For those of you who haven't heard us moan and complain, we haven't been on a real vacation since 1998. I was six months pregnant with Tal, Travis was gearing up for another year of med school, and I realized it was our last chance for a vacation for a while (who knew how long it would be?), so I scrounged up our FF miles and we went to England and Scotland. It was fantastic and almost lasted us.

We packed up the family truckster Sunday morning and headed out for Disney's Beach Club Resort. As a former Cast Member, I feel obligated to say the entire proper name each time. We HIGHLY recommend this one...it is so great. For once we got a room on the ground floor, right next to all the action. When you have a double stroller, three toddlers, and all the milk runs we do, this is better than Christmas.

Travis was, of course, starved. Thank goodness my friend Esther insisted I make reservations for most our meals. We had a perfect early dinner at the Yachtsman Steakhouse...YUM. And we were early, so they did things like run to another restaurant for chicken nuggets (why do they think kids want grilled???)

Every time we go to Disney, we say we are going to do the little side things. So this vacation, we did. E/O day is a theme park day, and the in-between days and the evenings are full of fun little surprises, like watching Finding Nemo on a big screen on the beach. The kids had a blast playing with the sand toys, Cam fell asleep in the stroller, and we loved it.

Tal of course got cell/room numbers from all the other kids. We were also right by the amazing pool with the sand bottom, lazy river, pirate slides, etc. It was fantastic and we took advantage the rest of the week. You can see the fireworks from EPCOT and Hollywood Studios (nee MGM) from here, too!

Our first adventure was to take a boat over to Hollywood Studios for a perfect day that started with a character breakfast. The character at left was SO sweet (of course before I clicked over to video) and kept making "you touch my heart" gestures. Below, you can see that Cam was skeptical at first, but didn't take long to figure out that this stuff was great fun. We later got to see the same characters in a Playhouse Disney Show (A/C and bubbles--double fun) and they just had a blast.

Is there a family more into Toy Story? Right after breakfast, I said that our first order of business had to be Midway Mania Fast Passes. So we run straight there and the return time is 5 PM! Must be good. It was fantastic--you play little 3D carnival games from your car.

We did a ton of things we hadn't done before. This is probably Travis' favorite park. The Rs are big coloring fans (remember our walls?), so we did the art stuff for the first time. We even went into the part where you sit at big desks and learn to sketch characters.

We always pick up a box of chocolate on our way out of the theme park. It was out of our way because it is in an odd spot at the Studios, but Travis really wanted to do our routine, so we went. Well, they invited Reagan BEHIND THE COUNTER TO MAKE CHOCOLATE! So Tal goes running back and of course I grab Riley The Chocolate Fanatic and send him, too. I am certain they had no idea how many children I had when they made the offer. So they got to make fabulous marshmallow-chocolate-M&M creations. As you can see, Tal had a blast, Reagan was in wonder, and Riley was quite serious about his job. It was by far the highlight of the day, hands down. We went back to the hotel for some sand & pool fun, but mostly just talked about the chocolate experience (and flipped through the 75 pictures we took).

Oops...remembered that we forgot to organize Tanner's feeding with my Dad. Travis got an email from my Mom:
Violets are blue, roses are red
If someone doesn't feed that dog, he'll be...

We had reservations at Planet Hollywood, so Travis met us there. It was decently fun. Of course they had the gimmick with the photo (much cuter, but the scanner messed up the quality--you'll have to check out the $20 keychain we got). Then we went to see Kung Fu Panda. It is about 10 yards away from the restaurant, but somehow the Rs and I got caught (due to a fabulous potty stop--I shall not complain) in a freak rainstorm. So half the family was dry, half wet to the BONE. But it was great fun.

And who else is lucky enough to have a friend/partner/client who sends panda cartoon graphics during the movie? That is just plain great. Thanks, Dr. Alexander!

So Wednesday was Chaos Day. Travis was in work mode (leftover from Tuesday). We'll blame it on that for sure. Whatever the Animal Kingdom capacity is, they doubled it. Every ride was broken or the Fast Passes were given out by noon. The wait times were all 70-100 minutes. What is that? The place is a little too authentic for me...give me a little Disney pixie dust in there. I'll take my Africa with some A/C and light-hearted music, thank you very much. We'll be right back as soon as it starts snowing.

We had a sweaty dinner at Rainforest Cafe and couldn't resist this picture at the bar on our way out. Hilarious.

Because the day wasn't long enough, my hand got crushed in the exit gate. I'm on Day 5 of a swollen, dark purple ring finger. Disgusting and painful reminder of our least-fun vacation day.

We spent our last morning with the characters at Cape May Cafe. Minnie, Goofy, and Chip were there as well, but Dale was one of those characters that just made your day (and made you feel like it was okay to drop $90 on breakfast). He played and played with the kids...there is nothing like watching them spend time getting the kids over their nervousness and starting to have fun. Seriously.

The kids made some pennies...I saw a mom looking for a smashed-penny machine and suddenly had the urge to spend fifty-one cents on a useless penny. We made a few this week and had fun making some souvenirs. Maybe that will be something we can do on our 50-State Adventure--find ways to spend 5000% over on souvenirs.

We haven't had a real date in a long time. I mean, a LONG time. We do business dinners and an occasional movie, but that is about it. So I switched my Judy day to Friday and we actually planned a day out. We went boating down to Bradenton, then tooled around doing some errands, which included a stop at Choxotica, a chocolate lounge. They have samples of chocolates and chocolate drinks and a little lounge (we can do office meetings there, by the way). The woman was so enthusiastic and nice. The $99 baking bars were buy one, get one. I must tell you I adored the Mexican chocolates--it tastes normal, then there is a really spicy aftertaste. Yum.

Saturday morning we met my parents for breakfast, then headed out for the annual Father's Day Camping Ritual. It is the second year, so I'm not sure what kind of ritual it really is. We met our friend Ronna, went to Norman & Brenda's, fed the horses and donkeys, had a great dinner, and then the kids started bouncing off the walls. Only Travis and Tal ended up sleeping outside, but everyone had a ton of fun anyway. Saturday was an indoor breakfast, rides on the four-wheelers, and more fun.

Here is a picture of the ride home. Exactly how we feel. As Travis says, "We are not ready for re-entry!"