Day 3 of the Siegel Family Vacation

Siegel Family Vacation to Disney World

Day 3 - September 18th, 2010

Sorry for the delay in the telling of the rest of our vacation but my computer crashed at the end of September and I didn't get a new one until my birthday in November. I now have gone through all of my pictures from the trip and deleted the duplicates, edited the ones that I kept and recieved the CD of pictures from Disney Photopass. We began the day at Disney's Typhoon Lagoon Waterpark and arrived about 30 minutes before the park opened for the day. They allowed us in shortly after we arrived to the area where the changing rooms and lockers are located. We bought a new water camera since the one I purchased ahead of time got destroyed and rented a locker so I could stow my camera in later in the day. (I didn't feel like walking back over to the lockers after I had gotten some good shots of Emilia so the locker kept Herm's shorts/wallet safe instead.)

Here is Emilia riding down a tube slide in the kiddie area. She had a lot of fun over here playing in the sand and going down the slides. Herm and I took turns going off to ride some of the bigger slides by ourselves. We were able to take Emilia in the family raft ride which was a lot of fun seeing her go down a her first big slide. I need to finish taking pictures on the water camera so I can see how this picture turned out. Emilia and I walked over to get her some lunch - mainly she wanted the bucket that the lunch came in so she could play in the sand better. We left Typhoon Lagoon around 1:00 to head back to our hotel. Emilia needed to take a nap as we have a late night ahead of us when we attend Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party. We arrived at the Magic Kingdom shortly after 4:00 to attend the special party. We made our way to Tomorrowland where we grabbed a Fast Pass for Buzz Lightyear Space Rangers and then went to Cosmic Rays to eat dinner before the party began at 7:00. After dinner we used our Fast Passes for Buzz and then made our way to Fantasyland. By now it was 6:00 and Herm decided to get into line for the 7 Dwarves which made us 3rd in line. I took Emilia to ride the Haunter Mansion which she didn't like at all. The dwarves came out promptly at 7:00 pm and we were done meeting them by 7:05. They really hurry you through this line as they are a popular meet and greet. Looking back I should knelt down by Grumpy and Dopey but at the time I thought Emilia and Herm were going to that spot. The nice thing about the Halloween Party is all of the special characters that are out for the evening and the low crowds as it is a special event ticket that you purchase separtely.

Mickey and Minnie was probably our longest character wait of the evening but it was worth it. Emilia liked them the best and we got some great pictures. I wish that they would have been in the costumes they were in last year but Pirate Mickey and Princess Minnie is okay too. They were switching costumes throughout the night but we decided not to get back in line because there was no gurantee that they would be switched by the time we got back to the front.

We loved meeting Pooh and his friends even though it was a long line too because all of the characters signed autographs. We finished up meeting them just in time to catch the Hallowishes Fireworks on Main Street. We met plenty of other characters that evening and watched the Halloween parade which was awesome. Emilia loved watching the parade and was waving her hands to the music.

I leave you with a picture of us in front of Cinderella's Coach. We left the Magic Kingdom shortly after Midnight and made it back to our room around 1pm. We didn't catch everything that was going on at the party and didn't ride any rides besides Buzz before the party started, but the characters, fireworks and parade were the main things we were looking to accomplish. It was a fun time and something I highly recommend doing if you are ever at Disney World in September/October. We might go to another Halloween party later in the week depending on how much we get done on our Magic Kingdom day.

