Time for a Disney Recap: April 2012

Some trips are so big, so wonderful that I put off blogging them until they do not make it into our history at all.  A travesty!  Efforts will be made to remedy that situation, starting with the most recent of our momentous travels.


This Spring Break, the Cummings clan announced that they were headed to Disney World. To give a bit of history, the last time everyone went to Florida (or maybe the time before last) my older brother Aaron and I were in the thick of studying for finals at BYU. We got t-shirts (one I still have and wear today...it's a great, long-sleeved number), but I have admittedly harbored some good-natured bitterness (is that possible?) every time a sibling would start in on the line "Oh, Marie...remember the time we went on the Rock 'n Roller Coaster, and it was the BEST roller coaster we've EVER been on?"  Well, I'm thrilled that these wonderful family members of mine think of me as being so much a part of them that they could fabricate my presence on this fun family trip, but I would have to reply with "No, no I don't. I was memorizing homemade flash cards with the names, major works, and memorable lines of British authors from the Victorian era."


But I digress.


When plans were made for a return trip, AND it was to fall over my birthday, that sealed the deal. We were off to Disney. Dad generously arranged for timeshare condos in the area, which made it a very budget-friendly expedition as Disney adventures go. (Thanks, Dad!!) Also, big thanks go to Adam, who is a big Disney fanatic himself, having cached many good memories at Disney parks as a child. Thanks for taking our cute family on this trip, babe!


We decided to break the long car ride down into two days, not knowing how our adventurers would fare with the 15+ hours of travel. We left Friday afternoon as soon as Spencer got home from school and made it about five hours before calling it a night. We'd hit some traffic getting out of the DC area, but it hadn't been too bad. I drove, and Adam worked. (He makes his phone a hot spot and broadcasts wireless to his laptop. It's pretty fantastic.)


We were packed for a full week of fun, but our wonderful trunk space and Millenial Falcon smuggling compartments made it so that all our stuff fit with seeming ease.

Our awesome car plays DVDs and a built-in screen, and we had borrowed from Gma and Gpa's DVD collection so as to have some novelty in our movie watching. We also supplemented from our own collection. The Easter Bunny had made special arrangements to come a little early, bringing trip snacks, autograph books (notebooks with Disney stickers on the front), and new DVDs for our trip. "The Bee Movie," "Over the Hedge," and "Little Rascals," our new acquisitions, were big hits. Also popular from the Easter baskets were the Star Wars Pez dispensers: Yoda for Spencer, C3PO for Emma, and Darth Vader for John. A treat AND a toy: good times. (Emma switched John at some point, opting to go with the dark side). 


We have a few job titles that date back to my Dad's family's road trips. "Jughead" is in charge of keeping everyone hydrated. "Basketfoot" manages the garbage bag. To that, we have added "Snack Passer." That's an Emma original. She loves to act in this role. I had a small stroke of genius when it came to snacks for this trip: small tupperware containers with lids. Perfect for filling with goldfish, pretzels, peanut M&Ms, etc. and tossing to the back seat. John has yet to perfect his snack passing skills, and as the odd man out in the middle row for much of the trip, we needed the long-range snack passing ability.

Here's John, modeling his little tupperware full of Chex Mix. 

The kids were well equipped with activities during the car ride. Using my cousin Kari's method, we planted a plastic bin full of toys, drawing supplies, and books between Spencer and Emma in the back seat. Gma had saved up some fun trip activities including an electronic drawing pad and one of those magnetic doodle things where you move hair onto a bald man's head and face. 

Here's Emma with the drawing pad.

 Spencer drawing jet planes. 

This funny little toy is a road trip classic. It has different activities on every side and can be counted on to entertain a toddler for a good long while. John loves it. 

When we began to grow weary Friday night, we started looking for a hotel. Adam booked one online for us. It looked pretty good from the ratings and description, but we were met with a rude awakening when we pulled up. It was in a deserted part of town and smelled strongly of curry. The beds did not have mattress pads, and one of them was at a strange slope. S and E got to sleep on that one. The Morning after our stay in the shady hotel, we ate breakfast in the car since the advertised continental breakfast was non-existent. Thank goodness for banana bread and chocolate milk, which were frozen at the beginning of our journey and stayed cool through the night.


Our awful hotel night behind us, we ventured forward to Florida. It was fun to track the Cummings van using iPhones and Path. We were leading for most of the trip but decided to stop in Orlando to let them leapfrog us and handle the condo check-in while we checked out the Lego store and Downtown Disney. 

The return was delightfully uneventful. We made it home in 15 hours flat on a Saturday. NO traffic! The kids were playing games on iPhones, and when I downloaded the pictures later, we found dozens of shots like these...

I'll spare you all the random seatbelt pictures and close-ups of eyes and noses. When asked for their recap of the car rides, here's what Spencer and Emma had to say:
S: LONG. We spent the whole day in the car and at a few restaurants, but very few.

E: We stopped by McDonalds for dinner or lunch. Or breakfast. Which one? 

It's kind of a blur for them, I guess. The kids were really, really good on the trip. We tried to break it up with lots of rest stops and made proper spectacles of ourselves stretching, doing jumping jacks, and marching to get the wiggles out. Grateful we have such great kids!  Now, on to the Disney adventure...