Disney World!

This year for Christmas we went to Disney World with Dan's family! It was a ton of fun and it was so nice to be able to spend some time with his brothers and sisters that we don't get to see very often. We left on Christmas Day after all the festivities and present opening at home and stayed until New Years Day. Here are some highlights of our amazing family trip!

Welcome to Disney World! Where Dreams Come True!

Our first day at Animal Kingdom.



Our second day at Hollywood Studios and of course Kaylee's Minnie Mouse ears. All kids need a pair of mouse ears from Disney and doesn't she look so cute?! We were lucky enough to have 80 degree weather the entire time we were there and because all our stuff is in storage all our summer clothes were packed away. Kaylee loved wearing this hat everywhere because it gave her some shade and cooled her off a bit.



Off we go to our first day at Disney World. We decided to hit Animal Kingdom first. By the time we got our tickets and got everyone together it was about 2:00 when we arrived. As you can guess Christmas is not the most ideal time to visit Disney World but we enjoyed our time there with our family and our other 10 million closest friends!!!

The girls love there Papa Kemp and he was proud to walk through the front gates with all his greatest joys in tow.


All the girls with Nana and Papa Kemp by the Animal Kingdom christmas tree.

Entering the gates.

Our little family by the tree of life. You can't really tell from the picture but this tree was huge and so beautiful. It had hundreds of nature carvings in it and was the central point to the park. If you ever got lost you knew you could look to the tree of life!

Uncle Jared and Jackson in his oh-so-cool shades! We are waiting in line for the Safari ride.

Here we are on the Safari ride. It was really neat. They put you on these big jeeps and take you through what looks like the plains of Africa. It is a step up from any regular zoo because here the animals are not in cages they are freely roaming the plains all around you! As you can see by the rhino that almost charged are car, the animals are very close and personal! We saw lots of animals and the kids thought this was so much fun.



After the Safari there were some other cages and tanks that you could walk through to see more animals. The kids loved all the animals. Kaylee loved sitting on Papa's shoulders as she looked at a monkey climbing in the trees. Hope jumped on Aunt Tia's back as we walked by the birds. And Kenna enjoyed herself riding along in her own little seat- happy as can be!



Aunt Jamie held hands with Charity and Kaylee as we headed to the Hippos home. The girls love their Aunt Jamie! The hippos were so cute as they sat cuddling under the water. Kaylee was mesmerized. Hopefully you can see these adorable hippos in the background of the picture.


It was not a super long day at Animal Kingdom as we arrived later in the day, but it was long enough to tucker out the girls.


The highlight of our trip to Animal Kingdom had to be the Lion King show. We
decided to stay later with some of the family and head to the Lion King show after dark. Most of the attractions at this park close at dusk so a lot of the people leave. It was so awesome walking around with no crowds! We went and had pizza and were the only ones in the restaurant and then headed to an amazing show. They had wonderful singers, dancers, gymnasts, acrobats, and of course all the favorite characters from Lion King! It was a great ending to our first day at Disney World!




For our next stop at Disney World we headed to Hollywood Studios. We got there early for the gates to open with Jenn and Bryan and their family. We had a jam packed day planned and so we packed up the girls, rented our double wide stroller, and took off for our next day of fun!

Our first stop was the Aerosmith roller coaster, which was a blast. It was so much fun we actually ended up starting our day here and ending our day here with a second ride later that night.

Some cute pictures of Kaylee and her cousin Hope. They were the best of friends on this trip and it was so fun to see all the cousins together!


Next on our schedule was the Beauty and the Beast show. We met up here with the rest of the family. It was a really cute show and the little girls especially loved it.
Next, we headed over to redeem our fast passes at the toy story ride. This ride is a 4-D ride where you sit with your 4-D glasses on and try to shoot different toy story targets that are coming at you like a big video game. It was a really fun ride and as you can see we all looked very stylin' in our big yellow glasses!



The must have photo moment: Kaylee with her mouse ears riding on her daddy's shoulders! Ah- the magical moments at Disney!

One of our best purchases of the trip was the rental of our double wide stroller! We packed all the girls in there and pushed our way through the mass crowds. The girls loved it. It was nice because they could sit and relax and even sneak a nap now and then. As you can see, Kaylee even ended up in Kenna's stroller at one point snoozing away! We know how to tucker them out!


After Toy Story we ate some lunch and then went to the Little Mermaid show. Again, it was cute for the girls. Next, we headed to the EXTREME STUNT SHOW- definitely one more for the husband kids than the little kids! The show was actually very cool with lots of car stunts, fires, and explosions. The boys were in heaven!

We had so much fun spending the day with Jenn and Bryan and their kids. We about ran them ragged but we had a blast. We wish they lived closer because we just love them so much and had an awesome time together!


After the stunt show we hit the Star Tours ride, the Toy Story parade, and the Indiana Jones show. The highlight of the night was definitely the Fantasmic show. It was INCREDIBLE! We waited in line for about 2 hours but it was all worth it as we sat on the front row in the center section and saw the look on Kaylee's face as she waved to Mickey and her favorite Disney Princesses floating across the water. The special effects, fireworks, and music in this show were awesome- there is nothing like Fantasmic! It was a major highlight of my trip for sure.

Here are cute Hope and Kaylee at the end of the night as the adults were taking one last ride on the aerosmith roller coaster. Let's just say they slept well that night!

The next day we decided to take it easy and relax at the hotel and go swimming. The kids had a blast and it was nice to soak our swollen tired feet in the hot tub!




Hope had a loose tooth the whole trip and finally it fell out! She was very excited to loose her front tooth and received an extra special surprise from the Tooth Fairy!(For those that didn't know the Tooth Fairy brings something extra special if you are on vacation:-))

I had to throw this picture in so you could all see Dan's incredible fashion statement! What? You don't ever wear your black dress shoes with shorts and no socks?

Our last day in Florida was New Year's Eve. Half of the family decided to head to the Magic Kingdom early and the other half decided to sleep in and head over later so we could stay all night for the New Year's fireworks. Well . . . long story short thousands of other people had the same idea to go to the Magic Kingdom on New Year's Eve and by the time us in the later bunch reached the park it was filled to capacity and were not letting any more people in. Let's just say there were some VERY unhappy campers sitting in the parking lot that day as the workers broke the news to each car! I was very bummed because I had wanted Kaylee to be able to see and go on so many of the timeless rides at Magic Kingdom like Small World, the Tea Cups, Snow White. But, as we thought of how many people were inside and heard of the two to five hour wait times on some rides we decided Kaylee and the rest of us probably wouldn't have that good of time anyway. We'll head to Disney Land in like February when there are half as many people!

As you can see Kenna was not all that sad to miss out on another long, hot day of standing in line for rides she couldn't go on anyway:-)

So for our last day at Disney World we returned our tickets and did something much more relaxing- went out to lunch and shopping! My idea of a wonderful day! We had a great lunch at Downtown Disney's Planet Hollywood and then headed to World of Disney- like the biggest Disney store you have ever seen. We literally got lost in there, it went on forever and ever! Kaylee had a much better time buying some cute souvenirs to take home than she ever would have standing in line after line at Magic Kingdom. And hey- she got to meet her two favorite Disney princesses, Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella!







We had such a fun trip and made many memories with The Kemps that will last us a lifetime. Thanks mom and dad Kemp for an amazing vacation and thanks to the family for some wonderful times together that we will treasure always!