Favorite Weekend at Disney!!!

As soon as I got this job, I told my mom she would be bringing Laura to experience Disney!  I told my mom I didn't care who came to see me, but Laura better be one of them!  And my mom kept that promise.  Laura along with my mom, Sarah, and my Aunt Debbie all made their way to Walt Disney World Friday, October 11 during Sarah's Fall Break!  We started our time together with dinner at the Old Key West Resort at Olivia's Cafe.  My family ate here during one of our trips and remembered it being good, so we figured it would be a fun place for our first dinner!  Again, real food for a whole weekend makes seeing my family even better!!!  After dinner, we headed to Downtown Disney for some shopping and I had to pick up a special gift for Laura!  I got her her very first pair of Mickey ears, with her name on them!!  Laura loves anything with her name on it and these were no exception!  I knew this gift could go either way.  Either she'd love it and wear them non-stop, or she wouldn't wear them at all!  Luckily she fell in love with them and wore them all weekend (except for our last day!)

So excited about her ears!

I got a big kiss for her present!!

Only my favorite people, ever

 Also, Sarah decided when I got this job that she'd be visiting on Fall Break whether anyone came with her or not!  This was the first time we saw each other since moving her into her apartment a couple days before moving to Orlando!  We've never gone that long without seeing each other, but unfortunately we'll have to since we won't see each other until Christmas!  How lucky am I to have such a great sister that makes saying goodbye so hard!

Saturday, we started at Epcot!  We headed to Guest Relations to get Laura's 1st Visit pin.  Just like the ears, she had to make sure she kept her pin on all weekend!!  She wanted everyone to know this was her trip, in typical Laura fashion.

Love love love her!!!

Some of Aunt Debbie's friends headed to get us FastPasses to Soarin' (since we had been convincing Laura how much she would love it).  We found Pluto and decided this would be Laura's first character meet and greet!  Walking up, Laura says, "There's a person in there, right?"  Hahahah Laura!  She's smart, just ruining the magic!  She did good with her first meeting and we moved on to Spaceship Earth!

All the girls with Pluto!

We rode lots of rides and got to go to the Siemens Office at the back of the Epcot ball since Aunt Debbie works for Siemens!  They had a Magic Mirror and free drinks ha!  Laura wasn't a fan of the moving sidewalks (as we anticipated) or Soarin' (as we weren't anticipating).  Before getting here, we told Laura the rules were if you get scared to close your eyes, hold someone's hand, and scream.  She repeated these rules for us over and over but did she use them?  NO!  Soarin' was a struggle and no where near Laura's favorite thing!  We thought she was having a panic attack and she wouldn't close her eyes.  She just kept asking when we would be getting back on the ground.  Haha, what an experience it was Soarin' with Laura!

We had to snap a picture before leaving Epcot!

After leaving Epcot, we headed to Animal Kingdom!  We rode a couple rides and even convinced Laura to try "It's Tough to be a Bug!"  Bad decision.  She kept her head on my shoulder the whole time she wasn't screaming and swatting bugs away from her face!

With the Tree of Life

The main thing we were excited about doing at Animal Kingdom was the Festival of the Lion King Show.  One of the perks of working at Disney is having other friends who work at Disney and I'm just so lucky to have a roommate who works at the Lion King show.  She was so sweet to put us on the VIP List meaning we got to be front row and got extra special treatment!  Seriously can't thank Courtney enough for this experience as it was our first and probably most favorite Magical Moment of the weekend!  At first, Laura was asked to help make the elephant noise but she turned that down so Sarah got chosen to lead the elephants.  However, Sarah forgot what noise an elephant makes...embarrassing!!! Ha!  But the show got started and we had so much fun!  Laura was amazed by Simba...so much so that we had to remind her to watch the show!  The dancers and Tumble Monkeys were so interactive with us, it was an awesome show!  At one point in the show, the dancers choose children from the audience to dance around the auditorium with them!  Luckily, our dancer saw Laura's potential and invited her to dance!!  Oh man, if you know Laura at all you know how she lovesssss to dance!  She got a shaker and she went to work!  Laura was dancing all around and even took a bow when her time as the star of the show was up!  Classic Laura!  It was such a magical moment and leave it to the Fogle girls to start crying watching it happen!  

