"Hey Look, It's a Goat!" Baby's 1st WDW Trip/Little Sister's Grad Trip! (6/12) *5/8*

cbcrockett

Mouseketeer
Joined
Apr 30, 2009
Hey Look, It's a Goat!

:welcome:Welcome to my trip report! We had a great time taking our DD (now almost 10 months, but 9 months at the time) on her first trip to the world and celebrating my little sister's high school graduation!

I'm WAY behind on getting this TR started (it has taken me about a couple of weeks to get caught up with everything at home/get my sister back home to Nashville/etc and then I helped out with VBS at church and we were all three sick last week!) , so let me give you the basics and we'll get going!

If you want to check out the planning process, you can check out my pre-trip report here Planning Baby's First Trip to WDW - A Pre-Trip Report

Cast of Characters:

DH Clay (30)
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My wonderful husband of 6 years, though we have been together since my freshman year in college (almost 10 years now). Loves Disney (though maybe not quite as much as I do) and his favorite character is Donald Duck! He's a great guy and e best daddy! And is studying very hard all the time for his CPA exam. 1 section down, 3 to go! (celebration trip at the end?!?!)

DD Hannah (9 months, during the trip)
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Our sweet little girl! What a blessing! She is a curious and happy little girl! She's awfully smart and into anything she can get her hands on. She's crawling, but prefers cruising (walking while holding on to thing) and has been doing that longer than crawling!) We like to say that her favorite princess is Ariel :). She'll be having a fabulous Minnie Mouse birthday party in a couple of months!

LS Cindy (Little Sister) (18)
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My very cool younger sister! There are obviously a number of years between us, but we are still pretty close. This trip was supposed to be a surprise trip for her that she didn't find out about until the day before (on graduation day). Had to tell her a little early, but she was still surprised and thrilled! She loves Disney as much as I do and was very excited to join us on the trip (and we were happy to have her along for the fun!) She is headed to Savannah, GA in the fall and will be a freshman at Savannah College of Art and Design. She is crazy talented y'all! Her favorites are Cinderella and Jack Sparrow!

Me (Brittany) (28)
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I am a stay-at-home mom to the fabulous Hannah! Before staying home with DD, I worked at a law firm for about 2 years. Before that, for the AHA, and before that in some other Advertising and Marketing positions. I obviously love me some Disney, but I also love reading a good book (whenever I can find the time), painting, sports (especially my Tennessee Titans, Nashville Predators and Vanderbilt Commodores!) and DH and I love to go camping! I'm still trying to find my niche in what I want to do in this "big blue world" but am very happy being at home with my sweet little girl!

When: June 3-10 (plus June 1-2 in Nashville for my 10 year High School Reunion and LS's H'S graduation!)

Accommodations: Offsite. We wrestled with this a lot, but couldn't pass up the deal to use DH's mom's time share week for this trip. We stayed in a condo at Vacation Village at Parkway.

Why: Who needs a why? It's DISNEY!!! But, we were taking DD for her very first visit to meet the Mouse and we were celebrating LS's high school graduation!

So, that's the big "W's"... and hopefully we'll have more soon! First up, our C-RAZY weekend before we can even hit the road to make it to the great state of Florida!
 


I'm excited to read about your trip. Your DD is precious, love the red hair. :love: I took my DD to DLR when she was 6 months old and took my son to WDW at 3 months old. I've found that every age is amazingly fun!!
 


I'm first!!!! Can not wait to hear all about it!!! :goodvibes

:welcome: So glad you are here! :banana: And congrats on being first :thumbsup2

Yay, you started your TR! Looking forward to hearing all about it!

:welcome: Finallly, right? :rotfl: Now, hopefully, I can just keep things moving!

I'm here! Great start :goodvibes

:welcome: Yay! Thank you! I'm going to get started on writing about our crazy weekend leading up to Disney (which I feel needs to be included, since it was technically part of our vacation). So, in my time, it should be up by sometime next week :rotfl2:

I'm excited to read about your trip. Your DD is precious, love the red hair. :love: I took my DD to DLR when she was 6 months old and took my son to WDW at 3 months old. I've found that every age is amazingly fun!!

