Mak’s Birthday Trip…Days 1 and 2!

Okay, so this really wasn’t Mak’s Birthday trip. We did NOT give our 6 year old a cruise for his birthday. It just so happened that Disney was running this great “Kids Sail Free” promotion and the best dates for us were over his birthday. I’m writing this so I have proof to show Clara Beth when she starts whining “But Makgill got a cruise for HIS 6th birthday…”. This trip was actually more for Collin and me than anything else. Does that sound selfish?? I really don’t mean for it to. See, here’s the thing. We are getting ready to celebrate our 10 year anniversary in May. And we always said that we would return to our Honeymoon spot, St. John. The thing we didn’t count on when we said that was that we would have these two impossibly precious kids that we are pretty attached to. See, I’ve never flown away from them. I’ve never left them for more than about 4 days at a time. Collin and I love going away together ALONE, but I’m just not ready to be gone for an entire week. I know that’s insane to some of you. It’s just the way I am! Collin and I have a trip planned later in the year for just the two of us, but we really wanted something tropical too, and that’s where the cruise came in. We get time alone because the kids will LOVE the Kid’s Club on the ship, but we are still all together. Sounds perfect, right? Yeah, the thing I didn’t count on was both kids getting sick and not being able to do the kids club. But I’ll get to all of that soon enough. 🙂

We started off by traveling to Jacksonville and seeing Collin’s grandfather, then hanging with our friends Patrick, Heather, Alana and Lilli! I LOVE this family!! Mak and Alana are about 8 days apart so we celebrated their birthdays at Dave and Buster’s. So much FUN!!

This was our first experience with a Dave and Buster’s and the kids loved it!

Don’t they look like two little old ladies playing in a Vegas Casino? HaHa!! Love ’em!

The kids played for hours before bed and all had so much fun together. I really wish they lived closer!

And then the next morning there was more play time. We had to drag Mak away. He actually said he did NOT want to go on the cruise, he would just stay with Alana! He’s smitten. 🙂

This was the first trip that CB and Lilli actually played well together! They are both shy girls that take a little time to warm up, but this time they were running around like best buddies.

The FOUR ladies of the house! One is hiding in Heather’s tummy. Can’t wait to meet the next little princess!

Mak ALWAYS has a hard time saying bye…

Miss Lilli and her VERY loved Moose!

The kids thought we were leaving Jacksonville to go on the cruise. When we got to Daytona I handed Mak a card that said “Surprise!! You ARE going to Disney World!!” They were both so surprised and Ecstatic!! We had been telling them for months that there just wasn’t time to do Disney on this trip.

We stayed at All Star Music this time…very fun!

He’s part monkey, I think.

Mak got a birthday phone call from Goofy!

SOOO Happy to be in her Happy Place!!

Getting some of those last 5 year old snuggles. I love this kid SO Much!

ARRRGH!!!

We played around in Downtown Disney for awhile…

And then headed to Beaches and Cream for supper…The Kitchen Sink! Yep, my kids had ice cream for supper. That’s allowed at Disney. 😉

More of those snuggles…

Clara Beth and Goofy 😉

He had to call Li-Li (my mom) to tell her what was for supper. She displayed an appropriate amount of jealousy for him.

Here it is!!

That’s a TON of ice cream!!

Our waitor took a family pic!

You can’t see it, but there’s about 3 more scoops of ice cream under all of the melted mush. We could’ve used a few more friends!

We headed back to the hotel and got to bed early. We had some SERIOUS park hoppin’ to do the next day!