Sun, 31 Dec 2006

When you wish upon a star...

We're back from Nate's Make-A-Wish trip! It was incredible. Let me fill you in on the history, however. In November of 2005 Nate met with the Wish folks, and wished for a trip to Disney World at Christmas. Well, they couldn't make it happen for Christmas '05, so tried to talk him into Feb. or April of '06. He was adamant about Christmas, and said "I want to go to Disney World at Christmas. This Christmas, next Christmas, or the Christmas after that". So, Christmas '06 it was planned for.

We left on the 21st, with a big black limo pulling up in the driveway. The limo took us to the airport, where we flew to Orlando by way of Dallas. Once we arrived in Orlanda, a greeter was waiting from Give Kids The World (GKTW). He helped us get to our rental car, and get us on our way as quickly as possible. We drove our rental minivan to the Give Kids the World village. Upon arrival, we checked in inside the House of Hearts. They had stuffed animals (Shamu and Mickey) for the kids, and tshirts for the kids. They gave us some information, and sent brought us to our villa, where we'd be staying. It was late in the evening, and it was great that they had stocked our fridge with milk, juice, etc. Also, there were 5 sandwiches waiting in there for us, since we had missed dinner time.

The villa is a 2 bedroom, 2 batch duplex. There's a small kitchen and a living room. The kids get the master suite, complete with bathroom with jacuzzi tub and large shower. Christa and I got a bedroom with a a small bathroom off the hallway. This is give *kids* the world, after all. I'll post some more pictures from GKTW soon (nice pics of the village). The Give Kids The World provides the stay free of charge, breakfast and dinner daily, free ice cream, all sorts of great little perks. Inside the Castle of Dreams, on the ceiling are thousands and thousands of small shiny stars. Each one has been signed by a child who has stayed at the village. And now, Nate's star has joined the others.

Friday morning (the 22nd) I met for GKTW orientation, where I was given the free tickets to Disney, SeaWorld, Universal, and other information. After that, we headed to Disney World's Magic Kingdom. We drove in, had free parking because of our GKTW parking pass, boarded shuttle in the parking lot, took that to the ferry boat, which took us accross the lake to the park. The scale of things at Disney World is incredible. You have to take mass transportation (ferry or monorail) from the parking lot just to get to the Magic Kingdom park.

We went into the park, rode a few rides, then met up with Grandma Madie and Grandpa Bob. We rode quite a few rides. Nate wore his Make-A-Wish shirt & hat, and had a lanyard with his GKTW button. Between that, and the special access pass I wore around my neck, we had quick access to all the rides. Rides that took fast-pass would take us right in, and those without fast-pass would usually take us through the disabled access or the exit. It sure beat standing in line. Sometimes I would feel a bit guilty about it, but I guess it's just karma earned for waiting in the hospital for innumerable hours over a couple of years.

We spent all day Friday at the park, watched the fireworks, then headed over to Bob & Madie's hotel for dinner. Actually, they all went there, I went to find the car (at which point it started to rain heavily. I met back up with them in the Mickey restaurant at their hotel. We headed home a little later with a bunch of very tired out kids.

Saturday we did more of the same... we met Bob & Madie at their hotel, walked over to the Magic Kingdom, rode a couple rides, and watched the Christmas parade. We then headed over to Epcot Center (via monorail) and rode a few rides there. Late afternoon, early evening we started checking out the different "countries" as part of the Epcot park, but then started to run out of steam. We parted ways with Madie & Bob, and headed to back to Magic Kingdom so that we could experience the electric parade (or whatever it's called now). That was fun. We also rode Pirates of the Carribean again (which the boys loved, Becca not so much). After that we headed back to get our car at Madie's hotel, and took our gaggle of very tired kids home.

Sunday we went straight to Disney's Animal Kingdom park, and met Bob and Madie there. We wandered around there all day, and in the afternoon Bob and Madie took off to meet up with Madie's brother Don who came into town. We finished out the day at Animal Kingdom, and headed over to Bob & Madie's hotel about dusk. The kids wolfed down a few chicken nuggets (dinner of champions, for sure) at their hotel room, and we headed back to Give Kids the World to finish out our Christmas Eve. This included visiting Mr. and Mrs. Claus in the Castle of Dreams (who had presents for all the kids), and ice cream at the ice cream parlor. After a baths we got the kids to bed so that Santa could visit that night.

Monday morning the kids woke up bright and early (Nate led the charge and happily woke up his brother and sister) to discover that Santa had found us all the way in Florida. After opening presents, we headed up to the theatre, where Mickey Mouse, Pluto and Mary Poppins were visiting the kids. We had our picture taken in the theater with the characters. The kids played with their new toys for a while, and then we met up with Bob & Madie, Martha (Madie's sister) and her husband, and Don (Madie's brother) for lunch. We went to a nice seafood restaurant at Downtown Disney, and had a nice meal (far better than the park fare). We had planned to stay and do some shopping there for souvenirs, but it started pouring rain, torrential almost. So, we loaded up the kids and headed back to GKTW. We had planned to swim that day at the village, but the pools were closed because of the rain and lightning. We still had a good time, and Bob and Madie joined us later in the day for dinner at the village. This was our last night at Give Kids the World, and we were making the best of it. It was nice to have a sort of "down day", enjoying the village.

Tuesday morning we packed up and headed out of GKTW. We decided to go to SeaWorld, and check out the marine life and shows. It was much cooler now, and threatened to rain a few times. We watched the dolphin show and whale show, went through the sharks exhibit, and tried to feed or touch a dolphin. We were too late for the feeding, and the dolphins were tired of people by then, so didn't get to touch them. We headed out just after dark, and drove to Cocoa Beach, on the Atlantic side of Florida, to stay at our hotel on the beach. We got there in the evening, grabbed some sandwiches for dinner, and hung out.

Wednesday morning we ate bagels and cereal at the hotel, which was an old-school single-story job, right on the beach. We spent the day running down to the beach, building sand castles, etc. It was pretty cool, with a brisk wind, so we didn't end up swimming. I shipped a couple of packages home that afternoon, since we had sooo many toys, etc from Christmas and our trip. We had a nice dinner at a local restaurant, and spent some time packing up our stuff that evening. This was to be our last night in Florida.

Thursday morning we headed out early, stopped by the Starbuck's in Cocoa Beach (there is a serious dearth of espresso in Florida), and drove to Orlando to catch our flight home. Many hours later we had traversed an entire continent and arrived at SJ airport. There, our driver picked us up (this whole chauffer limo thing rocks), and we rode home in another stretch limo (Andrew called it the "big fancy car"). About 5pm we arrived home, hungry and tired, having finished our big trip.

The Christmas lights were on, our house was warm, and there was a large pile of packages inside that had arrived while we were gone. Thanks to Pat & Larry for turning on the heat and lights and putting the boxes inside each day! I ran to get spaghetti & meat balls, we ate dinner, and had our third or fourth Christmas for this year.

This was the blow-by-blow of what happened... we'll post some more highlights from the trip. I wanted to get this up here, along with the first stab as posting photos. I hope you all enjoy. Merry Christmas, and have a Happy New Year!

- Greg

PS - I realize it's been 3 months since I updated the site. I'll try to do better.

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