:welcome: I'm excited to share the trip! And thank you so much about DD! We're pretty smitten with the little bit! :love: I think her age (9 months) was a really good age to take her! Of course there were some obstacles at times, but who am I kidding, there are obstacles with me, the 28 year old sometimes :rotfl2:


:welcome: So glad you are joining in! :yay:
 
How much can we do in one weekend? (June 1-2)​

I'm a planner. I mean, I'm on the DisBoards, and aren't we all compulsive planners? So, the plan was to leave our house in West Tennessee on Friday, June 1 by 1:30pm to head to Nashville for a weekend full of my 10 year high school reunion, my sister's high school graduation, and capped off with a 12ish hour drive to Orlando!*

On Wednesday, my very last pair of contacts ripped... And I went into freak out mode, since Walgreens had decided to delay the shipment of my new ones! I'm super blind, so this was a major issue! :eek: Long story short, I freaked out and STALKED the FedEx tracking number for three days. And at 1:45 pm on Friday, I had never, EVER been so glad to live so close to the world headquarters/shipping hub OF FedEx, when the very nice lady delivered my contacts to me. We were on the road by 1:50:banana:.

Wait, before I forget, look what DD learned to do the night before we left!*
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She had sort of been crawling before, but she really got the hang of it on Thursday night! And off to the races we went!

So, major crisis averted, we were off to Nashville, praying we hadn't forgotten anything major! Friday night, DH, DD and I went to The Crow's Nest in Green Hills (for those of you familiar with Nashvegas) for a casual "meet and greet" for my 10 year high school reunion. It was a TON of fun! We were only there about an hour or an hour and a half (since the little one needed to get back to the grandparents' house and to bed) but it was great. I went to an all-girl Catholic high school in Nashville and our graduating class was only 43, so we were pretty close. It was also great because I got to see my very best friend from HS (who is still my bf) but lives in DC with her DH now.*

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me, DD and some of the girls!

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"Aunt Mary" (my BFF), me and DD

Saturday morning, we took DD to the park so that she could play/nap with Grandmomma and Grandaddy (my stepmom and my Dad) while we went to my sister's high school graduation! We decided DD would not do well having to sit still and stay quiet, plus it would be a good opportunity for her to see the other grandparents, since we wouldn't have time to go see them that weekend. The graduation ceremony was nice and not too long. It was a beautiful morning for the outdoor graduation! Afterwards, it was brunch at Harding House at Belle Meade Plantation. Yum! Food was good and DD had fun playing with her toys in her high chair!*

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The graduate and her proud dad (my stepdad)!*

We took the afternoon to rest and get our bags ready for Disney! :thumbsup2 Saturday night, DH and I headed to the reunion dinner at Amerigo's. DD stayed with Nana and David (my mom and stepdad... He hasn't decided on a name yet, haha!). We hoped that she would go to sleep easily like normal, but apparently, she has developed some separation anxiety(which we are still overcoming). DD usually goes to sleep between 7:45 and 8. She didn't go to sleep until 10! It was a long night for them!*

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Me, DH, one of my best friends growing up (and still a good friend today) Lindsey, her hubby, Jason, and our friend Laura. We all three played basketball together in HS.*

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The girls... We are still a silly bunch!*

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my BFF, Mary and her DH, Ben, me and DH!*

We had a great time though, catching up with my high school girlfriends. We left around 9:45. I wish we could have stayed longer, but we had an early wake up call... To the tune of 3:30am! By the time we got back to my mom's house and got our things situated (and had to wake up DD who needed a diaper change, which NEVER happens... It was a bad nigh for her!) it was after 11!*

It was time for some benadryls and a few short hours of sleep, because I-24/I-75/Florida Turnpike/I-4 was waiting for us! (But the few hours of sleep was better than LS... She was at her grad night. She got home at 2:30am, took a shower, then got in the car!)*

Up next, my 12 hour prayer for no baby meltdowns!*:scared1:
 
I found your TR! :) Great intros and pics from your reunion. Looks like everyone had fun!

Can't wait to hear more! :)
 
Lovely pics! Sounds like you had a great time at your reunion!

I can't believe LS was up all night and then left for Disney! Ah, to be young again, eh? ;)
 
I'm here!! YAY so glad you started!! I CAN'T WAIT to hear how the trip went with Hannah! SO CUTE she started crawling, and she was cruising too! I would love to hear all the little details regarding having baby along :goodvibes
 
I'm here! It looks like you had a ton of fun at your reunion. It almost makes me wish I had gone to my 10-year. ;)

DS gets thrown off his schedule when we're traveling, too. Hopefully Hannah was able to settle down once y'all got to Disney World!
 
