The Princess Diaries: 27.5 months

We went to Disney last weekend and had a great time! The forecast wasn’t so great regarding rain, but we really lucked out. It wasn’t supposed to rain on Friday at all…but it did, lol. We ended up going directly to Epcot instead of checking into the hotel first because traffic on I4 was awful, and so was it on the main road to our hotel. We first went to switch our paper annual passes to plastic ones, which is so much easier to use. That didn’t take long but by the time we were done, it was raining out. We ended up running between raindrops so we could eat dinner at the Morrocan place. After that the rain pretty much stopped, so we did the Nemo ride, where Ashlan spent a long time in the aquarium afterwards. Eventually, we ended up watching Ashlan dance to the British band and then we stayed for the fireworks. That was all we had time for that night but it seemed like we made good use of our time there.

Since we checked into the hotel late Friday night, by the time we got Ashlan to bed after her bath, it was around 11pm…and she still woke up at 6:30am! Crazy girl. She wanted to see animals, so we ended up at Animal Kingdom. For a 50% chance of rain, it only rained once for 5-10 min so we got extremely lucky there. We rode the safari ride, danced with the Middle Eastern dancers, rode the train, petted goats and pigs, danced with the African dancers, spent time exploring the Asian jungle and aviary, chased after Ashlan in Dinoland, and some other things I can’t remember, lol. It was a great day. We knew Ashlan would fall asleep early because of the lack of sleep she had the night before so we were back at the hotel and she was asleep by 8ish.

She woke up around 6:45 on Sunday and we decided to go to Hollywood Studios. We had never been with Ashlan, so we thought we’d give it a shot since there were a few things for her to do. The main one was the Belle show, which we actually didn’t get a chance to see! Next time… We did a ton though. She kept saying she wanted to see Mickey, so we took her to see Mickey, lol. We stood in line for about 20 minutes though! She was very patient for about 15 of those minutes and the last five were…well, let’s just say Dan and I were working hard, lol. But she did end up seeing Mickey and loved it, so that was successful. We got fast passes for the Ariel show there so we saw that…but not before we waited a very long 15 minutes, lol. We ended up seeing Donald and Daisy taking pictures in a courtyard, and there weren’t many people in line (because it has started drizzling), so we asked Ashlan if she wanted to see them and she said yes. Thankfully, it went fast, and we didn’t wait long at all. We also had her play at the Honey I Shrunk the Kids playground before her nap to tire her out. It obviously did the job because she took a three hour nap in her stroller! Luckily, it rained for about two hours like crazy during her nap, and pretty much only then. We parked ourselves in a cafeteria and had an adult beverage so we were happy she slept then, but were shocked she could do so through the noisiness of the bustling café. Not only were people talking loudly, but waves of people would come in when it started pouring harder and the commotion became even louder, plus we were right by the main door. Thankfully, she never woke up, though she stirred a few times. She is becoming a pro at sleeping in the stroller. : ) After she woke up, we went to the Disney Jr show with characters from some of her favorite shows. She seemed to really like that. We headed over to Epcot after that. When we got there, Ashlan said she wanted to see fireworks, lol. Luckily for her, we planned on staying this time, especially since her nap was so long and ended later in the day. We saw three bands…the Guess Who (only a partial because we needed to eat dinner), Mo’Rockin (a Morrocan band), and British Revolution (to which none of them are British, lol). We met the last band on Friday and Sunday nights…they’re going to start to recognize Ashlan, lol. Ashlan had a great time dancing to the music, and we had a great time watching her. She loves dancing and meeting other kids.

So on Monday, we decided to go to Magic Kingdom. Man. We didn’t know it was spring break for a lot of schools and it sure showed. It was nuts. We spent about 20 min just getting into the parking lot but luckily, we got a spot right up front! Then because we walked (instead of taking the tram to the entrance), we happened to walk right by a man who was asking if anyone wanted to take a bus into the park instead of the monorail. We looked at how crazy the monorail line was and of course, chose the 5 minute bus ride! We would have easily waited 25-30 minutes in line, and then however long it takes on the monorail, so this was much faster. Sure, the monorail is cooler, but we’ve done it before and we’ll do it again…when it’s less busy. Since we lucked out there, we made it in before we thought we would. We just went to see what the wait time was for meeting the princesses. The sign said 2 minutes. (The sign was wrong- it must have been 20 and the zero fell off but…) So of course we decided to go since Rapunzel was featured. Cinderella and Aurora were there too but Ashlan specifically said she wanted to see Rapunzel so we thought we’d give it a shot. When we got to the line, there were about 15 families ahead of us. We knew the sign must have been wrong but the line didn’t look that bad, so we decided to wait (especially since we already asked Ashlan if she wanted to see Rapunzel, lol). We didn’t realize they would take us into a foyer (where we waited more), and then another room (where the princesses actually were, and we had to wait again). So…2 minutes turned into 30 minutes! Ashlan was really good for about 20 of those, lol. She ended up getting restless so I pulled out the crayons and coloring book and that helped for a bit but by the time we got to the third room, she had had enough! We managed to keep her occupied until we got up to the first princess. After waiting that long and being so close, she was going to see those princesses!!! We would have never done it if we knew it was long than 15 minutes, but we are glad we got those pictures. Then some people that were only a bit ahead of us in line for the princesses ran into us when we were coming out of the princesses and told us that the line for Mickey was extremely short. It was, so we asked Ashlan if she wanted to go see Mickey again and she said yes, so we got more pictures then. After that, we went on the Ariel ride, rode the train, saw part of a show in front of the castle, and the parade as we were leaving, but we did a ton for only being there for three hours! And seeing how nuts it was there (there were people everywhere!), we did really good.

I am happy to report that she did not have one accident when we were at Disney! We did have pullups on her, but we either took her frequently enough or she told us when she had to go, and made it to the bathroom, so we are very proud of her! I have been taking her out to do errands in just underwear and she's been doing great then too.

I have mainly finished her bedroom. I painted a quote in gold on the one wall that was empty and just put one layer of glitter paint on. I still have one more coat to do and I ordered a Rapunzel tower sticker to go on that wall, so it will pretty much be done after that.

Sorry- these are SO out of order!!!

Ashlan's new room