Wednesday, April 14, 2010

We made it!

We had a rough start, but we're here. Everything was going well this morning...we were up, dressed and waiting for the limo about a half hour early.

When it didn't arrive as scheduled, we called to inquire where it was. The guy sounded like he had been awakened by our phone call. He had the wrong time written down. ugh. By the time he got there, he was an hour late and it didn't appear that we would make our flight.

Needless to say, we have no wonderful photos of us standing in front of the limo.

The driver was kind enough to bag up all the empty beer bottles before we climbed in...

Our wonderful Make A Wish coordinator called everyone she could think of and kept getting no response, so we didn't know what our chances were going to be of making the flight. We just prayed and prayed that we would make it but I was determined not to let it get me stressed. I know that satan is ticked that we are getting this trip and I'm not going to let him ruin it.

Once at the airport, the airport administration met us at the curb and started helping us get our luggage checked in and boarding passes printed. Before we knew it, there was a swarm of people, armed with walkie-talkies helping us.

We made it just in time to board the flight. As in...they were announcing that we could board as we walked up to the gate.

Unfortunately, our original plan was to arrive at the airport, check in, and then get some lunch. We had grabbed a bag of pretzels and some crackers when the limo didn't arrive on time, but that was all we had for the kids to eat. That and the snack and drink we got on the flight.

Bless their hearts...they did so well. None of them complained.

They were adorable on the plane. They were SO excited! SaraGrace was especially thrilled and it was so much fun just to watch her. Zoey kept looking out the plane window and insisting, "We not going. " I tried to explain that we were going really fast, but it was all lost on her. All she could see was sky and she didn't think we were doing anything but sitting in an idling airplane.

The landing brought squeals of, "Ohhh...dat was super cool," and "Ohhh, that was scary!"

We were taken to the Avis counter by a very sweet Make A Wish volunteer and waited for our 12 passenger van. And waited. And waited.

After 30 minutes, I went back to the counter and asked if they could check on our van. I won't go into the long saga, but suffice it to say there had been another mix-up and no one was working on getting our van to us. It finally came 15 min. later and we were very thankful to get in. It was 5:30 by then and the kids still hadn't eaten. I think they were just so excited that they forgot about being hungry because they didn't complain.

Give Kids the World is amazing!!! It's a village just for Make A Wish families to stay. We have two villa's that are attached, so it's like a big house. We have 4 bathrooms! :) Even if we didn't have tickets for Disney, we could find a lot to do right here. There are two restaurants, and ice cream parlor, putt-putt golf, train ride for little kids, carousel, etc. And the cool part is that everything is free! The little kids all thought that we were already at Disney. Too cute! They would be perfectly happy to stay here the whole time. Jillian wants to live here.

Sorry no pictures tonight. I'm using Jeff's laptop because there is no wi-fi here. He has a handy little thingy that he attaches to his computer to get him Internet access, but it doesn't work on mine. I will have to hike up to the main house to get Internet, because I can't load my pictures onto Jeff's computer. Drat....

Tomorrow is Disney....