12 Hours of Prayer - June 3rd

DH and I finally got to sleep around 11pm, with a 3:30 alarm set... Yikes! And of course, my good little sleeper decided she needed to wake up at midnight and 2am! Thankfully, I gave her a paci and she went right back to sleep.

At 4:05am, with 4.5ish hours of sleep under our belts, with LARGE cups of coffee in hand, a very sleepy baby strapped in her car seat, and an excited and exhausted LS in the front seat, we were headed towards the promised land!

Heading out of Nashville, we took the I-24 to Chattanooga, I-75 thru GA, Florida Turnpike, to I-4 route. Thankfully, DD fell back asleep in the car within about 10 minutes of us hitting the road (yay!) and slept until we were past Chattanooga and it was 7:30-ish EST. This was fairly close to her regular waking up time(in CST), so I considered it a success!

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Passed OUT!

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Happy girl in her Minnie PJ's somewhere in Georgia!

We stopped near Rome, GA around 8am at a McDonald's for breakfast. We ate in the car, as we knew we would need to make a stop soon for gas and a diaper change for DD. I had a sausage biscuit and hash brown (that they gave us free! Or on accident, hah!) and water, DH had two breakfast burritos, hash browns and water, LS had a sausage egg mcmuffin, hash brown and water, and DD had the new blueberry banana oatmeal (with no nuts) and water.

This is when I started praying... Poor DH was already starting to not feel great. He was starting the day with a headache, which is never a good sign. We both knew it was from getting up before God and our severe lack of sleep. I was just praying that DD wouldn't have any major meltdowns and that I could keep her occupied and happy with the arsenal of toys, iPad videos and bag of cheerios, goldfish grahams and cheez-it's!

Since DD didn't sleep very well either the night before (and almost always sleeps anytime we are in the car anyways), she took her regular morning nap a little early, and it lasted a little longer than usual... Woo hoo! LS slept most of the morning, and even through our stops for gas, drinks, bathroom breaks and diaper changes! She was really tired!

We had originally planned to stop at Five Guys in Macon for lunch. But, since it was barely 10am when we went through Macon, we decided to skip it! We stopped around noon in Tifton, GA (doesn't everyone stop here?!?) at Subway. We knew we didn't want "fast food", and we knew where Subway was because DH and I stopped there on our last trip to WDW in 2009!

Since DH had been driving all morning, and he was still feeling rotten, I offered to drive for a bit while he rested (and hopefully DD fell asleep for her afternoon nap). Unfortunately, that lasted about 15 miles. DD did NOT want anyone but me in the back seat with her. DH decided he could drive better than trying to soothe her while feeling bad. I felt bad for both of them! (DD had just started the 8-9 month separation anxiety... Fun fun!)

The rest of the drive was fairly uneventful and DH started to feel a bit better once we got to the turnpike... Maybe it was the Disney billboards? We finally got to our condo at about 5:20EST. Not too bad considering the extra stops we made with DD in tow!

We unloaded everything and LS and I went out on 192 to find something quick to pick up for dinner while DH and DD played for a bit at the condo. We ended up with some Arby's. Then, LS and I headed back out to Publix to do our grocery shopping for the week while DH and DD played some more. Unfortunately, this is when DH's headache came back with a vengeance. Bad enough that he had to take my prescription migraine meds.

It was a hectic night, trying to get the condo in some sort of order (DH and I had our bedroom, LS had her bedroom, and DD slept in her pack-n-play out in living room #1 (there are two in the condo set up we had)), getting DH feeling better, getting unpacked, getting DD to bed, and, OH YEAH, getting our stuff together for our first day in the Magic Kingdom in the morning!

So, now that we have all the boring travel details out of the way, next up... Our first day in MK! Will we get some much needed rest? Will DH recover and feel better? Will I have successfully pulled together everything we needed for the first day?

Sent from my iPad using DISBoards
 
UGH, migraines. I wouldn't wish one of those on anybody.

I think you made it to your condo in great time! And it doesn't sound like the car ride was all that bad... just bummer your hubby wasn't feeling well.
 
Imagineer5 said:
I'm here!! YAY so glad you started!! I CAN'T WAIT to hear how the trip went with Hannah! SO CUTE she started crawling, and she was cruising too! I would love to hear all the little details regarding having baby along :goodvibes

So glad you are here! Overall, DD did really well (I think). We obviously didn't do as much as we have in previous trips, but we were all happy with what we did accomplish! There were some things we missed out on, but it was still worth it!

Sent from my iPad using DISBoards
 

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