Continuing the not-so-brief recap

Apparently one of the things I've been plagued by as a 30-something mother of three is mild memory lapses.

Normally on our vacations I bring a little notebook, and at the end of each day I like to jot down the fun, interesting, weird, odd, fantastic things that happened to our family each day. I do it with the great intention of crafting great trip reports for my children to reflect on someday...but in reality I believe that they will be left with my little notebook of chicken scratch, and probably the the task of trying to decode my garble.

This vacation I forgot to bring it. Not that I couldn't have mustered up a few scraps of paper somewhere, but I really just blanked on even keeping the notes. Maybe (at least I'm telling myself this) this is why I am actually taking a few bits of my time to write a trip report. It was a "new and different" trip, so I would hate for the details to clouded over time....unfortunately my 30-something mother of three year old brain has a shorter memory span than anticipated.

I'm embarrassed to admit that I had to consult for at least an hour last night with Kelsey, we re-hashed the trip, outlined and detailed every movement of our days...all for the sake of this report. I had pretty good memory on most everything...but it was Thursday and Friday that were garbled together in my mind, so thank you Kelsey for helping to keep the record straight.

Thursday. Well it was hot, but that was expected. After all of the fun and punchiness with Buddy-Boy and David at the Magic Kingdom the night before, we decided to take it easy on this morning. The original plan had been to tackle the Animal Kingdom, however we had been presented the opportunity to get a sneak peak at The Pirates League at the Magic Kingdom and I didn't think it was something we should pass up. So it was an easy decision to readjust our schedule and spend the morning at the volcano pool.

Against all of my normal Disney advice, rather than heading out of the Magic Kingdom in the early afternoon, we were headed in. We were on a mission. The first and only stop we would have time for was to the brand new, not yet open to the public, The Pirates League. Now we had done the Bibbidi Boppidi Boutique a few trips back, and I was THRILLED with the experience. It was fantastic, the girls loved it. However, I often wondered...and obviously so did a lot of other guests, why there was nothing like this for little boys to experience. Well now there was, and we were lucky enough to secure appointments. The experience was really, really great...better than I had expected. The cast members stayed in character so well, and really involved the kids in everything. The themed decor was incredible, and the story was fun. I was not at all surprised that all three of the girls choose the Empress Pirate over any of the other options...I've got a bunch of girly-girls on my hands.
The before shot. The options

Maya at the helm, spinning the dice to determine her pirate name.
The decor was really incredible, Disney attention to detail at it's finest.Maya is tag-teamed for her makeup and nails. Kelsey takes the pirate oath.Maya and a fantastic cast member....named David!The after photo, they are so cute!

Another fantastic cast member taught the girls some great swashbuckling moves!

Once we finished, we had no time to spare before we headed off on our next adventure. This was going to be one of the highlights of the trip for me...probably not-so-much for the rest of the bunch. We headed off to Downtown Disney to meet two of my incredible Moms Panel friends, Margaret and Tanya. We also had the pleasure of the company of one of my very favorite Disney cast members, Gary/Jerry. We dined at the Rainforest Cafe' for the benefit of my children. Menu certainly not my favorite, but the drinks are great and the atmosphere keeps my kiddos entertained. I would not have one mother of the year award at this meal, I basically ignored my children in favor of catching up with my friends...thank you guys for being so wonderful and patient when Mommy needs it most. The meal went all to quickly, and unfortunately my agenda didn't allow for overtime. Before I knew it we were bidding adieu and the girls and I were off to the Cirque!

I was super excited to take the kids to Cirque du Soleil. It is something that I have enjoyed several times before, but really wanted to wait until the kids were old enough to appreciate it before splurging on the tickets. Having Kelsey on this trip made the decision to go very easy, she is a fantastic dancer and I knew that she would just love the show.

The performance was as amazing as I had remembered, and unfortunately the "new and different" for me on this one was receiving a text message from my sister Kim relaying the news that Michael Jackson had died. So when I'm asked 20 years from now if I remember where I was when I heard MJ died...I'll clearly recall that I was enjoying Cirque and thankfully, in lieu of the bizarre news, was nonplussed by the information and continued to be mesmerized by the show.

Thanks to our lazy morning, we had a second wind and were ready for a little fun at the end of the performance. We headed over to Epcot, but spent very little time there before the skies darkened, the clouds lowered and the thunder began to rumble. As we quickly made our way to the parking lot the deluge began. Although we were a bit wet and drippy, we were safe in our car and on our way back to the resort.

Big things to come the next day...I go back on my word.