Vacation - Day 1

My intention was to blog every night while we were in Orlando, but it just didn't happen. Since we were all in one room, we had to turn the lights and TV off to get Miles to go to sleep. Plus editing pictures on a laptop doesn't really work for me. So, I'll catch up over the next few days with the million pictures I took.

First, it is a L-O-N-G drive from northwest Tennessee to Orlando with a 22 month old...16 hours to be exact. We actually drove to my mom's house on Friday night and left around 6:15 on Saturday morning. We had a DVD player, movies, invisible markers, toys, and books to entertain him. The problem is he wants to be entertained by one of us constantly. The DVD player helped some, but he still wanted one of us in the backseat with him. He would say "Momma" and point to the back seat. Entertaining him was a little draining but you do what you have to do. By the end of the ride home, Darrin and I were fighting over who got to drive b/c the other person had the job of keeping Miles happy.

Another problem was..he slept less than 3 hours total in the 32 hours we spent driving there and back. He just doesn't sleep in the car. I don't think he would sleep if we drove in the middle of the night.

We got to Orlando around 9pm. We finally got to our room, which was very nice and spacious, but it reeked of mildew/mold. Darrin and I are not complainers. We do not like to complain about service, we never send our food back at restaurants, we just don't like to be like that. However, I just couldn't stay there for five nights in a room that smelled awful and could have been bad for Miles. I begged Darrin to call the front desk. He did and they were very nice to give us another room.

With that said, I think they gave us the room that they save especially for people that complain. It was really small, about half the size of the first room. It didn't smell though, and turned out to be fine.

On Sunday morning Miles and I went to a character breakfast at our hotel. Darrin had to work....after all that was the reason we were there. Miles does not like characters but I thought we had to try since we were in Orlando.

He loved them from afar...

But didn't want them close. You can see Goofy in the background...

And, if they ever talked directly to him, this is what happened....

After breakfast, we went swimming. The hotel had two big pools and a kiddie pool. The kiddie pool was perfect for Miles. It was deep enough to challenge him but still shallow enough to be safe. He was ok with the pool the first day and loved it by the end of the trip.

When Darrin was finished working, we went to Downtown Disney and ate at the Rainforest Cafe. This was also Father's Day, so I must say...we love you Daddy and are very happy that we got to spend this special day with you.

This gorilla was practically sitting on our table during dinner. At first Miles was scared to death. By the end of dinner, he was only scared...meaning he never got completely over it. The gorilla talked every 15 minutes, which was like salt in the wound.

He never...
...took his eyes...

...off of the gorilla...

We did a little shopping and bought Miles his first Mickey, which he LOVED.



Buzz was definitely his favorite thing about Day 1. He walked right up and grabbed his hand. Unfortunately there was a line of people waiting to get their picture with Buzz so we couldn't linger. Miles threw a fit when we had to leave. It was kind of heart breaking to see how much he didn't want to leave Buzz.

So that's Day 1. Also packed into this day was a 4.5 hour nap for Miles. He was obviously exhausted from the drive down. Stay tuned fro Day 2.