Laura stealing the show as always!

After our afternoon at Animal Kingdom, we headed to the Trails End Restaurant at Fort Wilderness.  We'd never been to this restaurant and I was more than excited.  Its a buffet with some gooooood food!  Between the ribs and BBQ and macaroni and cheese and cornbread, I was kind of in heaven.  Florida doesn't have southern food and this was the closest I've gotten in a while!  There was so much awesome food, it was hard to choose what all to try!  Okay, I'll stop being a fatty and telling you all about our food! But, you should check out Trails End!  It rocked!

Sunday started our day at Magic Kingdom!!  First thing we did was run to get Fast Passes to meet the princesses.  As Sarah and I went to the back of the park for those, the Haines women found Susie, a Cast Member in Entertainment walking down Main Street who could tell how much Laura wanted to go on the Carousel and she made some magic happen so that Laura could ride on Cinderella's horse.  In case you don't know, Cinderella's horse has a gold ribbon on its tail!  Laura felt like Cinderella and Susie even made sure we had a PhotoPass photographer taking pictures of Laura enjoying it all!  Talk about another Magical Moment!  As a Cast Member, I know how awesome it is to make a child's day with some magic.  As a Cast Member in the park as a Guest, it was even more awesome to see the magic happen!!!!

Loving life on Cinderella's Horse!

After riding the Carousel, we headed to meet the Princesses!  First was Cinderella and Aurora then Rapunzel and Snow White!  We even met Lady Tremaine and the evil stepsisters.  Laura wasn't the biggest fan but they were so entertaining! 

Love love love my sweet Mama!

Can't ever get enough of my sweet Aunt Laura!

We rode lots and lots of rides throughout the day and even ate lunch at Be Our Guest with more of our family!  My dad's twin, Aunt Nancy and her family came to Magic Kingdom for the day as well!  My cousin Kevin and his wife Dixie moved to Gainesville this summer and Aunt Nancy, Uncle Jeff, and Lisa were down visiting so it was awesome getting to see even more family!!!  

On the People Mover...far from Laura's favorite ride!

While in Tomorrowland, my good friend Stitch told me he would be at a dance party!  As soon as I told Laura Stitch wanted to dance with her, she got pretty excited!  We saw Chip and Dale come out to the party and waited on Stitch!  Laura loved getting to dance with Stitch and all the kids were jealous of Laura getting all the attention!

We ate dinner at my restaurant and I was so excited to see some of my pals from work!!  Also, this was the first time I've eaten at my restaurant as a Guest!  It was awesome, as if I would expect anything less from the Harbour House!  We hit up the Haunted Mansion after dinner and Laura absolutely lovedddd it!  She's still talking about it!  Our day at Magic Kingdom was magical indeed!

Monday was our day at Hollywood Studios!  First thing we did was Tower of Terror and Rock 'n Roller Coaster!  I sat with Laura instead of going on Tower of Terror...it is the only ride at Disney I won't do!  And then my mom and I switched places for Rock 'n Roller Coaster!  We ate at my favorite place, Pizza Planet, for lunch!  And we rode my favorite ride, Toy Story Midway Mania!!!!  We rode almost every ride there and saw the Beauty and the Beast show as well as the Little Mermaid show!  Laura loved them both!!  We ended our night at Fantasmic!  Somehow the Fogle's have never seen this show and I wasn't going to let my family leave without seeing them this time.  Laura enjoyed it way more than Wishes (just because she doesn't really like the loud noises that come with fireworks).  But she loved seeing all the characters and the music at Fantasmic!

Hanging out with our Trading Pins, typical tourists!

After the show, we headed out and took one last picture in front of the hat..that you can't really see!

It was such a fun weekend with my family here!  Makes me wish they could come all the time!  Getting to experience Laura's first visit will be one of my favorite memories forever!  So so thankful for my family and the time we got to spend together!