A few weeks ago, my mother in law called us and asked if we would be willing to fly Gretchen to Orlando for a weekend in Disney. My mother in law loves Disney World and thought it would be fun to take Gretchen and celebrate her birthday with our Florida family, who has a daughter Gretchen's age (her birthday was on Valentine's day) and then a daughter a few years older than Gretchen, but they share the same birthday. We knew it would be fun for the cousins to celebrate together, but..... I wasn't comfortable with putting my 12 year old on a plane by herself. So, we agreed she could go if I could tag along too. Thankfully, my mother in law didn't mind and Saturday morning, Gretchen and I boarded a flight too Orlando!
She found out about the trip on her birthday when her Nana facetime her. Needless to say, she was so excited!
Once we landed, we met my mother in law and my sister in law (both of them live in Arkansas and flew in that morning) and we took an Uber to Animal Kingdom.
We were so excited to have a weekend away!!
Our Florida family drove in that morning, so they were already at the park when we arrived.
It didn't take us long to find them.... and Kevin.
We hadn't really had breakfast and it was almost lunch time, so we opted for a cold treat and a Mickey ice cream!
My mother in law booked our Fast Passes and our first stop was The Lion King show. We had watched it the last time we went to Disney, but I forgot how good it was! The whole time, I kept thinking about how Megan would've loved it because there was gymnastics in the show.
All the girls celebrating the weekend!
After the show we stood in line for a river ride. Gretchen passed the time by facetiming, Connor, her friend from Oklahoma.
Birthday girls and sweet cousins!
This drink was tons of fun and had boba beads in it, which we later found were pretty fun to shoot through the straws.
Our next Fast passes were for rides that Gretchen wasn't too excited about- she's in to classic, calmer rides, so we went ahead and went over to Magic Kingdom.
This is how she felt about being at Magic Kingdom without her sisters!
She really wanted to ride Haunted Mansion so that's where we headed. And y'all, the line was so long! We got off the ride just as the fireworks were ending. We met up with everyone and ate dinner, before riding The Little Mermaid, Dumbo, and Small World.
The park had extended hours, so we finally headed out around 10:30.
One family picture as we headed out. We were exhausted!
Sunday morning came early! We had Fast passes for Slinky Dog, so we all arrived around 9 to Hollywood Studios.
The new Toy Story area was adorable!!! So many bright colors and toys everywhere and Slinky Dog was SO much fun!
We grabbed Churros for breakfast, and went off to watch the Frozen show and the Little Mermaid show. Some went off to ride the new Star Wars ride, but Gretchen wasn't sure she'd like it.... and after the shows, my sister in law and mother in law went off to ride Rockin' Rollercoaster, which I knew Gretchen wouldn't ride either!
She and I opted to walk around the Chines Theater- she knew all these random facts about it.
Apparently, these are Audrey Hepburn's only handprints (according to Gretchen)
And she was excited that her hands were almost as big as Mrs. Potts!
We headed over to the Star Wars area, and it was spectacular, but since I'm not a Star Wars fan, I totally embarrassed myself by my lack of knowledge. Thankfully, DJ has taught the girls well, and she knew all of the ships.
Like this one.
We met back up took a few more pictures before leaving Hollywood Studios.
And we had to get one with Gretchen and Nana since she made this trip possible.
And my sister in law thought we needed to send one to our hubbies.
We met the rest of the fam at Disney Springs where Gretchen and I shared a huge ice cream sundae!
We had to leave around 5 to catch our plane home; we were suppose to have an hour layover in Dallas, but because we sat on the runway in Orlando, we had to run and catch our next flight to Austin in only 10 minutes- yikes!
It was a fun weekend, I absolutely loved being with Gretchen and being able to do exactly what she wanted to do. It warmed my heart to have this weekend with her.
Thank you Nana for making it possible for us.