Walt Disney World - Day 2

September 17th, 2010

We were up for the day shortly after 7:00 am so we could be at the bus stop around 8:00 am to make rope drop for Animal Kingdom. We arrived at Animal Kingdom at 8:25 and proceeded to the turnstiles. While waiting for the park to open Emilia managed to rub sun tan lotion in her eyes so she was crying and kept rubbing eyes. Finally at 8:45 they let us through the turnstiles to the rope right before the Oasis. Here we watched the opening ceremony which had Mickey, Minnie and Pluto on a safari truck. Here they told us everything that we would need for our adventure for the day. After they zoomed off we were allowed further into the park. Herm and Emilia went to get fast passes to Kilimanjaro Safari while I followed the crowds to Expedition Everest. I was close to the front of the line and decided to check on the Single Rider line which turned out to be closed so I lost about 25 places in the regular line. They didn’t let us into Everest until 9:05 for whatever reason and everyone in front of me seemed to want to look at all of the exhibits as we were making our way to the trains. I was finally off Everest at 9:15 am. Herm now hopped in line while I took Emilia to Dinoland so she could ride Triceratop Spin. She was upset that she didn’t get to watch the “slide” anymore which was Everest. She seemed happy once we got in line for her ride but then proceeded to cry once the ride started. After we got off the ride she wanted to watch the cars on Primeval Whirl until Herm made it to Dinoland. He decided to take her back to the Triceratop Spin while I rode Primeval Whirl. Now it is 9:45 and Emilia wanted to take another ride on the dinosaurs so I went to ride Dinosaur.

Emilia and her daddy also met Pluto and Goofy while I was gone. We made our way out of Dinoland and stopped to see Tigger while we made our way to Kali River Rapids.

No wait on this ride luckily so Herm and I were able to both ride and were done by 10:45. Now we made our way to Africa to go on a Safari using our fast passes. Its 11:15 now and time to start heading back to the room so Emilia could take a nap. First we stop to see Lilo and Stitch and then we had our picture taken in front of the tree of life. We made it to the bus stop by noon and were back to the resort by 12:30. We ate lunch in our room and then it was time for a snooze.

We wake Emilia at 2:45 so we could head back to Animal Kingdom to see the parade at 3:45. Emilia enjoyed the parade a lot. I really dislike it when people come up at the last minute and weasel their way to the front of the crowd especially when I have been sitting in my spot for a half hour. One guy tried pushing his stroller to the front instead of just taking his kid out of the stroller and holding him. Oh they didn’t speak English so you couldn’t communicate with them. I really do not get people at times. After the parade we made our way to watch Finding Nemo the Musical. Emilia loved this show. Which is to be expected since Finding Nemo was her favorite movie for the longest time. Animal Kingdom is now closed and we are heading to the Magic Kingdom next to see the Main Street Electrical Parade. First we were going to catch the bus to the ticket and transportation center but the line was very long. So we head over to the Contemporary/Poly bus stop. The bus arrived within 5 minutes of us walking up and it wasn’t crowded at all.

We got off at the Contemporary and then walked to the Magic Kingdom. This park was more crowded than Animal as it was a parade night but we made the most of it. We took our picture in front of the castle as the crane putting up the Christmas Lights was down for the evening. Then we got a fastpass for Peter Pan’s Flight and then walked over and got a fastpass for Splash Mountain. Since the wait said it was only 10 minutes I got in the stand by line and we got a rider switch pass for Herm for later. Herm then took Emilia to stake out a parade spot. My wait for Splash Mountain was 17 minutes so I didn’t get the ride until 7:30 where I needed to make my way to Main Street to find Herm and Emilia. Emilia made some friends with the ladies by us and mooched some popcorn from them. They were very generous in giving her popcorn as they kept filling up her stroller tray. Herm went to change Emilia’s diaper and bought back some food from Casey’s. Emilia ate her hotdog and French fries just as the parade was about to get to us. She was fascinated by the parade. I love the music to this parade and thought it was much better than SpectroMagic that has been at WDW for year. After the parade Herm took Emilia to ride Peter Pan while I used my fast pass for Splash Mountain. I got off Splash Mountain at 8:58 pm just in time for Herm to hop in the fast pass line before it closed at 9:00. I guess the workers were a little surprised to see him up at the boarding station but he was in before close so they sent him in his very own boat and the boats in front and behind him were empty also. While Herm was riding Splash Mountain I went to try to catch Wishes. I really wanted to watch these from Main Street but I couldn’t make it there as people kept stopping so I ended up watching them from Liberty Square. It wasn’t too bad of a view but I wanted to get castle shots as I have not had them before. Oh well maybe next time!

We made our way out of the park and to the bus stop. The All Star Music line was huge so we got into the All Star Sports line. We were on the next bus that pulled up and on our way back to the resort on a very packed bus. Herm and Emilia went swimming while I got some food from the food court. Then it was off to bed!

