Life is busy. Winter is long. We had a small window where dance, EMS drama, and volleyball had all just ended and track had not yet begun. Although Zach is not always a fan of taking the kids out of school for vacations, I provided some compelling arguments (like...I really want to go, and it's warm there). After giving it a little thought, he agreed that going to Disney again was a fantastic idea, so we did. And not to toot my own horn, but it really was a fantastic idea.
We found some cheap flights on Southwest, so we headed up to Chicago on Saturday afternoon for our evening flight from Midway to Orlando. We just brought carry-on bags this time and enjoyed the freedom of not waiting at baggage claim. Our flight had plenty of open seats, so Adelie and I took advantage of an open middle seat between us!
We drove to Midway while listening to our book on tape. ('The Day the World Came to Town' was our audiobook of the trip.) We had dinner at the airport food court. The girls and I enjoyed some yummy grilled cheese (or ham and cheese) sandwiches we had remembered from a previous trip while Zach and Briggs tried out a Mexican place. Our food was better.
Everything went smoothly (except for a little snafu with the rental car place, but it got worked out). We got off our plane, grabbed our rental car (the last non-electric car on the lot), and headed to our Airbnb in Davenport while I put in a grocery delivery order for the next morning. With each trip we take, things get easier as we figure out what works for our family.
We did have a bit of a pre-trip illness scare as Adelie woke up the day before our trip all congested with a fever. She missed school that day, but remained fever free most of the day and never really felt bad. By the next day, she was feeling fine except for a little congestion. I was so thankful! And she was extra-happy that she was the one chosen to have her own room at the Airbnb to keep her germs to herself.
Our first day in Florida was a rest day, so we had the morning to just hang out and enjoy our Airbnb. Staley and I went for a run in the sunny morning warmth, and then Zach went for a run once we got back. Our Airbnb was about 20-30 minutes (with traffic) from the Disney parks, but it was in a nice quiet neighborhood, had 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, full size laundry, and a good-sized pool.
The kids spent the entire morning in the pool. Briggs was the first one up and was in the pool by about 8:30 in the morning with the girls joining him after Staley's run. The pool was nice and warm, the sunny skies were inviting, and I even enjoyed an hour or so of relaxing in the pool after my run too.
After our relaxing morning, we cleaned up for a trip to Disney Springs for lunch. I had made reservations at the T-Rex restaurant since I thought one member of the family would specifically like it. It's like the Rainforest Cafe, except dinosaurs. We'd been there on a previous Disney trip several years ago, but I felt like it was worth revisiting now that Briggs was older.
The atmosphere is cool with animatronic dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals all around. The ice age cave might have been my favorite room. The food was good (nothing too memorable, but good) and the atmosphere fun. All in all, a good first Disney meal.
After lunch, we enjoyed the AMAZING 70-degrees and sunshine day by walking around Disney Springs. We popped into a few stores, but generally just enjoyed being out in the nice weather that we had so sorely been missing.
Briggs would have liked to go into the Lego store, but there was a pretty substantial line to enter the store, so we just enjoyed the Lego creations that were adorning the outside of the store instead.
We walked around enough to work off some of our lunch so that we could make room for...
Salt & Straw ice cream. We experienced it in Downtown Disney at Disneyland last summer and were excited to have another opportunity to try it.
The ice cream is really good, and they have a variety of unique flavors. Although the family settled on things like Sea Salt with Caramel Ribbons and Double Fold Vanilla and Salted, Malted Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, I branched out with the Salty Donut Guava and Cheese ice cream. It was all delicious, although we agreed that we might still like Uncle Bob's better.
We finished off our day with a quick trip to a nearby outlet mall to stop in the Disney Character Warehouse, check out a few more stores (for the girls and Zach while Briggs started to lose patience with the whole shopping thing), and then back to the house for a snack-y dinner and an episode of 'The Magic of Disney's Animal Kingdom' to get us in the mood for our park day the next day. We were in bed early so that we could be up and ready to hit the parks early for a full day of Disney fun!
