On the day after Christmas (and a long park day at Busch Gardens) we stayed at the resort for the day. The bigs played pickleball before swimming, and the littles just swam all day:
After showering and dinner, we surprised the kids with some Christmas gifts! We had originally asked them if they would rather have gifts or a vacation for Christmas, and they chose a vacation unanimously. But then JP mentioned wanting an instant pot for his apartment, and Eamon needed a winter coat, and my mother's heart couldn't only buy two kids gifts...so one purchase led to another, multiply by seven and carry a one to make it all "fair" and we ended up with some presents for everyone. They really had no clue, so it was extra fun to give them gifts:
The following photos were taken by the kids mostly:
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| Maggie got something a little girly-personal which made us all laugh |
On Saturday, December 27th we headed over to Disney Springs to see the sights and spend way too much on M&Ms. Traditions! Disney Springs was soooooo busy on this day.
Phil took me out to lunch for a Christmas date, and the bigs kept the littles with them for that hour and a half - so nice!
We had to get a Ghirardelli hot fudge sundae to split to the tune of $19. We need to increase our prices at The Cottage ;)
We couldn't get into the Lego store because the line was way too long.
Aurora is one of my favorite princesses because of whom she married :)
We left Disney Springs and drove to Celebration, where we were going to the Vigil Mass at Corpus Christi at 4pm. We parked Vanna White at the church parking lot, then walked into town to see the cute stores.
When we walked back to the church, we were very happy to already have a parking spot and we grabbed a pew quick because that Mass was PACKED. I guess they have to add a second vigil mass from January - March for all the snowbirds.
On Sunday, we headed to our second park, and my personal favorite - AQUATICA! Discovery Cove is actually my favorite, but that is more of a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Aquatica is a huge outdoor waterpark with tons of rides and fast rapid rivers and wave pools. There is sand and lounge chairs everywhere, and it is a nice mix of chilling and thrilling. We had the dining plan here, and the food was pretty good with fast service. Shout out to the birria tacos.
On Monday, we had a - play at the resort/eat the food in the fridge/laundry and packing - day. The A/C in the house stopped working on this day, but they got a repair guy out pretty quick to fix it. We all went to bed at a decent time to start the long drive back to Maryland. We left at 5am, stopped at Buc-ee's again in SC for lunch, and drove all the way back to Phil's parent's house in MD by 8pm with just another quick stop at Chick-fil-a for dinner on the way. It was a long trip but everyone did so well in the car (young mamas, it gets easier!) and Phil is the master driver who drives every minute so that we can all be passenger princesses and princes.
We stayed in Maryland and saw family and friends for the next three days before driving back home on Saturday. The whole two-week trip was amazing and just what we all needed after all the hard work we've been putting in at school and our jobs and The Cottage. If you've read this far about our vacation, you are a rockstar! It will be back to regular boring programming from now on :)
What an epic adventure! But how did you hide the presents before the dy?
ReplyDeleteWe had the wrapped (or gift bagged) at home and then put them all in two big cardboard boxes in the van. Those boxes went straight to our bedroom at the rental home and the kids never questioned it! We left JP and Andrew's big gifts at home because we couldn't fit them (an instant pot and an airfryer), and just told them what it was while we were in Florida.
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