Part 4? This is becoming quite an epic! Yesterday was Ben’s 8th birthday. What a big guy he’s getting to be. He had a great time, well, because he got to spend it in the Magic Kingdom! The weather did us fairly well as it was overcast and a bit showery which was just dandy. The rain felt good in the midst of the 90 degree heat and crowds of people. We rode the ferryboat over and Abi just beamed excitement when she saw Cinderella’s castle across the lake. After getting onto Main Street USA, we tried on the various hats in the hat shoppe before going down the street for a photo op in front of the castle. We then pretty much went through the entire east side of the park which included Fantasyland, Tomorrowland, and Mickey’s Toontown Fair. We rode lots of rides like the Mad Tea Party (probably our favorite), Dumbo, Goofy’s Barnstormer (which was Nick’s first rollercoaster), and the Speedway.

Nicky got to meet his favorite morning idol, “Pal” (which he calls Mickey Mouse, i.e. “Hiya, pal!”). We watched the 3pm parade by the castle and it was quite the show to see with every one of the classic stars making an appearance. I took tons of pictures so check out the photo albums of the kids and my flickr account for them.

Today we had breakfast with a couple of characters, Disney characters that is! Our hotel has character breakfasts on certain days and we got to have ours with Pluto and Goofy. Abi and Nick played hard to get and the boys play high fives with Goofy. We went to Downtown Disney today to look for souvenirs. We saw some things we liked and noted them for later. We spent some of the afternoon at the hotel pool after lunch to cool off until a storm threatened. The kids enjoyed that while they could and then we went out to dinner followed by a return trip to Downtown Disney to purchase some things. I did manage to find another penguin. I got myself a Wheezy (from Toy Story) plush that squeaks. Haha. Okay, our legs are killing us now. Time to sleep.

On Friday we got the kids some ice cream at Tropical Freeze before heading back to the house to dip in the pool. Steve & Holly joined us in a while as did Alesha’s kids. The kids had a great time splashing around in the pool with their cousins as expected. I did manage to snap a few pictures before the camera started to freak out on me. After getting cleaned up, we went out to dinner at Boondocks. It’s a bar & grill type of restaurant with its own miniature golf course. Dinner was excellent and even though golfing was a bit late for the kids, they managed all 18 holes. There was some adjusting of golf balls in order to sink their putts but that’s okay. Kids be kids, you know.

On Saturday we went to the Jacobs Aquatic Center on Key Largo. All of the children really had a blast at this water park, especially Nicky. He was a bit apprehensive about putting his feet down into the water. I think he didn’t actually think there was any ground below the water line, but once he found ground, he was all over the place. He didn’t really mind me taking him down the slide on the pirate ship at all. We went around the park from the activity area with the pirate ship to the regular pool in intervals. It felt really good to go from the colder kids area to the warm pool. Steve got up on the diving boards and made some of the biggest splashdowns we’ve seen. The lifeguard said his were okay but that just encouraged Steve to aim a little more towards the edge of the pool. By the end of the day, the kids were worn out as were we. NIcholas was asleep before we even got back onto US-1. The hour or so drive up to Key Largo was definitely worth it for all.

Today even with the occasional thunder and showers & sprinkles, Steve took us out in a boat into the ocean. The weather was still looking a bit grim so we headed back into the bay and parked ourselves under a bridge for US-1 near Big Pine. We brought out the fishing poles and bait(read: hot dogs. Hey if you can catch a dork fish with a corn dog…). We got some nibblers but no takers. They may have caught onto our plan. We packed up and headed back to the dock as the skies were darkening and the rain was starting to come down harder. We did get somewhat wet on the way back as we came back to the canal full throttle. Ironically, though, when we got back, I checked the weather radar. The storm was there when we left the bridge but the animation showed it totally dissipating. Yeah, that figures.

We leave for Orlando on Tuesday. Time does fly when you’re having fun. I’m hoping that the weather in Orlando this week is as nice as it was here. Even if there’s rain, I’m sure Disney World won’t be a bummer.