Let's Start at the very beginning...first plane ride...

Some of our kids have been on airplanes before as very young kids, but this was the first plane ride that any of them actually remembers. They were pretty excited about the airplanes. Here we are as we got seated on the first plane:

Just to get this down in a journal like way, here is the scoop on our first day. Wes had been working his last EVER long call month at UNMC this past month. He did 2 weeks in a row of long call (meaning he worked the night shift 6pm-8am). The morning of his last shift ended at 8am. Jessica picked him up at work and I was supposed to meet them over there at like 8:30 so we could be at the airport at 9:20 and maybe still catch breakfast in the meantime. I did not wake up with my alarm. Solace woke me up. I was packed and ready to head out, but I had forgotten the vital part of actually putting the luggage in the van to get to the airport-Wes usually does that...anyway, I got to Jessica's house at like 9am then Jessica and Anne took us to the airport.
I was nervous about the flights. We had one flight at 10:50 am to Atlanta, GA.
That one seems ok since they actually kept our seats together. However, for some dumb reason our seats on the 2nd flight from Atlanta to Orlando, they had rearranged our seats and they had each of us in a different row. Yeah-a 3 year old alone with 2 strangers...really?! On the phone, they told me I would have to talk to the representative at the airport to fix that. At the airport, they said "Sorry, you will have to talk to someone in Atlanta for that." Um...we had only 44 minutes between flights and were going to be lucky to make it at all. But that was all they would do...

So, we arrive in Atlanta and discover we are like 2 terminals away from our gate. We RUSH over to the little shuttle/subway thing and then discover our gate is the furthest gate in that terminal. When we got there they were already in the middle of boarding the flight so we just had to give them our boarding passes as they were...LUCKILY they had actually changed the plane to a much bigger one and they had changed our seats so we were all in one row across now!! Thank goodness.

Now, many of you family know that I am a cursed traveler, and we were thinking all was well this time! I didn't even have to swear at any security people. Our flight started to take off a few minutes early, all was well, and about halfway down the runway, they slowed down and returned to the gate for some sort of a maintenance issue. We sat and waited on the plane for about an hour and 15 minutes, then finally took off (at the exact time we were supposed to be landing in Orlando).

Upon arrival in Orlando, we were to go to the "Disney Magical Express". For those that have not experienced the craziness that is WDW, let me explain that, the Disney Magical Express is one of the perks/benefits of staying "on property." (Meaning staying in a Disney resort hotel) The Disney Magical Express is essentially a bus that transports you free of charge from Orlando International Airport to your hotel on site. They even send you special little tags in the mail before your trip so you can mark any checked bags with their tag, and they will pick the bags up at baggage claim for you and deliver them to your room on site later that day/night. This is all free, but beware-on your return trip, it runs a little differently (but I will explain that later). Needless to say, Disney LOVES to help you get there and will make it easy for you to come spend your money there, but they are not as excited to help you leave.

Our package included 7 day passes to WDW and we were really only going to have 6 days to spend (S, M, T, W, H, F) as we were getting in late on the first Saturday and leaving really early the second Saturday. So, we thought we would just use the 7th day admission on the first night to go over to Disney's Hollywood Studios to see Fantasmic. Sadly, with the plane delay, that was not possible. Plus, you can imagine Wes was particularly exhausted after no sleep for over 24 hours. And to be honest, I was so excited I had only slept about 1 hour the night before we left. So, we checked out the hotel and ate some food at the food court, then went to bed!

I should mention a few other things really quick...We stayed at the Disney's All Star Music Resort (one of their "value" resorts) which is like a dressed up Motel 6-sufficient for our need though. (More extensive review coming later). We were in a family suite room 1636. Our vacation package included a Disney Dining plan for FREE. It was the basic plan which includes 2 Quick Service Meals and 2 Snacks each day for each person age 3 and up. It was a SWEET deal for us! And I will write a whole separate post about the Dining plan. Just wanted to mention those two things for now.

And one last airplane story because my parents laughed and laughed at me...As a background, when I was like 2 months old my mom and dad took me on an airplane from Utah to Ohio to visit family for Christmas. As I remember the story, they had packed all my clothing (ALL) in the checked bag (which was of course lost once they arrived). And of course as soon as the plan began take off, I had one of those blow out HUGE baby poops that got all over me and my mom. She could not get up until the plane was in the air, and it was quite the experience. Well, Everest thought he would provide me a similar experience on the first plane. I did have extra clothing for him, but not for me and boy did he get me good during take off. It was pretty disgusting, and when I went in the bathroom to change him, we hit turbulence which was a bit crazy and a light came on telling me to return to my seat, but I had a naked, poopy baby still, so I had to just finish cleaning him up and redress him...BTW, no one mentioned that there is actually a changing table that pulls down in those bathrooms, so I did this whole change on the tiny 6 inch counter and my lap...Just an FYI...Everest may have just become my mom and dad's favorite grandchild for all that payback...:)