Florida Trip-Day 1

Rainforest Cafe-Night 1

Mali loved her experience

Eleri was in awe of the thunderstorm

Girls and a giraffe

Jacuzzi bubble bath

Bedtime in a big girl bed

I had so many different pictures that I decided to break my posts up into different days and experiences. December 18th we took a family trip/Mali's birthday trip to Orlando, FL. After a late night of the girls being with a babysitter while Eric and I went to my work Christmas partym we woke up at 5:30am to head to the airport. Eleri actually woke up crying about then and Mali awoke in excitement ready for her trip. The flights went well and the girls did pretty good on the way down there. Eleri slept for two of the flights on her daddy. Besides Mali crying when we landed because her ears hurt, they really did good. The girls also got to take a picture with Santa Claus during our layover at Love Field in Dallas. When we arrived in Orlando, it was a little crazy getting to our rental car with all of our stuff. I had booked the cheapest rental car possible and of course they added on tons of fees. I was a little unhappy, a little stressed, Mali had to go potty and it started raining. We finally got out of there in our very roomy Nissan Maxima. Our first stop was the Wyndham Welcome Center. Our trip was mostly paid for because we had been invited to a Wyndham Time share presentation which included three free nights of lodging and a $75 American Express gift card (read: meals). I checked us in and got a less than favorable time slot for our "presentation" the next day. While I was doing that, Eric made dinner reservations for us in Downtown Disney at the Rainforest Cafe at 7:45pm. We checked in at our hotel, which was really nice and about 2 miles from the Disney World area and then left about an hour before our reservations. The drive was tense and crazy. Traffic was bumper to bumper pretty much all to enter the Downtown Disney Area. Once we finally got there, parking was another experience and it was packed and we were tired. We finally made it to the Rainforest Cafe with about 5 minutes to spare until our reservation. However, while we were waiting a family of 9 came up and asked if they could still get in even though they had missed there 6 o'clock reservation. We quickly learned that missing your reservation time wasn't horrible. This was Eric and the girls' first experience with the Rainforest Cafe. As we got seated, the hostess put us in a corner table far away from all the animals. Eric asked for us to be moved and we ended up with prime seating right next to gorillas, a rainbow and an aquarium. The girls were in awe and loved it. The food was pretty good too. After our dinner, we went next door to either Goofy or Donald's candy shop and the girls chose a Cinderella purse full of candy as their dessert. Eric also got some candy. Then it was time to head back to the hotel. Once we got back, the girls enjoyed a jacuzzi bath with lots of bubbles. We were tired and ready for another early/big morning. Eleri and Mali each had their own bed in a shared room. Eleri did great sleeping in her big girl bed. About midnight, Mali woke up screaming and crying and wouldn't settle down. She said her ear was hurting her. All I had was infants Tylenol so I gave her some of that hoping it would help. She ended up in our bed and Eric moved to her bed in the room with Eleri.