Icatar Family Blog

Orlando Vacation–April 2011

2011-04-11T21:52:00.001-04:00

A couple weeks ago, we went down to Florida to get away from the nasty Northeast weather before Isabella’s next chemo cycle. We had our own house with a pool which we took full advantage of! We spent a couple days at Sea World and at Universal’s Islands of Adventure. Below is a quick slideshow of our vacation along with a couple videos. Enjoy!

Orlando Vacation - April 2011

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Here is a tour of our vacation home.

Here we are hanging out in the pool.

Isabella flies on the Pteranadon ride at Islands of Adventures.

We ate with the sharks at Sea World!

Annalise and Isabella feed the stingrays at Sea World.

Update on Upcoming Treatments

2011-01-07T12:18:00.001-05:00

Isabella’s MRI yesterday didn’t show that the tumor is any smaller, but it also didn’t show that it had grown significantly so our doctor thinks that it is worth it to try another round of chemo. We were fully expecting that the MRI would show significant growth and that we would stop any further treatment. So although we will have another rough couple of weeks coming up with the chemo, we were relieved that the scan was “stable”.

We also decided to start the cycle on Saturday which allowed Isabella to go to school today. Ironically, because of the snow storm hitting the northeast, it’ll end up being a short day since school will be dismissed early.

So although Julianne and I have been pretty bummed the last couple days, we’ve been trying to have some fun. A couple nights ago, we played hide and seek around the house. Here are a couple pictures from that.

Annalise and Nathaniel look for Isabella under the couch.

They still can’t find Isabella.

There she is under their nose the whole time! I can’t believe she stayed still and quiet the whole time they were looking for her.

It took the kids a long time to find Roneil. Can you spot him in the picture?

Christmas Highlights

2010-12-27T23:33:00.001-05:00

Isabella’s white counts have climbed so she’s no longer neutropenic (low white counts that make her susceptible to infections), but her platelets count is low. This means we’ll have to go into the City tomorrow for a platelet infusion, but that should be it for this round. We’ll have to discuss with our oncologist what the next steps are, but it won’t be for another week or two.

In other news, the snow came a day late to give us a white Christmas. Oh well. That didn’t stop us from having a great Christmas. Here are a bunch of pictures and a video from the last couple of days. Click on the picture to see a larger view.

Annalise in front of the festively lit Empire State Building.

Isabella laughs as she wears her reindeer antlers.

Annalise and Isabella help decorate the door with snowflakes.

Here we are for our traditional Christmas Eve dinner of pierogies, fish sticks and green beans substituting for peas.

Even though we didn’t have any time to shop, Santa came by with lots of gifts for the kids. This also included some handmade, custom stockings for everyone in the family!

Nathaniel wears his new tool belt.

Isabella poses with her favorite new toy, a remote control walking puppy she named Snowflake.

Annalise made this cool ornament at school. It has a transparent picture of her inside the ornament.

Nathaniel and Isabella venture out into the snow before the blizzard got really bad!

Annalise and Nathaniel pose by some of the large snow piles in our yard.

And what else are you going to do with all of that snow? Well build a snow fort, of course! Here’s a video tour of our snow fort!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from our family to yours!

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-24T20:36:00.001-05:00

Thanks to everyone for all the wonderful support you’ve shown. I hope that you are all able to spend time with your loved ones and enjoy this blessed time with each other. From our family to yours, we wish you a very merry Christmas and a happy and healthy New Year!

Happy Halloween Weekend

2010-10-31T22:53:00.001-04:00

As promised, we had a great Halloween weekend. On Friday night, the kids had a Halloween dance at their school. On Saturday, we went for a nice walk through the New Canaan Nature Center discovery trails. On Sunday, before the the trick-or-treating festivities, we played in some leaf piles. As they say, pictures are worth a thousand words, so we have a few thousand words below!

(Click on each picture to see a larger view!)

