FtWildernessFamily...Holly

Thanks Rita. We certainly are blessed. And the crowds - exactly why we limited our time in the parks later in the week and especially on Christmas Eve. Haha! Yeah, me too. Oh Stef, she is that cute. You aren't hormonal. LOL> Splitting image of her daddy. As Hubs likes to joke, "she looks better in a skirt". Aww, thank you! We picked Madeline out of a baby book. It was different, and there aren't 6 other Madeline's in her class. :) And our weather was just perfect. There's no other way to describe it.

Sun, 12/25 What is it like to wake up at Disney and FW on Christmas morning? If you have never done it, I highly recommend that you add it to your list of things to do before you die. It was just.....awesome. Now, bless Maddie's heart...when she went to bed the night before, Hubs told her that when she saw daylight she could get out of bed. She woke up at 1am and came to our room. "I can't sleep." She had to pass right by the loot Santa left to get to us. She went potty and Hubs walked her back to bed. Again, he explained "when you see daylight, you can get out of bed." At 6:30am, she saw dayl

Great TR!!! Congrats on your new pop up. Hope you guys have fun with it!!

All week long, Maddie had been reminding me that I needed to up-load a Santa tracking app for my iPhone. We always do the NORAD tracking thing on the internet on Christmas Eve, so I told her we'd keep the tradition and track him this year. She mentioned it to me SEVERAL times on Christmas Eve and so I made it a point to search iTunes. I knew there were plenty of the apps out there, just needed to decide which one to download. Before she and Hubs rode the tea cups, she asked me to download it. So while I waited I got on iTunes.....and there were SO many people using their smartphones/transmitti

Dinner was at Liberty Tree Tavern. We were a little early but we were ok with waiting. We took this along the way: Liberty Tree Tavern: And....our dinner! We had never eaten at LTT. It was AWESOME. For Christmas Eve, they had a VERY limited menu. You could not order - it was a set menu. And it was GOOOOOOD. We will definitely eat there again. Our waitress was very good as well. She got a nice Christmas present/tip from us. :) We debated staying for the fireworks....but it was 7:15 and they didn't start until 10. I didn't want to battle the crowds - and I had gotten the information about

Sat, 12/24 Once again, we sleep in with no real agenda. We had dinner reservations at MK at 5:30 - that was our only firm plan. I have to say, there are so many advantages to spending 10 days at the Fort with an annual pass. You don't feel obligated to get up at the crack of dawn every single day so you don't risk not maxmizing your day. Maddie woke up purely electrified. It was Christmas Eve!!! On the last day of school before break, they made one of those countdown calendars out of rings of paper. I brought it with us and hung it on her door. Here she is removing the last ring: We had break

I hope they get rid of the water that gets spit at you while on the ride during the refurb!

LOVIN this TR...and LOVIN me some Mason!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If we are ever camping in the same place at the same time and he turns up missing......please don't search my camper. My Marley girl needs a buddy. How old is Mason?

Very nice! So ready to hear more!! We go on the Fantasy in April 2013. Yay.... But that's a looooooong time from now.

What a great trip report! You and CP have had an amazing time over the past few months. Congrats to both of you again! Looking forward to more fun. "See" ya in February! We'll at WDW too over Prez day wknd (Sat thru Mon), only we're staying at Coronado Springs. It's just too long of a pull for 2 nights to stay at FW.

We had the same convo with Maddie about Hidden Mickey's in December. She thinks EVERY Mickey head she sees is a hidden Mickey. And....we did Spaceship Earth in Japanese one time. We laughed the WHOLE way.

Yeah, Andrew.....not so much. I'm sure it's called VOMATron for a reason. They should replace the A with an I.

Bummer, Lou. It would have been nice to see you again, and we did check EVERY SINGLE DRIVER hoping it was you. Maybe we'll see you over Prez Day weekend!

Fri, 12/23 We didn't have anything planned for the day - no dinner reservations, no shows - and we knew that the parks would be packed. And I see that I stated there'd be a bike ride today. Had my days screwed up - that is Christmas Eve. :) We relaxed a lot this day and decided that we needed to make a store run. We wanted to pick up a couple of things for Christmas day lunch, plus we were short on bottled water, etc. So we had to break the news to Maddie, again, that we were going off Disney property. That went over like a lead balloon. I decided to upload some pictures to Walgreens, as I had

Yeah, I thought so too Dave. She was just so sweet and everyone around her - her family - was tending to her every need. Thanks TCD. She did BBB last February and loved it too. My only issue with BBB is the heinous amounts of glitter that they put on the kids. There is still glitter in our 5'er that we're finding a year later. :)

Glad I'm not the only one! Haha!!

Our Topsail ressie this year is later than normal....check in July 21st. CAN'T.WAIT.

Ariel was at that one too, now that I think about it. In her blue ball gown.

Belle is also at Cinderella's Royal Table...at least she was a year and a half ago for dinner. She was even in her "library dress" as my daughter calls it instead of her yellow ball gown. If you look at the dining reservations page on WDW's website, I think it tells you what characters are there but also has the caveat that they are "subject to change".

Ok, to finish out Thurs, 12/22.... I jumped online to see if I could find any dinner reservations available at DHS - and was lucky enough to get an 8:05 reservation for 50's Prime Time Cafe! We ran and grabbed a bus to head to the outpost, then over to DHS. Maddie was still dressed like a pirate. ARGH! We got to DHS around 6. We headed straight over to the Streets of America to find a decent place to see everything when they turned the lights on. It was very festive...they had musicians out playing and singing Christmas carols. We settled into a place right in the middle, right in front of the

We laid VERY low all week. We were all pretty stressed out as the 5 weeks leading up to our departure were very difficult for our family after the loss of my brother.

WBI - it's so funny how many of our pictures are similar. The one of CP in front of the sorcerer Mickey at the contemporary - you'll see that soon in my TR (only with my daughter). You guys did the CP dinner package 3 nights before we did; we did Rose & Crown on 12/20. Still looks like an amazing trip!! :)

CKCK - I thought of you when I saw this picture...

When we did the dining plan this past Sept.... Snack = Dole Whip. Enough said.

I have 2 pictures on my office walls that I took, had them enlarged and framed. I'm looking at them right now. One is of a sunset on the beach at Topsail. The other is the sorcerer's hat at DHS at night. Those are my happy places. (the sorcerer's hat picture may get replaced with a pic I took of the castle last month) This is why I say those 2 campgrounds are our benchmarks. Trust me......Topsail is worth the drive.