A day of Disney at The Magic Kingdom!

On Thursday, we were able to go to The Magic Kingdom, thanks to our neighbor's ex-hubby who lives here and works for Disney.  How amazing to have such wonderful people in our lives offering to share their resources to enable us to enjoy the Disney experience!!  Thank you SO much, T and G!!!  T met us at the gate and got me, Tom, Sasha and Nathan in for free!  How wonderful!  I gave him a HUGE hug and thanked him over and over again.  Then he took me to the stroller rental and got us a double-wide stroller to rent for the day.  We rented Tom a wheelchair, which Sasha pushed around in the morning.  We had to leave around 12:45pm to get the boys home for naps.  When we returned to the park around 3:30pm, we upgraded Tom to a motorized scooter.

On the Monorail headed into Magic Kingdom

It was a long day, but full of fun and adventure!  Thank goodness my sister Sasha was able to be here with us, she was a HUGE help to me with Nathan and Tom.  Nate loves his Auntie and it's so cute how he says (sometimes yells-for) "Sasha!"  We stayed late at the park to watch the Electrical Parade.  It got chilly once the sun set, down to about 54 degrees.  Earlier in the day, Nate, me and Sasha got new Disney zip-up sweatshirts (Tom had his Badgers sweatshirt on), and Tom got new Mickey Mouse pj pants to go under his shorts to cover his legs.  Who can't use more pj pants, though!

A few minutes after we arrived, a parade was just beginning, and WOW what a great way to start the day of fun and adventure!  Nathan LOVED the parade, got to meet and dance with Jessie and Woody from Toy Story (Jessie is his secret girlfriend), and he even got a big awesome balloon!

dancing in the parade fun!  (Nathan kept saying "find Jess, find Jess")

WOODY!

JESSIE!

holding tight onto his balloon

We then headed right for Toon Town where Nathan got to see Minnie's house and Mickey's house.  He thought it was neat to see Mickey's bed where he goes nite-nite.

I tried to stand in line with Nathan to meet Mickey Mouse after touring his house, but Nathan got antsy and tried to line-hop, so I had to just exit.  Mickey would be there till 7:30pm, and I knew we'd be back. Sadly, when we did come back in the afternoon, we didn't get over hear Mickey's house again :(

Just outside Mickey's house was a little playground.  Nathan thoroughly enjoyed running around playing, going up and down the slide.  He would slide down, and say to me "Go again!" and he climbed right back up the stairs to slide down again.

Such a ham!  He had so much fun, he didn't want to leave the playground.  Literally, threw a fit, but the train was leaving, Daddy was hurting, and we needed to get back for naps, so off we went....


In the afternoon, we checked out all the cool stuff in Tomorrow Land.

attempt at a self portrait of us, but I kept cutting my head off.  oh well, Nate's the cute one! :)

Nathan and I rode on Buzz Lightyears ride.  We had to shoot at the "Z's" to fight off Evil Emperor Zurg.

Nathan sat mesmerized the whole time.  He LOVED it!

After the ride, we went outside and met Buzz Lightyear!

I realized Nathan had a shoe missing, but we found it!  Someone had turned it in at the end of the ride, and the ride operator had it in drawer.  I was so relieved to have gotten his Mickey Mouse Croc back!  The shoes won't fit him next summer, but they still fit now, and he's worn them all about the resort.  So glad to NOT have lost ANYTHING at the park! 

This was the end of the morning when Nathan was so tired and we headed back to the resort for naps.  I carried him in my Beco carrier on the front and draped the Mickey Mouse blanket I had made him a long time ago over his to keep the cool air off his legs, and cover his head from the sun. He was cozy and safe! :)  Tom had picked out a neat vintage Mickey Mouse hat to wear.  It is pretty awesome and Nathan loves that Mickey is on Daddy's hat.

Schwandt Family 1-27-2011

The Electrical Parade

As I mentioned earlier, we stayed till the evening to watch the Electrical Parade, and it was awesome!  It did get quite chilly out, for Florida weather, but Tom felt the cold the most.  I think because he's lost so much weight and muscle, his body temperature has a more difficult time adjusting and keeping him warm.  We snuggled him up the best we could, and he trooped through (anxiously) to the end of the parade.  I had wanted to stay for the fireworks, but they wouldn't start for another 30mins after the parade, Nathan was tired, Tom was freezing, so we just headed out of the park.  We did see some of the fireworks as we drove through the resort back to our condo though.

I had to get Nathan a big huge sucker!

Rox-N-Tom

Tom and Sasha 

(sorry for bad pic quality, I forgot I had my camera set up for the night shots with lights of the parade)

Nathan's favorite - he called is a "saur" (aka dinosaur)

All in all, we had a really fun Disney experience!  Even though we only made it through one-third of the whole park, it was well worth the time, energy and trip.  We are SO very grateful to T for meeting us there to get us in the gates completely free of charge!  It allowed us to spend Christmas money gifts on special souvenirs of our trip.

Much Love,

Roxanne:)