New Additions to the Family

2010-10-24T21:20:00.001-04:00

We recently bought two new pets for the kids, sugar gliders, also known as sugar bears. These cute little furry animals are part of the marsupial family and come all the way from Australia. The attractive features they bring as pets are that they are clean, friendly, and need relatively little maintenance. We’ve had them for about a week now and are still going through the bonding phase, and we think they are getting a little more used to us now.

Here are a couple pictures and videos of “Oriette” and “Squeeky”, our new sugar gliders. (FYI, Annalise wanted to name hers Oreo because it was black and white, but since it is a girl, she wanted the name to be more feminine, hence, Oriette!)

Click each picture for a larger view.

Fall Fun–10/10/10

2010-10-10T21:59:00.001-04:00

Here are a couple recent pictures showing some fun that we’ve been having. Enjoy!

The kids try out this tractor during our visit to the Norwalk Department of Public Works.

Another picture of the kids at the Norwalk DPW.

Roneil getting ready for the first game of the Yankees playoffs. He’s wearing his Yankees hat, shirt, jacket, snuggie, foam finger, shopping bag, and coffee mug.

Annalise is pretty upset that all the Yankees ice cream is gone!

The kids had their own sleepover party last night.

Isabella shows off a new hand-made shawl from a friend.

The kids enjoy treats from apple picking. We actually brought a portable scale to the orchard so that we can weigh the apple that Isabella ate. (By the way, the apple Isabella ate was 104g and 12g of carbs.)

From the odd and bizarre file. This half eaten apple was still on the tree!

The kids pick out their pumpkin to prepare for Halloween.

Farewell Summer

2010-09-09T22:55:00.001-04:00

Traditionally, the Labor Day weekend marks the unofficial end of Summer. To say farewell to summer, we decided to rent a bounce house and ended up picking the Disney Princess 5-in-1 Combo bounce house. I must say that it was one of the best investments we’ve made as the adults had just as much enjoyment from it than the kids! Here are a few picture and a video of our fun weekend.

Roneil gets some help from the kids to position the castle in the yard.

The fully inflated castle was huge!

Isabella poses before heading down the slide.

Air Annalise gets some hang time on the basketball hoop.

Grandpa and Isabella get some rest from bouncing.

Grandpa, Isabella and Annalise get ready to slide.

Roneil and Julianne get their share of jumping in the castle.

Happy 3rd Birthday Nathaniel!

2010-08-22T18:02:00.001-04:00

Today is Nathaniel’s third birthday. Unfortunately, we haven’t really had the time to plan anything big, so we just sang Happy Birthday to him and let him open a couple gifts. Here are the cards that his older sisters made for him (click them to see larger versions), plus a couple short videos.

Happy Birthday Nathaniel!

Nathaniel opening his gifts.

Weekend Getaway

2010-07-29T10:50:00.000-04:00

First off, I’d like to thank everyone for your strong showing of support during this extremely difficult time. Words can’t explain the appreciation that I feel for everyone who has supported us over the last almost two years.

After we heard the preliminary results from the MRI where they saw a suspicious spot and would take a few days to examine in more detail, we decided to getaway for the weekend. We knew that we would go crazy if we just sat around the house and did nothing while waiting. With the extreme heat blanketing the northeast, we decided we would need some water wherever we went. We decided to spend a day at Lake Compounce and the next day at Coco Key Indoor Water Resort, both in middle Connecticut.

Lake Compounce is a theme park that includes a water park area and an amusement park area. During the hot day, we spent that time swimming in the lake. Later in the afternoon and evening, we went over to the rides area and the kids had fun on all the rides.

After we were thoroughly tired out from Lake Compounce, we made the 15 minute drive over to Coco Key and checked into our hotel (luckily getting the last available room!). Coco Key Water Resort is an indoor water park that includes a giant play area for kids, a lazy river, and several tube slides. We were glad to hit the parks in the order that we did because it was nice to be indoors after getting all the sun we got at the lake.

All in all, the kids had a great time as we were able to get away for a couple days on our impromptu vacation. Check out the picture slideshow below to see some of the highlights.

Weekend Getaway - July 2010

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Happy Birthday, Boss

2010-07-01T14:55:00.001-04:00

Emmanuel T. Icatar - 1946-2002 from Roneil Icatar on Vimeo.

