You all have already heard about the beach part of our vacation, now is the time for the second half of the trip: Avon Park and Disney.
After our long day on the beach, we headed back to Mark's parents' place in Avon Park. It was about an hour and a half drive and by the time we got there, baby girl had fallen asleep. Not good considering it was already about 7 PM and her typical bedtime is 8. She had a hard time falling asleep, especially being in a new place where she was sharing a room with all of us. At first, Mark tried to take our oldest in to rest on the bed next to the pack-n-play, but baby girl wasn't having it. Mark and Blair moved then into the living room where he parked on the couch and she was in her sleeping bag on the floor. After baby girl finally settled down, I went into the room and slept on the bed. It was a rough night's sleep between the coughing (both girls had coughs intermittently throughout the night), lack of AC, and girls waking up here and there. You know those nights when each time you wake up, you hope it is time to get up, just so the night can be over? Yep, it was one of those.
We had planned to stay with Mark's parents for Saturday, Sunday and Monday nights and heading back Tuesday. However, after the night we had, we decided to bump up our days and hit Disney on Sunday instead of Monday. With that, we also decided to get a hotel room for our night after Disney that wasn't far from the park and would be easier to leave from in the morning. That meant, we only had one more night to stay with Mark's parents. Thankfully, they put in the AC window unit in the living room that morning, so it was cooler that night and sleep was a bit easier. There was still coughing, but at least it wasn't so sticky.
I'm getting ahead of myself though- before we went to sleep that night, we spent the day at a state park that featured walks through marshes and native Florida landscaping. During the walk, we got to see a mommy alligator with her three babies! It wasn't close enough to snap at us, but we did get a good view! That was neat! It was nice to get some exercise too. We topped off our walk with some homemade sour orange ice cream that was sold inside the park lodge. It tasted like a dreamsicle! Since it was my actual birthday, Mark's parents kept the girls for us and sent us out on a date to Outback. It had been a long time since we had been there- maybe since before having kids! As we munched our Bloomin' Onion, we looked around the room and asked ourselves which of our friends we would like to retire with... it was an interesting conversation. We enjoyed that time to ourselves celebrating my birthday. Thanks, Mom and Dad Acker!
Sunday morning, we got up bright and early to pack our things into the car and head over to Disney! I was not feeling well- I woke up with a headache (I get migraines quite often). We got on the road and stopped at the first McDonald's we found. After some orange juice, medicine and a bacon, egg and cheese biscuit, I started to feel better and by then, we had arrived at "the happiest place on earth." We got into the park around 9:30 and hit the ground running. First, Blair and I got "Happy Birthday" buttons so that everyone would know we were there celebrating. Next, we headed toward Fantasyland, a new area of the park. Before we got there, we stopped to meet Alice in Wonderland, Tweedledee and Tweedledum and The White Rabbit. Blair liked that and so did I! Then we hit the Dumbo ride and after that, walked over to meet Daisy Duck and Minnie Mouse. At that point, we had purchased an autograph book and pen for signatures, so we have a few in there. Mark took Blair on the Tea Cup ride and I took her on the Speedway cars. Mark took Blair to the Monsters Inc. Laugh Factory while baby girl slept in her stroller with me. Then we got a Fast Pass for The Little Mermaid ride and rode It's a Small World and the carousal while we waited. After Ariel, we caught a parade by the castle and I headed over to get a Fast Pass for Mickey and the Princesses. It turns out I was given confusing information and got the wrong Fast Pass, but Blair was so excited to meet the princesses, so we waited in line to do that, which was worth it when we saw her with them. She met Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and Rapunzel, as well as Mickey Mouse. She just told me this morning that meeting them was her favorite thing about Disney, so I'm glad we waited the half hour we did. We came out just in time to see another parade and the girls loved it, of course. Next, we headed over to Tom Sawyer's Island, which was geared more for older kids, but Mark and I wanted to see it anyway. Blair was pretty scared in the cave- it was pretty dark in there! And it didn't help that the people going through in front of us were scaring each other and shouting. We had dinner at Pecos Bill's and it was super expensive, but we were hungry. Our last "land" of the day was Adventureland. Here, we rode the jungle boat, Aladdin's magic carpets and climbed up the Swiss Family Robinson's treehouse. I bought a Christmas ornament quickly, just before the light show on the Cinderella's Castle began. It was pretty amazing. In order to beat the crowds out, we opted to skip the fireworks and headed back to the car. It was a really long, but totally awesome day! Definitely Blair's most memorable birthday! I'm thankful we were able to get there with the girls!
Both girls were completely exhausted and fell asleep in the car on the drive over to the hotel. We were able to get them right into bed and move everything up to the room without them ever waking up. That night, we all slept like babies.
The next morning, I awoke again with a migraine- this one was not going to go away without a fight. Mark was a trooper and packed everything up, including the girls. We stopped at a Chickfila and the migraine got the best of me- I got sick in a bag after eating a little. I then proceeded to sleep off and on for several hours and finally around 1 PM, I was feeling better. I hate those darn migraines. They come when I don't expect them or at the worst possible times. I try to manage them with minimal medicine, but if they continue to torture me, I might have to get something stronger like my mom uses (my mom and grandma both get them as well).
The drive home went all right. We made it home by 1:15 AM and were happy to sleep in our own beds again. Thanks for reading about our vacation! It's hard not to ramble... sometimes I tried to control that and other times, not so much. I will add some pictures to another post. Time to get baby girl out of bed!
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