop and were like a minute late, and they wouldn't let us in. So we met some more characters like Rafiki...

Mikayla was most excited to meet Minnie Mouse, and Minnie Mouse was excited to see all the Minnie Mouse stuff Mikayla was wearing!

Thumper was cute. We even talked to Mickey again.

Then we all headed into the Tree of Life and saw "It's Tough to Be a Bug." It was a little creepy--at one point we felt cockroaches crawling under us! Ewww!

Then we rushed over to Epcot to eat supper in Germany.
It took us a long time to get there because they had the middle of the park blocked off with security, and we had to go way around. I finally found out why: Nick Jonas was giving a private concert!!!!! They piped it throughout the park. My girls were swooning. I like the German restaurant in Fort Worth better. I've never found one I like as well as that one! We stuck around that night to watch "IllumiNations," their fireworks show. We spent more time in countries we hurried through before, and Jessica and I got croissants and hot chocolate in France. Happy sigh. The show was good, but I liked Wishes and Fantasmic better.