This video is dedicated to my dad, Emmanuel T. Icatar who died on July 25, 2002 after a short battle with lung cancer. Today (July 1) would have been his 64th birthday. It is impossible to capture an entire life in 10 minutes, but what I tried to show in this video is my dad's love of life and family (and the Beatles). We miss you.

Annalise’s Busy Saturday

2010-06-20T23:15:00.001-04:00

Annalise had a very busy day this past Saturday. She is part of the Norwalk Zeus swim team and is also part of the Norwalk Zoomers fast pitch softball travel team. On Saturday, she had a softball game up in Bethel, CT which we had to get up very early for. It was a hot day and she played the whole two hour game. Once that game was done, we had to drive all the way from Bethel to Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT where she participated in a giant swim meet. I’m usually wiped after a baseball game, and I can’t imagine having to swim competitively afterwards. Anyway, Annalise ended up swimming in 3 heats: 100m backstroke, 50m butterfly, and 50m freestyle. I should not that this was Annalise’s first time competing in an Olympic sized swimming pool. Her usual swim meets are in a 25 yard pool, and most of her heats are only 50 yards. We were curious to see how she would do in the slightly longer 50m and the really long 100m heat, but she did great in all of them.

All in all it was a great day. We finally got home 130 miles and 12 hours later. Check out the pics (click the picture to see a large version) and videos below.

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Softball, Hula Hoops, and the iPad Aftermath

2010-05-12T00:02:00.001-04:00

How’s that for a catchy title? So, we have a couple videos to share with you. The first one here is of Isabella at her first softball game. This is her first year playing where the ball is pitched to her, but as you will see, our practice in the back yard has prepared her for the real thing!

About two weeks ago, Isabella started to learn how to hula hoop. At first, she could only hula hoop a few times and she would count how many times. She would be excited to hit 10 or 12. Within a few days, she was able to hula over a hundred times, and now, she can do it with two hoops! Amazing!

And finally, you’ve undoubtedly heard the hoopla over Apple’s iPad. After agonizing over the decision, I ended up getting one for myself, or should I say, ended up getting one for the family. I can honestly say that the kids have probably used it more than I have, and as you can see from the pictures below, it’s gotten ugly! Don’t worry though, we were able to work out a friendly, timed usage scenario and everyone is now happily sharing the device (including me!)

Softball for the Whole Family!

2010-04-22T22:23:00.001-04:00

Our busy year continues. As I mentioned previously, I am coaching Annalise’s softball team, the Hawks. You can follow the team at our website (http://www.eteamz.com/NAASoftball/index.cfm?league=1190520&subsite=3701528). We just had our first two games this week and everyone involved had lots of fun (except maybe for myself, since I was stressing out so much over making sure the girls had a good time!) But Annalise did great pitching and hitting in both games. Isabella is also playing softball in the Rookie division and just started practices. She should be starting games soon and she can’t wait.

Fun With Static Electricity

2010-04-11T22:09:00.001-04:00

Did you ever think you can have so much fun with balloons?

Happy Birthday Annalise!

2010-04-11T22:02:00.001-04:00

I can’t believe it’s been a whole decade since Annalise was born! As she enters the double-digits, she celebrated with a few friends at a sleepover party. What better way than have a few of your friends bow down while you open gifts!

Somehow, the girls managed to stay up and watch 5 movies! Beverly Hills Chihuahua started the night.

Roneil’s Birthday

2010-03-28T20:42:00.001-04:00

Today, I celebrated by 39th birthday. It started off with our first baseball practice outside in nice, crisp 40 degree weather. After a couple hours of batting and fielding drills that left me exhausted, I went back home. We all went to church where we commemorated Palm Sunday, then the church had an Easter egg hunt after the mass. The kids had such a great time at the Easter egg hunt that Isabella exclaimed, “This is the best daddy’s birthday ever!” Afterwards, we went to my mom’s house where we were treated to a surf-and-turf feast of NY strip steaks and king crab legs. Yummm! The highlight of the meal was this giant, three layer cake that Julianne and the kids had made last night and spent a lot of time on. It was definitely well worth it! Here are some pictures from the day.

