Spectromagic Parade would be starting in about 30 minutes so we went to find spots to watch – I knew we had waited too long and as expected it was packed. We sat down behind about 5 or 6 rows of people who were also sitting down, thinking this would work out fine. But as soon as the parade started, everyone in the front stood up! I couldn’t believe they would be that rude to everyone behind them –I thought most people understood parade etiquette – if you are in the front sit down! So we scrambled up closer to where we could hold Lily up and still give her a reasonably good view. It was a cool parade, would have been nicer not to feel so crowded though. But that had been the story of the day.

After the parade there was only about 20 minutes until the fireworks, but Lily decided she had to go potty and couldn’t wait. So we ran to the potty as quick as we could. The fireworks were great, but again found myself wishing for our amazing seats that we had landed in last summer right in front of the Castle. And again, everyone stood up. Why was everyone standing up??? After the fireworks Ashley wanted to stay for the Christmas with Mickey show, which was in another 15 minutes.

Lily was so sleepy and begged to leave, but we couldn’t go anywhere if everyone else was staying. So she laid down on the ground. Again once it started everyone stood up and we would have to stand to if we wanted to see. At first she said she didn’t care, she just wanted to sleep. We finally convinced her to get up though, and she ended up enjoying the show despite being so tired. We all stumbled toward the entrance when it was over. The second Spectromagic parade was about to start, this time the Main Street was almost deserted. Now that’s the way to watch the parade, but we were all too tired. Made a mental note for our next Disney Vacation though – plan a late afternoon break, then late night at MK to see second parade.

We decided to take the boat back to the TTC since we had taken the monorail that morning. We got onto the one that was loading and were soon off. It will come as no surprise that Lily was sound asleep before we even made it out of the parking lot. Near the hotel we stopped by McDonald’s to pick up some dinner. We never eat McDonald’s but there was no way she was going to wake up to go inside a restaurant. Desperate times call for desperate measures. I’m sure glad we didn’t try to do any days like this during our vacation – we never would have made it a whole week! But we had had a really fun day and covered a lot more of the park than I thought we would, considering how busy it was. Back at the hotel we managed to get Lily to eat a few chicken nuggets before collapsing into bed, something which she would have no memory of in the morning.

Again, we had to get up earlier than we would have liked to get packed up and head to breakfast with Mickey! We were doing pretty good for time, got checked out and were on our way… then I remembered that my camera battery was still in the charger. And the charger was still plugged into the outlet in our room!!! What a disaster. So we turned back – Dad ran inside to try to get a key. Of course they had to program a new card. Brian ran up to the room to fetch it, but the new key didn’t work, so we had to back to the front desk again, get another one. Fortunately this one worked, but we had lost almost 20 minutes in the whole ordeal.

So we made a beeline toward Disney World again, hoping to goodness we wouldn’t hit a traffic jam. Fortunately we didn’t, though we almost missed our turn because as we came through the left lane of the Entrance, we were told our turn was on the right – across about 8 lanes of cars! Somehow we made it across without getting run over and were at the Contemporary in no time at all.

We checked in at Chef Mickey’s, got our picture made and were seated within a few minutes. Goofy was on his way but we had a few minutes so we hurried to the buffet to get food. The other were along shortly – Mickey, then Minnie (who liked that Lily was wearing her dress!), Pluto, and Donald. Donald got excited when Mom complimented him on the good breakfast. As he was leaving, Lily fell out of her chair, and he helped her back up! We finished eating, purchased the picture of all of us, and at it was time to go, time to head back to Naples. C-Ya real soon, Disney!

On the way out of the hotel I mentioned to Brian that I suddenly didn’t feel so great – that queasy, yucky, dizzy sort of feeling I always get when I am sick with just about anything. I wasn’t used to eating such a big breakfast though, and was a little worn out from the last few days and figured a nap on the way back would take care of it. The 3 hour ride back to Naples was uneventful, Lily slept for a lot of it, and me too, on and off anyway. I was feeling mostly better when we got to their house, and hoped that was all it had been. It was already mid afternoon and preparations were immediately begun for that night’s feast and festivities. The kids, of course, were in the pool within minutes. I went to the grocery store with Mom and Tina while they swam to get the food needed for that night.

It was a pretty typical Collins Family Christmas Eve. A Feast (of steaks, potatoes, etc…and raviolis for me). And then time to open presents! Mostly just the ones from Grandma and Grandpa since we had exchanged Solstice gifts already at home. She got several Disney things – a coffee mug, a picture frame, a snowglobe, and a singing Cinderella doll. All night the kids had been watching the NORAD Santa tracking page, and noticed that he had now crossed the Atlantic Ocean – probably wouldn’t be long before her got to Florida! So everyone hurried to get ready for bed. Lily left Santa a peanut butter cookie and some milk, and then decided the reindeer might be thirsty too and wanted to leave them a cup of water. It took a little bit of time to get to sleep, but at least we were quietly tucked into our room. We finally fell asleep listening for jingling and the sound of those tiny feet…

In the morning Lily crept through the house looking for where Santa might have left his loot… it was all in the living room by the tree! And at least half of consisted of… can you possible guess??? Wall-E!!! And EVE too. Several toys and stuffed animals of them in fact. Plus a signing Ariel, remote control Little Einsteins rocket, and some other small toys, puzzles and games. Getting everything out of the packaging consumed most of the morning, and of course she had to try everything out. During all of this I started to not feel so great again and by now was pretty sure I was coming down with something. Why is it that one of us always has some issue on Christmas? Someone is always sick, hurt, has a weird allergic reaction to something… I think we must be cursed.

