Day 1 (cont'd again) - Magic Kingdom

So, H and I headed back to Magic Kingdom on our own.  The boys stayed at the resort and went to bed early so the girls could enjoy the park on their own.  Magic Kingdom was open til 3:00am that night and it was SUPER crowded.  Much more crowded than I anticipated it would be.  Some man even tripped and fell into me on our way in to the park!!

H wanted to do a little shopping.  All that money she saved up for the trip was starting to burn a hole in her pocket! :)  So, we walked through all the shops on Main Street.  Of _all_ the items in those stores, she wanted a Goofy hat and a pair of Mickey Mouse gloves!  Seriously!!  Rather than carrying them around for the rest of the evening, we decided we'd come back on our way out of the park and grab them on our way out.

By this time, she has convinced me that I need to ride Space Mountain with her.  (ugh!)  It was our 'girls' night, so how could I say no?  We headed to Space Mountain, but the line was 80 minutes long!!  So, we grabbed some fast passes.  The parade was what she wanted to see the most, so we decided to grab a snack and find a good seat for the parade.  We got the largest brownie ever made and a bottle of water and sat on the sidewalk on Main Street to wait for the parade to begin.

We waited for an hour for the parade to begin, but, hey, we had great seats!!  The parade was nice, but it was obvious that it was  a retro parade.  There were many old characters like Pete and the Magic Dragon and no new characters like Ariel.  It was neat though because everyone and every float was lit up with lights. 

After the parade, it was back to Space Mountain.  (ugh)  Yes, she got me on that crazy ride.  On this ride, you are in front of each other.  (so I couldn't sit beside H)  The ride was almost completely in the dark.  Honestly, I HATED it.  I think it was b/c I'm a parent.  I mean, really...  my child is on the seat in front of me and I can't see her AT ALL.  What if something goes wrong and she isn't locked into her seat or whatever...  I wouldn't know until the ride ended.  It was just miserable for me.  Of course, when it was over with, she was all smiles.  She absolutely loved it.  Me?  I would be happy if I never rode it again.

It was starting to get late, so I agreed to ride one more ride.  Then, we were going to head back to the resort.  Of course, she chose the Indy Speedway ride to ride again.  The line was short and we got through it quickly.  Unfortunately, on our way back through to Main Street, we got swallowed up in the crowds waiting to watch the fireworks display.  Rather than fighting our way through them, we decided just to stop and watch the fireworks ourselves.  They were beautiful, of course.

After the fireworks, we went to the shops to purchase the hat and the gloves.  The lady that checked us out was super sweet.  She noticed that H was paying for this on her own with cash and talked through the change as she gave her the change back.  I thought that was really sweet and it helped H a lot.  She had just had a lesson on making change at school, so this was a great real world example for her.

We made it to the monorail along with a ton of other people.  It was the longest line I have ever seen at the monorail.  Surprisingly enough, it moved rather quickly.  Finally, we made it back to the resort a little after 11:00pm.

This was our longest day during the entire vacation!!

Pictures:

E got really comfy sleeping in this stroller.  He would never sleep more than an hour at a time, but it worked!

Miss 'I Love Space Mountain'....  Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!

Poor little guy did a lot of waiting around at the parks.  Here he is, out of his stroller, 'reading' Sissy's 'Guide to the Magic' book.