Another First - Skiing

2010-02-20T21:51:00.001-05:00

Our Winter Sports season continues with another first: skiing. Julianne has skied since she was a kid, but I’ve only gone a couple times. Annalise has never gone skiing and was excited to give it a try. We went to Bolton Valley with Julianne’s dad for a day of skiing. (Isabella and Nathaniel stayed home with Grandma.) We planned on getting Annalise into a kids group lesson to get her started and I would get a refresher lesson in a group. This allowed the more experienced Julianne and her dad to get some runs on the more advanced trails. Honestly, we didn’t know what to expect from Annalise. She would either absolutely love it or she would get so frustrated that she would never want to ski again. When we went to get her after her lessons, we were happy to hear that she did very well in her lessons and she was very excited to keep skiing. At first, she wanted to show off her skills on the beginning hill and was hesitant to go on the ski lift to go on a higher hill, but after a while, she agreed to go up. Again, she enjoyed herself so much going down the hill that she completely forgot about the beginner hill. Then, we urged her to go on a higher hill, and although she was hesitant again, she agreed, and had an even better time! At one point, she was so excited, that she asked when we would get to do the moguls (since she had just seen the women’s moguls event at the Olympics the night before!) Luckily, Bolton also provides some night skiing as Annalise was not ready to go home. All in all, we ended up skiing for several hours into the night, and by the time we got home, we were exhausted. Annalise already can’t wait for the next time we go skiing.

Our next sport? Curling!

Our First Time Skating

2010-02-17T22:32:00.001-05:00

The kids are on their winter vacation and today we took them ice skating for the first time. I guess watching all the skating on the Olympics got them excited to get out on the ice (although for some reason, neither of them would let me throw them into the air!) Annalise has previously done some rollerblading, so she took to the ice right away and was zooming around. Isabella was just as excited to get out on the ice but was a little more cautious as she hasn’t rollerbladed before. She started out using a walker to help her balance and to get used to the skating motion. Soon after, she shed the walker and just held one of our hands to keep her balance. Finally, near the end of the session, she didn’t even need to hold our hands as she was able to skate on her own! Unfortunately, Nathaniel loved wearing the skates, but refused to touch the ice with them, so one of us had to carry him the whole time. All in all, it was a great time and the kids are looking forward to hitting the ice again soon! Check out these pictures and video of our day!

Don’t Mess with Nathaniel

2010-02-06T00:04:00.001-05:00

Nathaniel has always been interested in the Wii that we got last year. He wouldn’t actually play the games, but he would pretend by swinging the controllers around. Just recently though, he started actually playing some of the simpler Wii Sports games and he’s been doing pretty well actually. He’s even to the point where he can power on the Wii, turn on the TV, and change it to the proper input, and navigate to the game he wants to play! He’s been gradually getting better and better and he’s actually achieved Pro status in one of his favorite games, the Sword Duel in Wii Sports Resort. Here are a couple screen shots right after he made the achievement (click to see a larger version), along with a video of him taking care of one of his opponents. Keep in mind that Nathaniel is just 2 years old!

For Your Enjoyment

2010-01-20T11:37:00.001-05:00

Here are a couple videos to pass the time.

Magic Kingdom

2010-01-17T13:31:00.012-05:00

For the third day of our vacation, we contemplated sitting around the pool or hitting another theme park. We were pretty tired from Animal Kingdom, so a nice relaxing day would have been nice. But, we also knew that the next day would be New Years Eve and we had a 7am flight back home on New Years Day. We didn’t decide until Wednesday morning that we would actually do the theme park that day. We figured that the parks would be really busy on New Years Eve, and we could relax on Thursday so we wouldn’t be too tired for the flight home.

Click the Read More button below to continue, or view the slideshows and videos below.