We were having another big feast for lunch – this time more traditional fare like ham and turkey, and the usual sides. Mike, Tina, Cassie and Cam came over, and soon lunch was ready. Afterwards the kids went swimming. The rest of the day, and the next actually, are a bit of a blur. I was definitely sick – throat and head hurt like crazy, I had a fever, and the yucky, achy all over feeling was here in full force. All I remember about the rest of the day and the next is lots of swimming (sometimes me too, mostly in the hot tub) and the kids playing with some of their new toys while I mostly sat or lay around. Several times I would think I was feeling better and try to do something with the kids, only to realize that had been a mistake and then spend the next two hours lying on the couch huddled under a blanket.

By Friday night I was definitely starting to feel better for real, finally, though my throat was still pretty sore. We went out to eat, being tired by now of leftover ham and turkey, to the Blue Monkey. The kids got to decorate cookies to eat afterwards! Saturday morning I could tell that whatever this bug had been it was mostly behind me – what a relief! The kids did some more swimming –Lily had turned a major corner in the water and was not only putting her whole face and head in the water, but was doing a lot of real swimming on her own! She could swim unassisted across the narrow part of the pool, and she would do it over and over again, barely taking time to catch her breath before going again. She was totally addicted. When the kids weren’t swimming we played some of the new games we had gotten, and Grandma helped them put together a puzzle. Later in the day, Mike and Tina came over and the guys tried to figure out what was wrong with the pool heater which wasn’t working right. Tina and I made a quick trip to Target to pick up a couple of things. The day was slipping away, and soon it was dinner time. We kept it easy and went to Bob Evans, then came back and started packing as our flight left early the next morning. Another successful trip was nearing its end.Chapter 9. Planes, Trains, and Automobiles… will get us home!

We drug ourselves out of bed very early and finished packing the last minute things, then were off to the airport. When we checked in, we once again did not have seat assignments for not only the first, but even the second flight of our trip. Our third flight had seats, but they were not even together. Why have we had such bad luck with that on this trip??? Everyone else seemed to have seat assignments together when they arrived with no problem. Later I realized it might be because we booked through Orbitz. I think from now on I will book through the airlines directly. Since we didn’t have seat assignments yet we wanted to get to the gate as soon as possible, so we said our goodbyes. Security was no more than the usual hassle, and we grabbed some breakfast on the way to the gate. We were able to get seats with no problem, even three together. That was the only time on the whole trip. Our connection in Chicago was very tight – only 40 minutes and we didn’t have seats for that one either so we were really hoping our flight from Ft. Myers got out on time. It did, and actually got us to Chicago about 30 minutes early, so we had plenty of time to get to the gate. They couldn’t assign us seats yet though; finally they called our name and gave us boarding passes. Three more seats, not together. We told them we had a 5 year old, they said we would just have to ask someone on the plane to switch seats with us. That almost didn’t work out, as the first person I asked wouldn’t move, fortunately the person sitting next to the other seat offered so Lily got to sit with me in the very back of the plane. Brian was all the way in the front.

That flight was a tad bit late leaving, but we had a long layover in Oklahoma City anyway. I had never been to Oklahoma City, and had formed a mental image of what I expected the airport to look like. When we got off the plane I was a little shocked to see that my vision was freakishly correct. Not so much in the layout, but in the overall look and style. I guess it just symbolizes the Midwest – tall, stark, neutral colors, very open and airy, just slightly modern but not too much. We got some pizza while we waited, and Lily saved her milk in the pocket of her backpack. I mentioned how the lid didn’t seal tight so we would have to be careful when we set it down. Just one more flight – this one to Denver. At the gate, Lily made a new friend who also had a sticker book (she had been playing with her Wonder Pets one) and they spent a long time trading stickers.

Again our seats were not together but we got lucky and it only took getting two people to switch by one row so that we could all sit together. Unfortunately we were in the bulk head row, which means ALL of you carry-on stuff has to go in the overhead compartments. I hate that – especially when the seat belt light stays on for almost the whole time and then you can’t get to anything. We were already in the air when I remembered the milk in Lily’s backpack. I suddenly had a panicked vision of the entire overhead compartment filled with spilled milk –all over everyones stuff! That was a tense few minutes waiting for the seat belt light to off so we could go rescue it. Fortunately the lid had stayed put. Since we were almost last getting on the plane our stuff was scattered in compartments several rows behind us, I knew we would have to wait until everyone else got off before we could gather it up. But we weren’t in any particular hurry since there was no chance of getting back to the Springs in time to pick Nala up from the Petshotel that evening, she would have to spend one more night.

We rode the train back to the main terminal, and collected our luggage pretty quickly, loaded it onto a cart, and headed to the parking lot. Took a bit of searching to find the car, but finally we located it and were soon ready to make the drive back to the Springs. It was uneventful, and after unloading our stuff we got a late dinner at Applebees. I think they were practically chasing us out of there because they wanted to close . Nala and Woozle would have to wait one more night for us…at home it was obvious that we had left after a celebration. But it was still good to be home, and my bed had never been calling quite so loudly! I think I must have been asleep before I even laid down. The next day (Monday) we picked up Nala and Woozle, visited for a while with John, and bought Lily a swim mask. We forgot that Lily should have gone to school – oops! They probably aren’t doing much this week anyway. We are hoping to go to a movie later in the week and maybe take a day trip to Rocky Mountain National Park. No big plans yet for New Years, but lots that has to get done in just a few days.
A new year is almost here – here’s to making it all it can be!