The Johnsons Head to Disney!

We had planned to go to Disney World back in the fall of 2008, but we were blessed with the birth of Eli instead. Needless to say, we put our trip of for a couple of years. We decided back in January, that this would be the year that the Johnsons would visit Mickey at his house. We invited my parents and Mark's mom to go with us, so all ten of us geared up for a very memorable trip!

When we started, I had no idea how much time and thought goes into planning a Disney trip. I booked our trip in March through themagicforless.com, which I highly recommend. Disney offered free dining if you stayed at one of their resorts and bought tickets for the parks. Our free dining package included a snack, a counter service meal and a sit down meal for each day. I was very thankful not to have to "brown bag" our trip!

We chose to stay at a Value (cheap) resort -- The Pop Century. My frugal side would not allow me to go any higher than that! It more than met our needs. We had three rooms to house the ten of us.

I made reservations for our sit down meals 190 days before our trip. It was a bit of a stretch to think about our meals six months in advance -- it is a big enough challenge to plan our meals at home a week in advance! We wanted to have lunch at Cinderella's Castle, which books up months in advance. We also chose the Coral Reef at Epcot, the Crystal Palace character meal with Pooh and friends, and a meal at the O'hana restaurant at the Polynesian Resort.

We left when Mark got off work on September 10th and drove to Birmingham. That allowed us to get six hours of our fifteenish hour trip out of the way. We had been counting down the days for the past six months, and we were all excited that the day had finally arrived. We got up early the next day and made our way to Orlando. We hit construction, bad weather and Florida Gator traffic -- the trip seemed to take forever! We were so glad to finally pass under the magical Disney World sign!

To be continued...

My Brother's Wedding

Lovely Liv
Beautiful Bailey

Mark and His Lovely Mom

Our Little Man

A Sea of White and Khaki!

My brother Bo and his love Lindley got married a couple of weekends ago. I am thankful that we all had the opportunity to be there. Lindley has been a part of our lives for quite a few years, so it is nice to have her as an official part of our family. I look forward to seeing them grow old together!

The children were very excited about going to the wedding! We go to a very casual church now, so we do not often dress up. In fact, I had to go and buy "dress up" clothes for the boys. Bailey and Olivia had the very important job of handing out the programs, and they took it very seriously!

I did not get any pictures that did the bride and groom justice -- I look forward to seeing the professional photos. They were a lovely couple!

Warriors Path State Park, Continued

The Wardrobe

The Lamp Post

Mr. Tumnus' House

The Beavers' Lodge

Father Christmas' Sleigh

The trail ended with the white stag and another wardrobe to exit.

Warriors Path State Park had a trail based on The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. It led you through the major scenes of the book. Each scene had a button you could push to hear the story. Isaac and Bailey have listened to the Focus on the Family Radio Theatre version of the story over and over, and all of the children have watched the movie numerous times, so the trail was a huge hit. Bailey keeps hoping that the next time we go back there will be a Prince Caspian Trail!

Warriors Path State Park

Mamaw is a jump in with both feet kind of Grandma. We love her!
Bailey has become quite a young lady!

WEEEEEEEEE!

Eli's favorite part was the water fountain. Here he and Anna Grace see how many germs they can come in contact with!

Mark's Mom took us to Warriors Path State Park while we were visiting with her last month. It was the best park that I have ever been to! It was designed so that all children, even those with disabilities could play. The rolling slide was the first thing that drew the kids in. I think that Anna Grace and Eli would have been content to hang out on the slide the whole time we were there. The rest of the play equipment was topnotch as well! There was a very shallow creek for the children to wade in, and a tree house overlooking the park. I have a feeling that the children will be asking to go back there whenever we go to visit Mamaw!

GrandBob's Little Helper

Eli loves his GrandBob! He followed him around while we were at their house. I am so thankful that my children have a close relationship with their grandparents despite the miles between us!

Eli Meets Taco Bell

We stopped at Taco Bell on our trip home from Tennessee. I ordered chips and cheese for all of the children. Eli loved the cheese dip. He really gets into his food!