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Since we knew that Magic Kingdom would be open until midnight, we didn’t have to rush to get there in the morning. We got there later in the morning and we thought that most everyone would be there already, but there were plenty of people still arriving when we got there. We wouldn’t see how many people were actually there until we got into the park. After parking, we jumped on the Disney monorail to get from the parking lot to the park itself. Once we got into the park, there was a parade that was about to start on Main Street so they shuttled everyone walking in around the back lots to the Tomorrowland area of the park where we started planning out the day. So, to make the most efficient use of our time, I took the kids to wait in the line for the Speedway while Julianne ran and got a FastPass for one of the other rides. On the Speedway, the kids were able to drive racecars around a track. By the time we were done with the ride, it was time for some lunch, and after that we moved on to the next ride.

I mentioned that there were plenty of people at the park and the lines at each ride certainly reflected it. We made our way to It’s a Small World and Mickey’s Philharmagic (a 3D movie featuring all the Disney classic movies) and spent at least 45 minutes in each line. At this rate, we knew we would never be able to see the whole park (plus all the shows and events) so we had to prioritize. We knew that we wanted to see the 8pm fireworks, the 10pm parade, and the midnight fireworks, and we would have to cram everything else around that.

While we were walking in front of Cinderella’s Castle, we were able to snap some nice family pictures. There was also a nice holiday musical show that the Disney characters put on in front of the castle. Soon after that, we made a very important and wise decision to have an early dinner. At around 4:30, we went to Tony’s Restaurant, which is an Italian restaurant inspired by the movie Lady and the Tramp. We had virtually no wait to be seated and were able to enjoy a nice dinner pretty quickly. By the time we left, there were a ton of people waiting for 45 minutes to be seated. Also, since we were done with dinner when most people were eating, we were able to have some shorter lines when we got back to the rides.

Some of our favorite rides included the Mickey’s Philharmagic movie, the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin, Cinderella’s Golden Carousel, the Jungle Cruise, and the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party. The kids likes the Tea Party (which is basically the spinning tea cups ride), that they jumped into line a second time to ride it.

The time flew quickly, except of course when we were standing in line for some of the rides, where the wait could take over an hour. During that time, it was a challenge to keep the kids under control, especially Nathaniel who would like to run around and between and into people. We also noticed that as we got into the evening, the park started blasting some really loud techno based versions of modern pop songs all around the park. We must be getting old because we thought it got obnoxiously loud, but it was an effective way of keeping the kids up way past their bedtimes. By the time we knew it, it was 10pm (long after when the kids would normally be up) and it was time for the SpectroMagic Parade. This parade consisted of beautifully decorated and lit up floats and characters. We were able to get a great seat ride on the parade route and the kids were able to wave to several of their favorites.

After the parade, we figured that most everyone would head home and we would have the park to ourselves till closing. However, the techno music kicked back in and it looked like everyone had the same plans as us and would stick around for the midnight fireworks. We jumped on a couple more rides, then finally made our way to try and find a nice spot to view the midnight fireworks. The midnight fireworks show was a practice run for the New Years Eve fireworks that would take place the next night (check out the videos above to see the fireworks).

Finally, by the time the fireworks were finished, it was past midnight and we were all exhausted, but our adventure was not finished yet, as the many thousands of people left also were heading home. It took us another hour and half before we actually were able to exit the park, get the monorail back to the parking lot and get back to the hotel. And even though we were thoroughly tired at the end of it all, we felt we planned it out perfectly, since the next day, we would sit back and relax by the pool before we went back home.

The Magic Kingdom held a practice run of their New Years Eve fireworks display on the 30th which we were fortunate to see. We had a decent view, but it was difficult to capture on video the 360 degree show. The second video below (from someone else) shows the display from further out and you can see exactly (well, almost) how awesome the show really was.

Animal Kingdom

2010-01-15T22:33:00.000-05:00

On Day 2 of our Florida vacation, we went to Disney’s Animal Kingdom. Tuesday was a little warmer than Monday. It was still only in the 60s so we brought some long sleeve shirts with us to the park. Since the Nickelodeon Suites hotel is only a couple miles from the park, it was a quick ride. We weren’t quite sure what the parks would be like during this holiday week, but we soon found out that a lot of people like to go to Florida during this time of the year. Once we got to the park, we got a bunch of maps and immediately tried to map out what we wanted to see and in what order. Check out the slideshow below, or click the Read More button to read about our Animal Kingdom adventure!

