Monday, January 7, 2013

Day 1 -Paulsens in Florida - crazy.

We arrived on Christmas Day in the afternoon, and headed straight for Downt*wn Disney! That is a part of Disn*y World that is is fun, has lots of shopping, restaurants, and activities, yet is not a park. 

Instantly you are immersed in all things mouse related. And it is all so cute!!



 Having my camera there, meant I could take pictures of the things I loved and feel less compelled to buy stuff!
 I would seriously love an entire tree of these mouse eared ornaments.  But I wasn't about to attempt to bring ANY back on the plane!
 The lights and colors were crazy fun! The crowds were crazy insane, but after a while you get used to it. Sort of.  (Sorry, lately I over-use the word crazy a crazy amount of the time!)
 Maybe I use the word crazy a lot for a reason....
 ... hmmm.
 Again! Look at the ears on the cookies! ~cuteness.

Speaking of cuteness.....
 Daniel loved all the crazy hats. I just love him. 
 I loved all the amazing decor!
 I also loved these retro black and white dolls!
 Aren't they neat?!?

Lol! The lego store. Daniel was quite smitten with her.

 I LOVE the colors in the L*go Store.
 Live Christmas music!
 After walking all over we found the "arcade".  Like no other arcade.



 The best part was this one game, 


you design your own roller coaster.
 Then you get into a simulator and RIDE it!! They warn you what "level" coaster you have created. *smile* They were disappointed it was only a 4 out of 5 they had created, but opted to ride it anyway.

 It hasn't started yet.  He is just being silly. 


 Within a few seconds the ride broke. They were stuck inside for a while, with staff people asking, "are you ok in there?!?!"


This round thing is where they are stuck. 

 So glad I opted to watch them on the screen outside the ride.
( I am kinda claustrophobic.)

Eventually they got it fixed, and they loved the ride.

There were lots of other simulator type rides there.  I enjoyed some too- the ones that were not in a tiny pod, but soon got to the point of total exhaustion (our plane had left Des Moines at 6 am), and told the two of them they could stay. 

But they opted to come back to the hotel with me. 
I was the one who knew how to navigate back to the hotel 
in this gigantic world of Disn*Y. 

(Daniel doesn't "do" crowds well, but this trip he surprised me! He did really well! He didn't flip out once! Only his usual goofy stuff! *smile*)

Just wait till you see where we stayed! 
It was amazing!

(PS- if you are wondering where Russ is, let me explain:  this trip was set up as a result of Russ being in a high school marching band headed for the Outback Bowl, as well as the Outback Bowl parade, marching in Epcot, and other music competitions in Florida. At this point of our trip - Christmas day - he is on a bus with the band group on there way through a blizzard. We decided since my sister and her girls were going to be down there part of the time too, we just had to go down, and see our Russ march together! We flew down separately. The actual marching photos are a few hundred photos away, but coming up! Don't worry! lol! I just have to go in order!)

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