{day 1} EPCOT

we woke up bright and early on wednesday morning and packed the suburban as full as it could get.  five people going somewhere for more than 10 minutes requires a LOT of stuff! armed with snacks, drinks, dvds and books....we were ready to make the 6 hour haul to orlando.  we launched out just ahead of a righteous storm that hit our area that day....and missed the subarctic temperatures that said weather brought with it.  i had checked the weather for disney (since our last trip ended up with us huddling under the train depot whilst tropical storm anna pummeled us) and was glad to see that it was going to be clear skies and warm-ish weather!

the trip down was pretty uneventful.  we truly have the best little travelers.  it doesn't hurt that they are all camels so bathroom stops were at a minimum.  as soon as we reached our resort (i highly recommend staying on site at disney....makes things so much easier!) we unpacked and then headed straight for the bus loading area.  we realized that a 4th day ticket would only cost us about $10 more per person so we had decided that go ahead and spend a few hours at epcot on our first day.

chandler was dying to see the "monster ball" and go on the ride (i have no idea how he even knew there was a ride inside the epcot ball.  i didn't even know that!) so we were happy that we had the chance to snag an extra day on our park tickets to make his wish come true :)

my mother and father in law had a snag with their tickets, so the kids played just inside the park gates while we waited for them to come inside.  apparently lights in the ground and some concrete monuments can keep a child occupied for longer than you'd think!

we hit up the aquarium wile we waited for our soarin' fast pass time to come up (which was a VERY cool ride!  ava was too little to go on it....but next time she'll get to go).  the kids loved looking at all of the fish.  they didn't have anyone scuba diving in the tanks this time, but it was still pretty cool :)

they also got to play in the NEMO playground area.  and apparently were eaten by a shark while we were there!

we took a little trip through mexico while we waited for the laser light show and fireworks to start.

and the epcot ball was just gorgeous in the night....i haven't been to epcot since i was a little girl so it was cool to get to see some of the stuff that i had forgotten about!

we watched the fireworks from the country of mexico's cantina.  it was a little hard to see with the crowds of people, but the kids seemed to enjoy it anyhow.  i wouldn't recommend the food at the outdoor area of mexico, but i've been told that if you go to the indoor dining area, it's much better!

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after the fireworks, we headed back to our resort (SO nice to have just parked the cars and had buses to take us everywhere!) and got ready for our first magic kingdom day!