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Pangani Forest Exploration Trail

One of the first things that we did once we got to the park was to grab a FastPass to the Jungle Safari. Our start time wasn’t for over an hour so we thought we’d start off on something nice and calm like the Pangani Forest Exploration Trail. This attraction is a self-guided tour through a forest where we were able to see all sorts of wildlife including fish, birds, gorillas, meer cats, hippos and okapi.

Jungle Safari

Once we were done with our walk through the forest, it was time to jump onto a truck for a safari through an African jungle. We all really enjoyed this as well as well saw many animals in a natural habitat setting including crocodiles, lions, a white rhinoceros, elephants, and giraffe.
On a side note, the FastPass system is really cool since we were able to bypass the hour plus long line.
Check out the slide show above for more pictures from the safari.

The Tree of Life

Right in the middle of the park is a giant artificial tree called the Tree of Life. Some 300+ animals are carved into its bark. At the base of the tree, there is a theater where they play the 3D movie “It’s Tough to be a Bug”. At first, the kids really enjoyed the special effects with Flik and the other bugs, but then Hopper comes along and steals the show. I don’t want to ruin it for those of you who haven’t seen it yet, but the kids got real scared!

Finding Nemo the Musical

Somehow, Disney was able to reproduce Finding Nemo the movie into Finding Nemo the Musical. The musical version was chopped down to about 30 minutes, but was very enjoyable for the whole family. The sets and costumes rivaled anything available on Broadway. The jellyfish scene was particularly visually appealing as were the scenes of the aquarium.

The Lion King Festival

At the end of a long day, we finally got to see the last showing of the Lion King Festival. This indoor musical show was full of lights, song, dance, and acrobatics.
By the end of the day, we were pretty tired and we considered whether we should take a day off at the pool or do another day at the theme park the next day. Come back soon and you can read about our Magic Kingdom adventure.

An Indispensable Accessory for Vacations

2010-01-15T17:38:00.001-05:00

Traditionally, whenever we went on vacations we would never get any family shots or pictures where we were all in the picture. I also didn’t like the idea of lugging around a large tripod, then having to set it up whenever we wanted to take a picture. However, I recently found an accessory called the Gorilla Pod which is a mini-tripod with flexible legs. This cool little tripod can be mounted in a variety of positions and angles so that you can get that perfect picture. On our recent vacation, we attached the Gorilla Pod to the handle on our stroller and we were able to take many pictures where we were all in it! The Gorilla Pod also has a quick disconnect feature so that when we wanted to take traditional hand-held photos, we could just quickly remove it from the mount and snap the pictures! If you haven’t seen it, I urge you to check it out!

Orlando Fun

2010-01-12T21:19:00.008-05:00

Between the Christmas and New Year’s holidays, our family took a trip down to Orlando, Florida for a nice vacation. We were hoping to get away from the cold and snow that was hammering the Northeast. It was a relatively short 5-night, 4-day vacation, but so that we wouldn’t be completely exhausted at the end of it, we decided to do theme parks for two days and relax by the pool the other two days. (You can view the slideshow below or click on Read More to continue with the rest of the story.)

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We flew out of New York on Sunday afternoon. Just so that we didn’t have to deal with the issues with luggage, we decided that we would carry everything on and we packed light. We got to the airport well ahead of time and the lines for security actually weren’t that bad. We must have looked like crazy people as we prepped everything to go through the security line, but since we were well organized, we had all liquids separated and the kids shoes off and we were able to breeze through with hardly a wait. This was Nathaniel’s first flight ever, and it’s been a couple years since Isabella and Annalise flew, so we were curious, er, nervous to see how everyone would behave, but everyone did great. They were all quite excited to be flying and very well behaved.

