Florida March 2011

We went to Florida on March 17th. You have never seen two more excited kids. We held off on telling them until the end of January, and we only told them then because Mike couldn't wait any longer. He then spent the next few weeks showing them clips of Disney and Shamoo at Sea world. He also taught Daniel to bob his up and down like Shamoo does. Seriously cute.


We flew from Dublin with Geraldine, Neilus, Neil & Mags. David, Rebecca, Eve and Fiona met us in Orlando airport. It was our first time meeting the beautiful Princess Fiona, who was born the previous October. We rented a fabulous five bed roomed house in Kissimmee, just one mile away from Disney. It had its own pool and all the kids spent many happy hours there. A little lizard used to sleep beside the pool. Daniel would send ages watching him. Both he and Grace loved getting to spend time with Eve and Fiona. Daniel calls Fiona "Fuowna"


We went to Disney World on Monday 21st. When we went in Grace saw Snow White - who's her favorite, and said "oh Mommy, she's a real girl living in a real place." That set the rest of the day up nicely. Mike did have to tell me though that I couldn't keep crying everytime the kids expressed delight over something or I would dehydrate myself. I couldn't help welling up though. Anyway, he's the sucker who insisted they needed matching (expensive) Mickey and Minnie hats. Grace & Daniel had their picture taken with Daisy Duck and then we headed down to Cinderella's castle to see all the MickeyMouse clubhouse gang perform. We saw Mickey's orchestra in 3 D. It was so funny watching Grace trying to bat the flying instruments away. We went on loads of rides like the carousel the tea cups. We danced in the parade with the Toy story guys much to Daniels delight. It really was a fabulous day.


We also went to Sea World. The gardens there are beautiful. So many flowers. I think this was Mike's favorite day, as he loved seeing the whales and dolphins close up. After all the kids previous excitement about seeing Shamoo they weren't really bothered by it. They did love the huge climbing frames and sand boxes.

The other park we went to was Busche Gardens. This was my favorite. I liked everything about it, from the animals, to the gardens, to the rides, to the you get the picture. There were stilt walkers dressed as plants and insects. One pretended to bite Grace's head off, which she thought was so funny. We went around the park on a train. Grace and Daniel got to see Big Bird. Grace got her picture taken but Daniel wouldn't go near him. There was a couple of areas where the kids could splash around which they also loved, but apparently the best bit was when they got to stand in the splash area for one of the adult rides and get soaked as the people whizzed by. It really was a brilliant holiday. We will have to win the lotto before we can go again though :-)