Disney Fun!

Hello all!

It appears that I have been absent for a while - sorry. I do have a good excuse though. First Blogger wasn't being very kind to me and wouldn't allow me to post anything. Next, I had this little vacation thing coming up, and between preparing for it and preparing work for my not being there. I think they might miss me.

Anyway, I hope to chronicle our journey to the "Happiest Place on Earth" here on at least a daily basis. It all depends on the time, fatigue and wi-fi availability factor of course. I'm also hoping to post some pictures along the way at random times, like there should be four pictures from my phone of our first few hours here, posted on the blog... somewhere. By that, I mean they are either the post below this one, or the post above it. Once again this will depend on Blogger. If I get a chance I will go back and edit the pics and at least tell a story about them.

Our journey from Illinois was a pretty uneventful one, aside from the vomiting crabby kid that is. After all, it isn't a good road trip without one of those factors, right?

We started out in a thunderstorm, which was raging through the night. We were also waiting for our oldest to get back from a Taylor Swift concert - she kept him out until three in the morning. I know, right? What kind of girl is she to keep him out so late? Truth be told, the concert was over around 10:30, but it was in Milwaukee - an hour and a half or so away. I see that you are doing the math... It was also storming and apparently someone cut off a truck and he lost his load all over the highway, so that should account for the time.

I also heard something hit the house during the storm - never really a good thing to hear, let me tell you - so I had to get up an investigate, this was around 3:30AM! Did I mention that we were planning on leaving the house around nine?

Needless to say, sleep was short-lived for us that evening, and at eight our traveling companion - a friend of Andy's - showed up raring to go. God bless her. She got the wheels started in motion. Jenni was already up and Maggie made sure that I was up as well, prior to Megan's arrival but if the truth were to be told, she was the catalyst for getting me off my butt and putting the wheels in motion.

So we officially left the house at 9:35am, not too much later than planned.We didn't forget any of the six children that came with us. I know, we have seven and I already mentioned an eighth in Megan, so you are probably thinking, um Roger, you forgot two. No we didn't, Jessie and Danny had the pleasure of leaving two days prior with their grandparents, it is Danny's trip after all. My in-laws take the kids to Disney World the summer after they turn five, and try their best to spoil them.

Okay, I've been long-winded (shocker!) and we need to be leaving for the parks, so let me wrap the journey up quickly here. Lots of rain through most of Indiana - I think it finally stopped just south of Indianapolis, where we stopped for some lunch. We hit a big traffic jam in Nashville, I'll share a picture or two from that later today, I promise. It's a great couple of action shots of cars not moving. We stopped for some Chick-fil-A shortly after that in Murfreesboro, I had a fruit cup - yeah I don't know either. Made our way through the winding highways outside of Chattanooga, always an adventure going 75mph without touching the gas pedal. We switched drivers just past Chattanooga, so that Jenni could enjoy driving through Atlanta in the middle of the night, and pulled over at a rest area south of Tifton, GA. for about an hour and a half. We stopped at our usual, traditional Florida welcome center around 6:15 - they open at 8, so we didn't get our taste of OJ and Grapefruit juice like we have in the past. As for our picture at the border... um most of the kids were sleeping, so it was a no-go. Ate some breakfast at the Cracker Barrel in Ocala, FL, then put on the music of Disney World for the last hour of our journey.

Whew!

No, I must go and have me some fun at the Animal Kingdom, before we head out to mass.

Bus is coming!!!