Our flight down had a stopover in Washington DC and we got some real nice looks of the Capitol Building and the Washington Monument as we landed. With our layover in DC being a couple hours, we were able to grab some dinner in the terminal. We finally landed in Orlando in the evening, where we headed for the car rental place to pick up our car. I must be really spoiled with the frequent renter programs of other places where we could just pick a car from the lot then leave. We weren’t so fortunate this time and I must have waited in line for an hour to get the car and we already had the reservations. Thankfully, the agent must have felt bad for us because by the time I got to the counter, the kids were out of patience and running all over the place, so she graciously upgraded us from a dinky mid-sized car to a nice, roomy mini-van (a Volkswagen Routan!) at no charge. The kids absolutely loved the car and now want a mini-van, but that’s another conversation. We finally made it out of the airport and headed to our hotel, the Nickelodeon Suites Hotel.

By the time we got to the hotel and checked in, it was extremely late and we struggled to get everyone settled in. Everyone was both excited and exhausted from the trip and we decided to sleep in the next day and hang out by the pool. Fortunately, the pool was right outside our door.

The Nick Suites hotel, as you can imagine, is an entire hotel with a theme from all the cartoon characters from the Nickelodeon channel – which happen to be the kids favorite shows. The suites have a living area with a kitchenette and separate bedrooms for the kids and parents. The kids’ room was decorated with SpongeBob wallpaper, and Nickelodeon characters greeted you everywhere you went on the grounds. There were two giant heated pools, complete with massive water slides and other assorted activities.

Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t as warm as we would have liked, but it was still much warmer than it was back home. On our first day, since we decided to stay close to home and relax, we checked out the rest of the hotel grounds, then settled by the pool. It was in the low 60s, but since the pool was heated to a very comfortable 80 degrees, we had no problems getting in. Unfortunately, at some point, we had to get out! You could tell all the families who were from up North, because we were all in the pool having a great time – while the locals (including the lifeguards) were all bundled up.

The rest of the week warmed up pretty nicely and ended up being in the mid 70s. We spent the next day at Animal Kingdom and the following day at Magic Kingdom, but I will have a separate post on that.

On Day 4, Thursday, which also happened to be New Years Eve, we decided to relax and stay at the hotel again, since we were pretty much wiped out from the two days at the theme parks. We also had a 7am flight home on New Years Day, so we knew we couldn’t go too crazy on Thursday. We swam for a few hours, then went to a Chinese buffet for dinner. After that, we spent the remaining hours of 2009 at Downtown Disney where we visited the T-Rex restaurant and the Lego store. We also scored some free chocolate at the Ghirardelli store. As midnight approached, everyone congregated near a concert stage where a local band was playing some pretty good music. It was pretty amazing how many other kids were running around and how many people in general were up and about, but I guess it shouldn’t be surprising since it was New Years Eve. Finally, the group announced that it was close to midnight and began the countdown. When midnight finally struck, we all joined in a group hug and exchanged kisses and happy new year’s. I wrote about it briefly in the Happy New Years post, but for those few seconds, we all were very appreciative and thankful for where we were considering what had happened over the last year.

At approximately 12:01am, we started heading back to our car knowing that we had a flight 7 hours later. By the time we got back to the hotel, it was really late and Julianne and the kids went to bed for a couple hours. Knowing that we would have to be on the way to the airport by 4:30am, I decided to stay up, which is when I posted the Happy New Year post. Surprisingly, the whole process of getting on the plane went amazingly smooth – everything from packing the kids into the car, bringing the car back to going through security to the actual boarding was pretty flawless. We were all asleep on the plane by the time the plane took off and we didn’t wake up until we landed in New York. We were immediately met with the brisk cold air and some light snow, but we were home well before noon.

All in all, this was a pretty perfect vacation for us, as we weren’t too tired when we got back. Sometimes, after a long vacation, you feel like you need a vacation from the vacation, but this time, we didn’t feel it. We also had a couple more days to unwind and prepare before we had to go back to work and school.

Below is a quick slideshow of additional pictures from our vacation. Check back soon when I will have pictures from our days at Animal Kingdom and Magic Kingdom!

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