Disney: the departure and reveal

It has now been over a month since we took our oldest two boys off to the magical world of Disney! I've been wanting to post about our trip since the day we arrived, but how? There's just so much to tell and show and honestly, so much of it just cannot be expressed in words. We have memories stored in our hearts for sure! But I will try. And I'm going to break it down into several posts. If I'm going to do this, it has to be done right! I will also attempt to wrap our trip up with several Disney tips, for those of you who haven't made it there and hope to one day! So, without further delay, it started like this. . .

I checked our two oldest boys out of school an hour early on a Friday afternoon. They had no idea why and even complained that they were missing movie/rest time and P.E. I knew they could sense something at first, like maybe something was wrong or maybe there was a surprise? I told them we had to run to the house to pick up something. . .Daddy. We piled in our already packed car and headed for the airport. They were thrilled! They still didn't know where they were going, but they were pumped up!

These kiddos, bubbling with excitement, still kept in the dark. . .

We made it to Atlanta and with a delayed flight and a conversation over dinner (after 5 hours of them knowing a secret, but not knowing what), we finally surprised them with "1st trip!" Disney pins! Can you feel the excitement??

Oh my goodness! We kept that a secret for quite some time---like when we first decided we were going back in January. Hubby and I couldn't go to sleep 2 nights before our trip because we were so excited about them being so excited---and just because we were so excited too! It's funny that Charlie randomly a couple of months ago declared that our next time on a plane would be to Disney World. I was ready to tackle whoever told him, but played cool and probed a little. Turns out, he just thought it would be a long time until he ever got to go to Disney and it would be a SUPER long time to get there. He was just daydreaming!! OOOHHH how we loved seeing their reactions!

After our flight was delayed, we ended up not making to our hotel room until LATE or early, with our lights turning out at 1:15am. That, and we had to be up and ready to catch our shuttle to our new hotel room (we switched for the remainder of the trip) and our first breakfast and welcome to the Magic Kingdom. But do you think that put a damper on things?? No way!!!

And I'll leave it at that for now! Day 1: Magic Kingdom to come. . .