Up Next: Day 3 Typhoon Lagoon and Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party

The Siegel Family Vacation to Disney World Day 1

Siegel Family Vacation to Walt Disney World

September 16th to September 23rd 2010

Cast of Characters: Herm, Ashley and Emilia

September 16th, 2010

Mema picked us up shortly after 6:30 and we arrived at GRR around 7:15 am to check in for our flight. I accidentally packed the disposable water camera in our checked bag and the not so nice TSA agent wouldn’t take the bag off the belt even though it wasn’t in the x-ray machine yet and just said well its ruined. Not the best start to the trip as that was a wasted $10 plus we would have to buy a new one on property at Disney since we aren’t renting a car. Emilia didn’t do the best on the flight as she didn’t want to stay in her seatbelt so that was a battle. Once we were up in the air and she was able to watch a movie so it made things a little easier.

We arrived at Orlando International Airport around 11:15 am. We took the tram to the main section of the airport made our way down to level 1 for Disney’s Magical Express. Our line moved slowly due to the cast member checking us in but soon we were waiting for the bus. We just missed the bus as the CM stopped the line in front of our family. It was a busy day for ME as we waited 30 minutes for the next bus and at least 20 of the minutes there were no busses out front to go to any of the resorts which seemed very odd to me. The first time we took Magical Express in January there were plenty of busses coming and going. Soon we were boarding the bus to make our way to Disney’s All Star Music Resort. After a quick stop at Coronado Springs to drop one person off and then the bus was on its way the All Star Resort.

I did online check-in so that sped things up for us greatly since all of our paperwork was pre-printed for us. We received a ground floor room as I requested in the Broadway 8 building. I also requested to be near transportation thinking maybe it would put us closer to the busses. Nope it put it near the parking lot though! My misunderstanding and will know for future reference. We grab some lunch in the food court and then it was back to the room to let Emilia take her nap as we have Chef Mickey reservations at 6:20 pm.

We left our room around 5 pm to head to the Contemporary Resort. We boarded the Magic Kingdom bus since there is no resort to resort bus transportation. Once we arrived at the MK we went to will call to pick up our Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party (MNSSHP) tickets for Saturday. Then we made the short walk to the Contemporary. After browsing the shops for a few minutes we checked into Chef Mickey’s at 6 pm and were seated at 6:20. First they took our picture with Chef Mickey instead of the statue that we had last time before sitting us down.

Goofy and Pluto were in our section and would be arriving at our table shortly. Herm went to the buffet quickly to get Emilia something to eat while we waited for these two characters. We were able to enjoy our dinner a little bit before Minnie and Donald made it into our section. Emilia wasn’t too interested in Donald as she was quickly saying “Bye Donald.” By the time Minnie made it to our table Emilia was done eating and wanted to be on our side of the table. Luckily Minnie squeezed into the booth with her. Minnie was her favorite character! Now that we had seen all of the characters it was time for dessert.

They bought Herm a free birthday cupcake as I put on our reservation that we were celebrating his birthday.

After dinner we looked at the other gift shop in the Contemporary where Emilia was eyeing up the Cinderella’s Castle play set again. She did this last November at the Grand Floridian too.

We were now going to catch the bus to Downtown Disney from the Contemporary. Now I don’t understand why people complain about the All Stars having to share busses at certain times of the day because I think the bus sharing to DTD from the Contemporary and then to the Poly is way worse! The resorts are not as close as the All Stars are and with the money you are paying to stay there you would think that they would have their own busses.

First up at Downtown Disney is the Lego Store for Emilia to play on the playground there and for me to look for a birthday present for Xavier. No luck on that front as most of that stuff I can buy at home. Then we went to the World of Disney store in search of the Minnie Witch Halloween Costume. We found the costume but unfortunately they don’t make it in a toddler size. The smallest size that it comes in is a small which is a 5-6. So we are back to the drawing board on what to dress Emilia up for Halloween. Next up is the Once upon a Toy store to get more Mr. Potato Head pieces. Herm let me buy the big huge potato head as it was a better deal then buying 2 boxes of parts. I spent at least a half hour stuffing this potato with as many pieces as I could fit. I had fun doing it! Back to resort as we are doing rope drop at Animal Kingdom in the morning!

More of our trip to follow later!

