The Happiest Place on Earth

So, my and B's anniversary is on May 1st. We will have survived this thing called marriage for 9 years, now. He was going to surprise me and take me away somewhere, but instead he decided to take a family trip to Disney. I think that was a great idea, since we would have had to find someone to keep the girls and take them to school, etc, etc... The girls have no idea we are going so far and we do not plan on telling them until we board the plane on Friday morning. We will return on Tuesday next week, so we should have time to see everything and have a grand experience. Meanwhile, I am running around like a crazy person trying to get the house cleaned up, picked up, straightened up before we leave. (I cannot stand coming home to a messy house after a trip!!) I also know that I will be too worn out to clean when we come back. We're going to stay in the Grand Floridian Disney Resort- and I am excited about that because I have always wanted to stay there. I have been trying to bribe the girls this week by telling them that if they are really good, they will get a huge surprise at the end of the week. (Emmaline thinks it is a trampoline...) We went to Disney 2 years ago with them (that is when the picture up top with Sleeping Beauty was taken), but made the mistake of going during the week of Thanksgiving. It was horrendous. Horrible. I would not recommend it. I guess I got spoiled because I had been so many times when it was not crowded. The girls didn't know any different, and had a great time anyway. Annelise is very excited about riding the Tower of Terror again. I don't know if Emmaline would survive that ride, so I will probably sit that one out with her. All of this is assuming I do not choke Brian before we leave. He is very anal and has come up with this "schedule" that we must follow to get the optimal Disney experience. I can tell he is going to get on my last nerve with it. We have already had a big blowup about the flight we will be leaving on Friday morning. He booked it for 6:30 a.m., which means we will need to be at the airport by 4:30 a.m. which means the girls should be hitting meltdown mode by about noon. He says he just wanted to get to the park as early as possible, but I would rather have a little less time at the park in exchange for happy, alert children. So far our friends all agree with me! He also had us scheduled to eat breakfast every morning at 7:15 a.m. I won that argument and got it changed to 8:00- still a little early, but better than 7:15. Anyway- I have gotten the girls clothes out and the suitcases down and I have made significant progress on the house- but still have a ways to go. Tonight is soccer and out to eat, then tommorrow night is church (at least I won't have to cook for 2 nights) and Thursday night I think I am going to give everyone a round of Benadryl at about 5 p.m. so we will be asleep at an early hour since we have to get up in the middle of the night to get on a plane. That's the plan. Hopefully we will have safe, non-eventful flights there and back. Just when I think life is going to slow down, it rushes right on forward again, full-speed. At least ,for the most part, the things making it busy are good things to have going on. For now it's back to the phone triage and then soccer preparation. At least Emmaline is taking a nap today, so maybe no middle-of-the-field meltdowns will be had!