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Monday was a long day of traveling home.  The day started very early, at 5am Florida time (4am WI time) to get up and last things packed and get to the airport.  We dropped off the rental car and got wheelchair assistance for Tom to get to our gate.  The plane ride from Orlando to Minneapolis was 3 hours.  Luckily, Nathan was tired and ready for a nap, and he napped for 2 hours!  Tom also napped on the flight.  We had a little layover which was difficult for Tom to be comfortable waiting and Nathan to try and run off some energy.  We finally arrived home in Milwaukee around 3pm, and Papa Jerry was there to pick us up.  With the winter storm rolling in, the drive home was a little long for both Tom and Nathan, but we made it!  It sure was nice to finally be back in our own home after a long day of traveling.

little dude having a Mickey Mouse sucker

yum yum!

Daddy and Nate

Mommy and Nate

We were all so tired we put on some clean comfies, had a quick bite to eat, and pretty much went to bed.  The next morning, Nathan was ready to get up and play toys!  

Fun in the Sun, part 3

What do you mean, there's a PART 3 to "Fun in the Sun"?  Yes, my friends, Yes, you betcha!

Sunday was an absolutely gorgeous day in the 80s, so after a relaxing morning in the condo (and napped Nathan), we headed down to the pool and rented a cabana for the very last time on our vacation.

After picking up little nuts (yet again), I got Nathan warmed up to swimming in the big pool.  He ended up loving it and became quite the swimming little fish.  I was SO elated!!

We walked back and forth on the little ledge, Nathan repeated after me "walk - slow" with each step he took.  It was SO cute!  He enjoyed giving mommy a surprise attack of splashes any chance he could.  He thought it was so funny to see Mommy get "all wet" as he would say.

 Not long after practicing walking along the bench in the water, Nathan was ready and more than willing to go for a swim!  I held him at his body/arm pits and he kicked back his legs and kept kicking to swim through the water.  He would point to where he want to go and I would swim him there.  He had fun at the water spouts splashing and hitting the water.  It made me SO overjoyed and happy to see him comfortable in the water and having so much fun!

After swimming, it was time for some fruit snacks, juice and a little cartoons!

Can you see how great it was to rent the cabana?  It really gave us some nice shade, privacy, and way more comfortable furniture than plain ol' beach loungers.

Nathan had fun opening and closing the cabana 'doors'.

 

throwing more rocks

I love him in his UV swim trunks and shirt!

no clue, being goofy!

For our last full day of fun at the resort, we made Sunday a very fun and relaxing day!  I just hope and pray that Nathan will enjoy swimming this summer.  I am taking him to the free swim day at Swimtastic in a few weeks, so we'll see what kind of deal they give us to enroll and maybe we can use a little Christmas money on that for Nathan.  I just really want him to grow up feeling comfortable and confident in the water because I am not.  No, we don't own any big fancy pool in our backyard, but as Nathan grows up and has school friends, they may have a pool, and we do all live on a big huge lake.  Even though I will never own a boat, who knows if one of his friend's family's will own a boat.  It's likely, so I really want him to learn how to swim young and have that as something he can grow on in life as he grows.  Awe, my baby, is growing, I'm admitting it.  <3 LOVE <3

Roxanne:)

Our day at Epcot

Thanks again, to T (my Neenah neighbor G's ex) for inviting us to meet him at the gate to get us into Epcot free, and again with a free double stroller.  We couldn't be more grateful for this amazing experience to be able to share together as a family.  We rented Tom another motorized scooter to make it around the park.  He became a pro at driving that thing setting up the speed just perfectly :)

First thing we checked out was Nemo's ride/show.  We sat in a clam shell that moved about a track very smoothly and not jerky, so Tom enjoyed it as well.  Nathan was mesmerized the whole ride, and at the end, they (of course) have you walk through a gift shop to get back outside.

on Nemo ride

 


Nate picked out a Nemo and Dori stuffed toys to spend some of his bday/xmas money.  He kept calling Nemo "Elmo", and I corrected him each time, and he then would say "Meemo," so I started to tell him "like your knee....Nemo," and he'd say it then.  Too cute!

After Nemo, we headed over to Figment, the Dragon ride.  It was cute and Nate loved watching the Dragon get into trouble.  It was a beautiful day out, in the mid 70's and simply fabulous!

It was a little nice when I finally figured out where the Character Spot was.  Five Disney favorites all in one place, inside a/c one right after another.  We only had to wait about 30 minutes in line, and Nathan was great.  I was a little nervous that he'd be afraid, but once we rounded the corner and he could see Mickey Mouse so close, he get very excited.  As you can see from the pictures here, he LOVED everyone!!  Mama was SO overjoyed and happy for her little dude to meet his favorite characters.

Nathan gave Mickey Mouse a 5, then posed for a pic with a big smile! :)

He walked up to Pluto and sat on the floor, so Pluto followed suit and let Nathan tickle his whiskers and even accepted a kiss on the nose from Nathan!

He gave Min-Min a BIG hug!!

Then tried to play hard-to-get with Minnie.  She got about 20 big hugs from Nathan!

"Oh! Donald!" says Nathan.

Only my boy!  Nathan walked up to Goofy and sat down on the floor.  Goofy thought "Gwarsh, Nathan, what a great idear!"

We spent some more time walking around the park and I found what I thought was a dinosaur ride, but it was Ellen DeGeneres's "dream" about evolution or something stupid.  It was the biggest waste of time ever!  Poor Tom was so uncomfortable on the hard plastic bench-like seats, and it was like a 45 minute ride/show.  Once you got on and the doors locked, there was no going back, so we were stuck!

However, beforehand, I did get this cute shot of Nathan and Daddy sitting on the side wall.

We were so lucky to have gotten this opportunity to experience Disney with our little family.  So grateful and so happy.  What wonderful memories we made!

With love,

Roxanne

Fun in the Sun, part 2

I am going to update the rest of our vacation, then I will work on a post about Tom's update from today, Tuesday Feb 2nd.

On Friday afternoon, we rented a cabana by the big pool on our side of the resort (West Village).  What a fancy and comfy cabana!  It was so great to have our own private spot, with shade, a fridge stocked with water and soda, cabinetry, a television, cookies, fruit.

plush!

Nathan eating fruit snacks...yum!

handsome boy.

He hated when I brought him into the water, but we did get him warmed up to the "big bath" aka hot tub.  It wasn't very hot temp, so I just splashed water on his feet as he stood outside of the hot tub, then held up water cupped in my hands that he slapped and splashed, and eventually he made his way in and loved it!

closing the cabana

Our digs

NUTS!  

Nathan found more nuts and had fun picking them up and throwing them into the bushes.

the pool view

eating PB&J watching "bob bob" (aka SpongeBob)

Friday was also Sasha's last day with us, and we were very sad to see her go home.  After she was gone, Nathan kept looking for her calling out her name.  He even pointed to her bed and said "Sasha, bed."  What a sweet boy, he loves his auntie!

After Nathan had gone to bed Friday night, T called my phone and invited us to experience Epcot on Saturday!  How amazing!!!  We were very much looking forward to checking out another Disney park, so plans were set time and place to meet.  Watch for the next post about our Epcot experience!  Nathan had a blast meeting his favorite Disney characters!!

With love,
Roxanne:)

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:)