If you’ve been reading my blog for more than six months, then you know what a big surprise we had in store for the girls on Christmas morning. Unfortunately for you, it’s been a long time since then with no photographs or updates on how well that all went over. I decided that since it’s finally 90 degrees outside, we could all cool down with a few posts from our wonderful week between Christmas and New Year’s Day.
For those of you who are new to the blog, let’s recap. Josh & I took Ella to Walt Disney World in the spring before her third birthday. It was a spur of the moment decision that followed an almost month of work-related travel for me. I was exhausted and I missed my family like crazy and we got the awesome opportunity to stay in an all-expenses-paid time-share not far from the Disney property. It was really a no-brainer and even though we worried she was too young, we had an amazing time! We also discovered that children under the age of three get free admission to the parks and any character dining experience. Since WDW isn’t cheap, we opted to take advantage of this perk. Not long after SK was born, Ella started asking when we’d be going back and we kept telling her sometime after the baby turned two. The more we thought about it and started looking at the calendar, a trip around the holidays seemed like the perfect thing to do. I won’t lie, this is the most expensive time of year to visit Disney World. Rooms, tickets, food, you name it and it’s more expensive. My mom and I have always said we’d like to go just one time and not pinch pennies the entire time we are there! As luck would have it, my aunt and uncle gifted us their time-share again this year and it made all the difference. Overall, it saved us thousands of dollars. I’ll let that sink in a minute. Thousands. We were so appreciative and the resort is such a wonderful place for families. Although it’s a ten minute drive from the parks and we had to pay for parking each day, we still couldn’t have planned a better stay. The condo was beautiful and we had plenty of room to spread out instead of being crammed into hotel rooms. The more planning we did, the more excited we became. We booked our room and tickets almost 18 months before we would leave. This is one of the reasons we were able to do so much. I had the trip paid for almost a year in advance and we spent those next twelve months buying the girls’ Christmas gifts so that our bonuses could go directly into our pockets for food and entertainment.
The decision to make it a surprise was pretty much a given. How cool to find out you are going to Disney World on Christmas morning?! Josh & I were giddy for weeks leading up to Christmas morning. I was beside myself. I wanted to cave so many times, but I knew the wait would be more than worth it. When the girls woke up that morning, there was a decidedly Disney/travel theme to their gifts. I know it looks like a lot of stuff, but in reality we spent very little on Christmas this year in light of our trip. Almost everything was bought off of Zulily or Disney’s sale page throughout the year. I was kind of surprised that Ella didn’t figure it out opening gifts before we told them what was really happening.
I always wanted to be that mom that said, “Pack your bags! We’re going to Disney World RIGHT NOW!!”, but two days was pretty close to perfection. We got to enjoy the holiday with our girls and our extended family, I had just enough time to take down our Christmas tree and pack everyone’s bags, but the trip wasn’t so far off into the future that the girls didn’t get to enjoy their gift right away.
Forgive, the sideways video. I was seriously so giddy that I didn’t realize my phone wasn’t turned until it was too late. I love how caught off guard the girls are in this video.
Well, the Disney recap officially starts TOMORROW and runs through next Wednesday. Seriously. All photos have been edited and uploaded, content is written, posts are scheduled. There won’t be any cliff-hanger this time. You will really get to see how much fun we had, I promise!
