Colyer Caravan (Part 4)

And onto Disney! We went into Downtown Disney after our day at the beach for dinner. These next three pictures crack me up because I can just see what Caleb was thinking.

 
 

Yeah, I suppose we need to discuss with our son that the money stays in the fountain and isn't there for the taking! (Obviously Jon was taking these pictures since no one was stopping him ;)

 

The big deciding factor to go to Orlando was because my Uncle works for Disney and can get us in for free. We just didn't know how many tickets we'd get until the day before. He pulled his resources together and had two other Disney employees meet us at the gate too so we all got in for free. I know, I know, I can feel your death glares through the computer. Its pretty much the best family connection ever and we were all so grateful. (We did reimburse them for their time and trouble since they all had to meet us at the park both days).

We got there before the park opened and went to Magic Kingdom first. Dawson didn't get the memo that he was at Disneyworld!!!

 

 
We got these shirts made for all the cousins before we left. (Note the bow on Minnie Mouse :) They were adorable in them and it made it way easier to keep track of all the red shirts. (Unfortunately this was the best shot we got from the back. Oh well. The fact that we got one at all is sort of a miracle).

 Cooling off:

The only grownup who can stomach the teacups. (Although Jenise would have too if she weren't pregnant):

I love these next pictures so much because Dawson was just so happy. He had a lot of rough moments that day but you can see the joy through his entire body when he met Tigger and Pooh!

 

My favorite shot of Kietlyn:

The benefit of having your grandparents along:  

Oh sure, you can have your treats! Just as soon as you smile for a picture: 

 

Good job. Here you go: 

Watching the parade:

These clouds look ominous but it barely even sprinkled that day. It was such a relief to have the cloud cover, it was just perfect weather.

 Desperate times call for pacis in public:

This little guy did great. I borrowed this carrier from my sister-in-law and it was very comfortable. He took all his naps in here:

We stayed at Magic Kingdom until dinner time and then headed over to Epcot for a couple hours. We were pooped by then and didn't do much at Epcot but it was still fun.

Heeeeere's Brucey!

 

It was a wonderfully exhausting day. Bennett got to ride Space Mountain twice so that was the highlight for him. That boy loves roller coasters. Dawson was devastated when he was too short for Splash Mountain but he did get to ride the Goofy roller coaster and loved it. Dawson's favorite from the day was the Haunted Mansion. (They're really into spooky stuff these days). I think the longest we waited in line that whole day was 20 minutes. There really is no better time of year to go!

 

Vacation Part 1 , Part 2 and Part 3

Colyer Caravan (Part 3)

Aaaand....back to vacay. We drove over to Clearwater Beach on the Gulf Coast on our second full day and it was breathtakingly perfect. Of course we could have (and wanted) to stay there all day but with six kids in tow, you never really get to do exactly what you want to do, do ya?? So, we soaked up a few blissful hours in the sun and tried to freeze it all in our minds. (I still have a few grains of this powdery white sand left in our umbrella stroller and I can't bear to dump it out!)
I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.
(In case you happen to notice, the first four are a little grainy because we'd deleted a bunch from our camera we thought we didn't need but I wanted these on here so I copied and pasted them from Josh's facebook page)

 

 
 
 
 

 

 
 
 

 

Vacation Part 1 and Part 2