Middle-of-April Trip to FL

Nate had training for work in Orlando this past week so the kids and I came along. We've known he had this training since December, so when Disney announced their "Give a Day, Get a Day" program for this year, we started searching for service opportunities that would qualify to get us a free day pass to a Disney place. In February, we volunteered for the Linus Project - making fleece blankets for children from birth to 18 years old. Even though Elise was not old enough to volunteer, we each made two blankets to donate. When we turned them in, we were given vouchers for three free tickets to Disney World (again, Elise was too young to participate). We like doing service as a family anyway, but it was really, really nice to get free tickets to DW. So, last Sunday, we headed to Florida. The first few days we stayed at Disney's Coronado Springs Resort. Monday, we hung around there swimming in their pool which had a fantastic slide. Tuesday, I headed to St. Petersburg to visit my good friends, Kelly and Jenn (who had been my neighbors growing up). It was a pretty relaxing time, we went to the beach, where the kids played together in the sand and the waves. Elise and Lexi (Jenn's daughter) really tested their parents by heading out too far, too many times, but it was fun to see how much fun they had while playing together. We returned to Kelly's house; the three of us visited and caught up on our respective families and the kids played in the back room. Wednesday was our day for Disney World. Since we had to check out of the Disney resort that day (the end of Nate's business training), the kids and I checked out of the hotel and headed for the Magic Kingdom. We stood in the wrong line for our tickets (because we had vouchers we should have gone to will-call, but I stood in the regular line for a while; and then we waited for a while for the ferry to get to the park. We were all in good moods though, so it was alright and we took so long that Nate finished his training and beat us to the park. He called me while I was getting our tickets to say he was almost done. Then he called again while we were on the ferry and told me he was inside already, what store or ride was I at? Ha! Who knew that if you stayed at a Disney resort that they would give you a ride on their buses all the way to the actual park; no need to park, no need to wait in huge lines for tickets, no need to ride a very full ferry that took a while to get on and a while to cross the lake. Again, we were all in good moods and it was fine, it just took a long time to get in! Elise had two favorite things: the 5-story plunge on splash mountain and giving three of the princesses kisses on their cheeks Max liked the haunted mansion and the fireworks. I liked the fireworks being timed to music (I know, I'm a geek) and watching my kids faces, especially on the It's a Small World ride. Nate's favorite was the Splash mountain and I'm sure he would have loved the runaway train or space mountain (which I love too) but Elise was too small for it, so we all bailed on it. After our day there we headed to a new hotel in Clearwater. We headed to the beach Thursday once in the morning, then drove down the coast and hit some more beaches. Here are some pictures: Argh!! I've tried to put them on for two days - had too many that I wanted and tried to make a slide-show but it's not working. I'll be trying some more another day. Just know that we did have a lot of fun and it was pretty of nice to take a break in the middle of April!