Florida vacation highs and lows

We're back from our vacation to Florida and I'll tell you, I think I need a vacation to recover from my vacation! We returned on Tuesday and on Monday morning as I was dragging the kids out of bed at 7:00 am for Day #4 of our Assault on Disney World, I was never so thankful that my vacation was coming to an end. I don't think we could have lived through another day of fun at that point. We were all exhausted!

You all know by now that the chief reason we went to Florida ended up being a bust. We were literally on the bus headed out to the VIP viewing area on Friday morning when our friend called and broke the news (before it even hit the wires--the NASA employee on our bus had no idea) that the launch had been scrubbed. We all returned to Kennedy Space Center and golly, that must be what it feels like in the stadium after your team has lost the Super Bowl. What had been a festive atmosphere totally tanked and the mood was pretty low after that.

See, this is exactly why I don't gamble--I hate to lose! We knew going into it that we were taking a gamble that the Shuttle would even launch; we knew not to get our hopes up because launches get scrubbed all the time--and I truly tried to not get my hopes up, I really did. But my heart won out over my brain and as the launch time grew closer and it looked more and more like it would be a GO--well, I got excited. We all did, can you blame us? So even though we knew that we shouldn't be surprised, it was still bitterly disappointing to hear that the launch was not going to happen, and that the chances of it happening on Monday were slim to none as well.

We were lucky--we still had three more days of Disney to take the sting out of the launch scrub. My poor mom and dad had to go home early the next morning, so that meant their trip ended on a bummer. I wish our schedules had worked out differently so they could have stayed. Four days at Disney World is a pretty good consolation prize, you have to admit.

I will say that if we ever do Disney World again, I'm going in January because that's the only time of year that I can guarantee it won't be ridiculously hot! The previous two times we visited WDW were in June and July and you can imagine how unpleasant the weather conditions are in those months. I thought for sure that April would be lovely--not too hot, but a nice warm change from springtime in Colorado--and I was dead wrong. The first day we spent at Animal Kingdom was around 93 degrees and subsequent days were in the mid- to upper-80s with intense sunshine and high humidity. We went through an entire bottle of sunscreen in less than a week!

My kids, bless their hearts, were troupers. We broke our cardinal rule for Disney parks and neglected to go back to the hotel for a break during the day, so Porter was accordingly cranky due to missing his naps for seven days in a row. We went from early morning until late at night every single day, and my sweet kids kept up pretty darn well under the circumstances. We tried to go at their speed in the parks and to do the things that they would enjoy, even if that meant standing in line for Princess autographs or letting Porter strip nearly naked and play in the water fountains at Animal Kingdom like a street urchin. I'm pretty sure it was the most fun he had all week.

In all, it was a wonderful trip and I'm so thankful that we had the opportunity to go and especially to share part of it with my parents. We never thought we'd be able to afford to take our kids to Disney World without years of saving up, but the stars just aligned for this trip so we couldn't pass it up. I won't lie--it would have been even better if we had been able to view the Space Shuttle launch, and whenever it finally does launch I'm not sure if I can stand to watch knowing how close I was to seeing it in person.

On the upside, Porter got to stick his toes in the ocean for the first time,

The Mister got to have a Dole Whip float and too many Mickey Premium ice cream bars to count,

Maren got to meet Princess Tiana and Prince Naveen,

and I enjoyed photographing the amazing topiaries and displays at the Flower & Garden show at Epcot:

Oh, and the humidity brought more curl to my hair and gave me hope that pregnancy hasn't ruined my curls completely.

And now it's back to real life!