Florida!

A couple weeks ago, we took a big trip down to Florida to visit Granddad Scott and Sujata!

The kids did great on the long plane flights. Brielle entertained herself with drawing and watching Tinker Bell movies. Ronan was a lap baby, which was pretty challenging. He was awake for most of the flights, and he's at a stage where he wants to grab everything around him and put it in his mouth (e.g., the SkyMall magazine), but he wasn't fussy at all. He was excited to watch all the new people walking down the aisle or smiling at him from the seats behind us.

We spent the first few days playing with Granddad and Sujata and enjoying time hanging out at their houses. I made sure that we had a couple of "picnics" outside in order to enjoy the great sunshine. Our little Portland baby wondered what that bright light was. Brielle loved eating blueberries on the blanket and playing catch with Daddy.

We also enjoyed outings to our favorite restaurants and to a couple of local attractions we really like. First, we went to the Butterfly Exhibit at a local museum.

Brielle hoped that a butterfly would land on her finger, but that rarely happens. Still, she and Ronan had fun watching them fly all around us and land on the beautiful flowers in the atrium.

Afterwards, we played at Sujata's house. Granddad bought Brielle some butterfly wings of her own.

And Sujata got her two butterfly wands/pens that matched her new wings perfectly.

Brielle also got to celebrate another early birthday with fun gifts from Granddad and Sujata.

She was excited about her new pink tights from Granddad and immediately wanted to wear them in a dance performance for everyone.

Meanwhile, Ronan charmed the grandparents with his smile and new ability to scoot around the floor (SO close to crawling at this point).

And of course, there had to be vegan birthday cupcakes!

The next day we headed out to the local zoo.

This was Ronan's first trip to a zoo. His favorites were the monkeys.

Towards the end of our trip, we took the kids for their first trip to Walt Disney World! We decided to wait until we were in Florida to tell Brielle about Disney. We showed her some photos and videos before the drive down there and she started to get excited about going on rides and seeing that huge castle that appears at the beginning and end of all of her favorite movies. We decided to stay on the Disney property the night before so that we could get an early start the next morning.

The hotel was a shuttle ride away from the Magic Kingdom and walking distance from Downtown Disney. So the first night we walked over to Downtown Disney to eat dinner and explore.

Mommy and Daddy thought it would be a fun idea to eat at the Rainforest Cafe, with its elaborate jungle decor and animatronic animals. At first Brielle was excited by the elephants, but then she decided that their movements and noises actually scared her. When the animal noises started (every few minutes) she'd put her head down to hide, and sometimes Ronan would get scared and start to cry too. Darn...I guess that idea didn't work as well as we thought it would.

During the rest of that evening, it was starting to be apparent that Brielle was a little "off" - being fussy, walking really slowly. Mommy and Daddy had both felt sick in Gainesville, and we hoped she hadn't caught a bug too. But after we got out of the restaurant Brielle did have a good time going on a couple of rides.

She also liked the huge Lego statues in Downtown Disney.

The highlight of the evening for her was probably the hoola-hoop dance party for kids. She couldn't keep the hoop up for long, but this was her first time trying it and she knew to shake her hips and made a great effort.

Unfortunately, at 3-something in the morning, Brielle woke up complaining of a headache and feeling sick. Daddy ran to a 24-hour pharmacy to get her some medicine (which she then refused to take). We were up for a good part of the night trying to help her. We knew that it was going to be raining the next morning, so we let ourselves sleep in a little rather than rushing to get there when the park opened. It was still raining when we arrived, but this actually meant that there were fewer tourists there than usual, and the lines were really short! That actually made being in the rain worth it!

Brielle was still feeling down and walking slowly, but she certainly perked up (as best as she could) when we started the day with a visit to see her beloved fairy friends, including Rosetta...

...and Tinker Bell!

This was a really nice attraction. Families were let in individually to meet with the fairies and take photos. They were really friendly and didn't rush anyone through. Brielle was a little shy, but she did answer their questions and give hugs.

Ronan was pretty excited as well.

After riding Dumbo with Daddy, we were off to visit the princesses. Cinderella was her favorite.

Because of the rain, most of the rides had a 5-10 minute wait, and for others we used a "fast pass" and got on immediately. Even though Brielle was moving slowly, we managed to fit in some favorites, like It's a Small World, the Jungle Ride, and Pirates of the Caribbean.

For lunch, we ate at a restaurant where Brielle could lie down and take a nap in the booth. This gave her a needed break. I don't have any good pictures of this, but Ronan was a real hit at the restaurant (and everywhere we went, actually). He sat in a high chair and kept turning around to the waitress station, smiling and charming the staff. We'd turn around to see what he was looking at and see a bunch of women giggling and waving at him. When he wasn't doing that, he was staring at families at other tables until they looked at them then flashing a huge grin and making them love him.

After lunch we carried Ronan and let Brielle ride in the stroller for a while. We got a great spot for a parade, and that ended up being a great option for how she was feeling. She really enjoyed watching all of the floats go by. Note that she seems to have a fear of people dressed up as characters with fake heads (compared to Tinker Bell or Cinderella)...but she did well watching the ones in the parade...even the pretty wrong-looking Jessie who got pretty close to her and patted Ronan on the head.

Our final ride was on the People Mover, which both kids enjoyed. One thing we really liked about Disney World was that we were able to take Ronan with us on most of the rides. I had worried that Ronan and I would be sitting somewhere while Brielle and Daddy waited in line for an hour to get on a ride, but that wasn't the case at all. There were only a couple of fast rides that Daddy and Brielle did alone, and the lines for them were short that day.

Brielle never felt totally well during the day, but we moved slowly and found enough "easy" things to do (like slow-moving rides where we could all sit down). So it was disappointing that she couldn't enjoy the experience as much as we thought she would, but we did a pretty good job.

Before we left the park, we did the one thing that Brielle said she wanted to do..."I need a Cinderella outfit".

We left the park earlier than we thought we would, since Brielle was wiped out. But that ended up being fine because we got back to Granddad's house before he went to sleep and got to have a fun time with him that evening. Even though she had felt bad, Brielle described the fun things to Granddad, like her excitement at meeting Tinker Bell and Cinderella. And she showed off her new dress.

Despite the unfortunate timing of sickness, especially for Daddy and Brielle, we had a wonderful visit to Florida. The kids were so happy to see Granddad and Sujata - this was actually the first time that Sujata got to meet Ronan! Thank you for a great visit!