We went to DISNEY WORLD!

Ellie, DeDe and I just returned from a whirlwind trip to Disney World!  I had been dreaming of taking our little family for over a year now, but knew that Miller needed to be much older for us to fully enjoy ourselves.  About 3 weeks ago, I got a very random text from my mom asking if she could take Ellie to Disney.  I first about fell out of my chair and secondly thought "not without me!"  HA.  It all snowballed from there and we soon  found ourselves on a plane  headed to the happiest place on Earth.

At first I thought planning a trip to Disney 2 weeks in advance would be a nightmare and we wouldn't get to do anything we would really want to do.  I was SO wrong!  We got lucky and found dining reservations to pretty much every hot spot on the property, had minimal wait times in lines, and fast passed and rode all of the most popular rides.  We had THE BEST TIME!  I knew I would love it (I hadn't been since high school) and to see it through Ellie's eyes really was magical!

Our flight arrived around 2:20 on our first day.  We got to our hotel around 5 and hit the ground running HARD until midnight that night!  We went straight to Magic Kingdom and landed in the middle of a show first thing.  We had the memory maker picture package and made sure to take advantage of all of the Disney photogs all over the parks.  We soon found ourselves front and center at the Move it Shake it Sing it parade.  Ellie's face was priceless!  I will try and let the pictures do the talking...

At the airport bright and early! 

The Magical Express took us from the airport to our hotel, The Wilderness Lodge.  And I just have to add...Disney service is top notch.  The "princess" was treated like one all week long.  Every employee was so nice and friendly and happy to be at work.  They treated the kids like royalty!  Ellie got stickers as we loaded the bus.  Disney is a well oiled machine.

Once we unloaded at the hotel, we made a bee-line for the hotel Mercantile store to buy an autograph book and pen.  This girl was ready to go!

We have arrived!

First of many pictures on Main Street USA

 We rented a stroller that delivered to our hotel the day we arrived and picked it up the day we left.  Best money spent all week!

 Move it, Shake it parade.  SO fun.  Look at that face!

  We immediately hit up Dumbo, the teacups and the carousel.

 It is hard to choose...but this may be my favorite picture from the entire trip!!!

After we got our fill of a few rides, Ellie was ready to meet some princesses. We were still learning and navigating our way but managed to find the list of times and locations for character meet and greets.  We found Princess Tiana and waited for about 20 minutes.  She was our first princess and did not disappoint!

We had fast passed a few rides but missed them due to arrival times.  We found a Fast Pass+ Kiosk and rescheduled a few things.  We managed to add Tinkerbell and kept our Enchanted Tales with Belle.  Both were awesome!

We had a late reservation at 9 for Chef Mickey's.  If I ever saw an open reservation for any of the top character meals or restaurants, I just grabbed them no matter the time.  We ate at strange times but it never seemed to matter!

After dinner, we went BACK to the Magic Kingdom and shut the park down at midnight.  We were dead tired and maybe a little crazy, but we had a blast for our first day and met so many characters!  We even found a 20 minute wait to meet Elsa and Anna at 11:30 pm.  We hopped right in line and saw them both in no time!  This was one character meet that I had already prepared myself to never happen.  I can't believe we actually did!  Everything just always seemed to work out perfectly for us everywhere we went.  That Disney Magic is something else!

We were a tad bit slower moving the next morning, but that didn't stop us from having a jam packed day!