Check out my other website that has scrapbook layouts on it that I have created. Nothing of this trip yet but you can see layouts of Emilia and other Family things.

www.ashleysscrapbookcreations.shutterfly.com

Happy 2nd Birthday Emilia!!!

The day has come...Our baby is no longer a baby. She turned 2 on June 10th and is now a little girl. She had a Minne Mouse Pizza Party. She celebrated the day with family but was not the best party host. She wanted to play in the back yard or stick with Daddy. She isn't use to structure activities or that many people since it is just me and her most of the time. So with a few tears...(its her party and she can cry if she wants too) we managed to sit her down to open some presents sitting on Daddy's lap.

She recieved lots of goodies such as a trike, play doh, little people school bus, Mr. Potato Head, art sets and her favorite some new balls. She also recieved some money to go clothes shopping the fall so that will come in handy. She likes all of her new things a lot. I had to put the art sets up in the closet until she gets older as I am not ready for her to have markers and glitter glue yet. Espcially since she likes to draw on herself and anything else around her. She was not happy that I did that as she really wanted to play with the markers. Oh well she can stick with the special markers that only color on certain paper for now :)

After presents we moved onto cake. This really got her attention as she loves to eat Cake! Her awesome Minnie Mouse Cake came from a bakery in downtown Rockford. Delicious cake and would highly recommend them. She has over 200 different character cake pans in addition to all of the normal cake stuff. We didn't sing Happy Birthday to Emilia as it makes her cry. We found this out earlier in the week when we sang Happy Birthday to her cousin Bo.

Emilia actually wore her Minnie Mouse ears from Disney World for her party. I was really surprised as she normally does not like hats. I love this picture of her from behind and I am learning to play with my photo editing software. To conclude the day we went downtown Rockford to watch Fireworks as her birthday fell on their Start of Summer Celebration!

For her 2 year doctor check up she is roughly 34 inches tall and weighs around 30 lbs. She has moved up to the 55th percentile for height instead of the 50th but still is at the 90th for weight!

Emilia Scrapbook Pages

I have decided to start sharing my scrapbooks over the web through the use of Photobucket. If you click on View All it will take to the site to view the layouts of Emilia a little more throughly than watching the slideshow on the blog. These layouts are what I have worked on the past couple of months. As you can see I am behind on her book as I just scrapped Halloween. I hope to have it back up to date by her 2nd birthday!

It's No Joke...

Here it is April 1st 2010 and Emilia is swimming in her kiddie pool and laying out on our Deck IN MICHIGAN! We reached 80 degrees on this fine April Fools Day which is definitely out of the ordinary. We enjoyed the nice warm day outside in the sun playing in the back yard. She worked very hard to get that corner of her Tinker Bell towel laying properly.

I took Emilia to see the Easter Bunny at the Woodland Mall on April 1st. She did not like this bunny at all. In her defense though he was not a very good bunny. Just sat there with his hands in his lap unlike the Florida Bunny we saw last year. So I had to sit with her in order to get her picture taken. I should have just said forget it but we got the picture anyway.

We hosted our first Easter lunch at our house this year. We had invited Herm's Parents and Roberta which Grandpa Siegel decided not to come, Granny and Grandpa, My brother Brad and his wife Margaret along with my nephew Xavier. The rest of my family was in Florida for Easter. We broke out and used our "Fancy" China for the first time. Nothing like drinking Mt. Dew out of a crystal goblet. We have had this stuff for almost three years so it felt good to finally use the dishes as I like them a lot but not for everyday. In hindsight I really don't need the stuff and should have used the money for something different. I probably wouldn't have bought it if we didn't receive the one place setting at our wedding that I couldn't return as I didn't have the receipt so off we went to buy the other 11 place settings but we got them at a good deal as they were closing the Michigan Mikasa Stores. Oh Well...can't take them back now so I might as well use them.

Emilia had a good Easter. She found her Easter basket right away filled with 2 new movies and a bag of M&M's. Overall we had a great Easter and hope that everyone else did too!

Emilia is beginning to think that she is a “big girl” now. She refuses to sit in high chair now 98% of the time. She feels that she needs to sit at the table with us. While she may think that she is a big girl, she still has her baby ways to fall back on. She has become more dependent on her pacifier. She use to only use it at bed and riding in the car, but ever since Herm and I left her at Mema’s for the weekend when we went to Vegas that plug is needed most of the day.

