CPL Holiday Party

Keith's company party this year was at the Four Seasons downtown, so we sent the kids up to the cabin with Denise & headed downtown for a fun adventure.

Against All Grain Book Signing

Danielle Walker is my favorite Paleo cookbook author.  Actually, she's probably my favorite (and only) cookbook author of any kind.  Her recipes are always fail-safe and my total go-to for grain-free/dairy-free meals.  She had a new cookbook come out in December, and as soon as her tour dates came out, I bought VIP tickets to her book signing.

I went by myself, I've never been to a meet-and-greet or a book signing and this was SO outside my comfort zone, but I had such a great time.

Danielle was super nice and the cooking demo was really fun.

She had Aarti Sequeira as a special guest.  Aarti is a Food Network star, She started after we cancelled cable so I haven't seen any of her shows, but she did create one of my very favorite recipes, Meatball Curry that I've made dozens of time.  She was HILARIOUS, and both ladies were so much fun to "hang out" with.

Orlando Vacation Day 14 ~ Time to go home!

Time to head home!

I think I was the only person not super excited to be heading home, but then, all I have to look forward to at home is cooking, cleaning, and loads of laundry.

All told, it was an amazing trip.

Orlando Vacation Day 13 ~ Disney's Hollywood Studios

For our last day, we headed to the Hollywood Studios.  This was supposed to be our lowest crowds day, but we didn't really find that to be true.  We waited a full hour for a simple Buzz Lightyear ride.

The best we can guess is that since the Hollywood Studios only has a few rides, even with a much smaller crowd, the lines aren't any shorter.  Oh well...

There was an issue with our first FastPass, so in-exchange we got a free universal use-for-any-time-(nearly)-any-ride FastPass.  There weren't many kid-friendly rides, so Keith & I took the opportunity to go on some grown-up rides.

Keith did the Tower of Terror:

You can't see Keith, but he's behind that lady's hand on the far left:

I did the Rockin' Roller Coaster.  I picked it mostly because it had the longest stand-by line, so I figured it was the best bang-for-your-FastPass-Buck.  It wasn't until I was actually on the roller coaster that I remembered that I don't really like roller coasters and I've never gone on one that flips over.  It was terrifying, but I survived.

About half-way through lunch, our kids completely ran out of juice.

We gave up and headed back to the hotel.  Cecily & I went to the pool for the afternoon while Keith & Parker went golfing.  By dinner time, the kids were so exhausted, they couldn't even walk down to the dining hall to get dinner, I brought food up to our room so they could watch a movie and eat dinner.

But, as exhausted as they were, Cecily had a hard time getting to sleep, so she needed Daddy to cuddle with her until she fell asleep.  When I went to bed at 11 pm, he was still there.

Orlando Vacation Day 12 ~ Magic Kingdom, Day 2

Today, we got to the park about 10 minutes before the "rope drop".  At the parks, they open the main street section about an hour before the official opening, so we could be up by the castle for the welcoming ceremony and in-line for a ride by 9:05.

We rushed over to the Peter Pan ride to hit it first.  Fortunately, we had a short wait and got to take the ride.  For some inexplicable reason, the wait-time for the Peter Pan ride was consistently 120 minutes every single day.  After spending 25 minutes in-line and 2 minutes on the ride, I have absolutely no idea why anyone would wait that long for that ride, but there you are.

After the Peter Pan ride, Keith took the kids on the "It's a Small World" ride while I ran over to the Haunted Mansion ride, which had absolutely no line at 9:30am.

After that, we had a Fast Pass for the 7 Dwarfs Mine Train.  The kids had decided it was too scary, and by this point Keith & I were tired of forcing the kids onto rides they didn't want to take, so we each went separately. 

Then, it was time for the rides that the kids wanted.

Back to the tea cups!

We had a Fast Pass for the Jungle Cruise, thank goodness for the FastPass, saving us a 60+ minute wait.

After the ride, we had reservations at a nearby restaurant for lunch.

We spent the rest of the afternoon doing whatever the kids wanted, we rode Dumbo, Aladdin's Magic Carpet Ride, and met a few princesses.

For dinner, we had reservations at a Colonial restaurant in Liberty Square.  It was an all-you-can-eat Family style restaurant, and it was fantastic.  We had salads, several styles of meats, and an assortment of desserts.  It was such a great meal and a such a nice change from the pizza and burgers we'd been eating.

After dinner, Keith went to ride the Haunted Mansion while I took the kids to meet Rapunzel and Tiana and then took our second turn on the Small World ride.

The Small World ride was hands-down Cecily's favorite, she spent the whole time pointing out every single thing "Mama, look there, Mama look at that, look over there!"

After that, Parker & I went to the fireworks show.  So, let's talk about fireworks...  Cecily is terrified of fireworks; it turns out that the Magic Kingdom is not a great place to be if you're terrified of fireworks.  They have fireworks at the end of nearly every single show, from the opening ceremony show, through to the 8 pm closing show.  At the beginning of our trip, we'd talked about the fireworks and how Cecily could cuddle with Mama to watch the big firework show, but after 4 straight days of random fireworks going off at any given time all day, Cecily was completely shell-shocked and completely unable to deal with any fireworks.  So, Parker & I went to see the show while Keith & Cecily tried to find a place to hide from the fireworks.

The fireworks were so amazing, I was holding Parker the whole time, so I don't have any photos, but you can get a slight idea from the photos we got from the park below.  They used the castle as the screen to project a video onto the castle, changing the colors of the castle and showing movies.  It was INCREDIBLE and I am super grateful to Keith for letting me see it, and super sorry that he had to miss out on it.