She is starting to not watch her Baby Einstein movies as much and choosing full length feature films. Her favorite movies include: Finding Nemo, Monster’s Inc., Cars, and now Princess and the Frog. She seems to be a Pixar animation fan. This girl loves her movies. If I would let her she would watch movies all day long. She likes to watch movies in Daddy’s car and keeps hoping that eventually we will get a DVD player in mommy’s car. We need to invest in another dual screen set because she doesn’t know how to hold onto a single DVD player and likes to push buttons. Since she is still rear-facing and will be for awhile the dual screen players work best. Maybe someday we will find another good deal like we did for Herm’s car.

We had our first big girl potty moment. I wish I would have gotten a picture but my camera was downstairs. After her bath the other night we asked her if she needed to go potty and she actually sat on her potty long enough and did her business. She even asked for toilet paper. Herm and I clapped our hands and told her good job. Emilia then proceeds to put her face in her hands and started crying. It took her a few minutes to realize that she did a good thing. I don’t think that she fully understood what she did as we are not at a point to try potty training yet. She does not tell us when she has to go or when her diaper needs changing. She likes to tell me No when I ask her if she went poopy. So I think that it will be awhile but we are done with diapers.

In the past month we took Emilia to Playhouse Disney Live! On Tour. She did not behave the best but made it through the show. She probably would have been a little better had she received her full nap and if Mickey would have been more at the beginning instead of the end. She did have her first snow cone at the show. She mainly sucked the syrup through the straw and Daddy at most of the ice. We took her to Disney on Ice Finding Nemo last weekend and she had a great time.

Well that is what is happening in our little lives this month. I'll leave you with a picture of Emilia climbing into her baby doll buggy!

Emilia is growing by leaps and bounds and this girl is always on the move! I am still waiting for her to slow down in the weight gain department as the doctor said she would when she turned 1. She is up 27+ lbs now according to the Wii Fit scale. She was 26 lbs 2 oz at her 18 month check up. Hopefully when the snow goes away we can get her outside more to run around and she will level out.

We took a Family Vacation in November because I had a Southwest Airline credit that I needed to use from when I changed my spring break flight. We took a 4 day Carnival Cruise and went back to Disney World. It was nice to see most of the Christmas decorations up. Emilia had a good time but she was a lot easier to handle when we went in January as she didn’t have an opinion then. Normally she is such a ham for the camera but this trip she pretty much refused to smile so all the pictures look like she is having the worst time ever which is far from the truth. Emilia liked the ride the rides by herself. Here she is on the opposite side of the TTA car as us. She enjoyed the cruise ship very much especially our room steward Anton. She kept flirting with him. We are in for some trouble when she gets older! This is our last vacation for awhile as we traveled a lot this year.

Here is Emilia in her snowsuit in the first big snowfall of the year. She loves playing in her sled and was mad when we made her come in. However since it was only 15 degrees out she didn’t get to play as long as she would have liked. Daddy took her out sledding a couple of days later when it was snowing and actually pushed he down a hill. He tells me that she just looked back at him laughing all the way :).

Christmas went well at our house and Emilia was a very good girl this year! She walked right past the Christmas tree when she got up and went straight into the kitchen for some juice. I guess she needs her juice to get her going! She was a little hesitant opening presents at first but once she got going we couldn’t stop her. She even wanted to open everyone else’s presents. Unlike last year where she wanted to play with each thing after she opened it this year she just tossed it aside and went onto the next.

Emilia (and us) survived our very first weekend apart. Herm and I went to Las Vegas for a weekend and left Emilia with Mema Jo. This is the first time that she has been without either of us for more than overnight and the last overnight was a year ago. We were a little nervous on how she would do but she managed to make it through the 3 days and even spent a whole day with Uncle Brad! Never mind the fact that she had her plug in her mouth 99% of the time and on Monday she thought she needed to carry around her pillow all day. She was excited when she got home though and saw all of her stuff. She couldn't decide with what to play with first!

I am hoping to update this more this year but I am not going to make any promises. Happy 2010 to everyone and we hope that it is a great year!