Photo Friday: Sunrise and Sunset on Siesta Key

After our hectic, fun-filled 5 days at Disney World, we knew that we would need a soft sandy beach to relax on for a few days before we went back to every day life, and Siesta Key, FL was the perfect place for that! Gorgeous white sand (I swear that powdery sand was magic on my sore feet!), the perfect place to soak up a few rays and just relax. After starting our vacation off very high-key and high-speed, it was nice to kick back, grill out, and enjoy some gorgeous sunsets and sunrises before we headed home. It's hard to beat sitting on the lanai, drinking coffee, and watching the reflected sunrise over the Gulf of Mexico:

Walking onto the beach from our condo, it looked like this:

And it's pretty hard to beat watching a sunset that looks like a painting, while sipping some white zinfandel and walking down the beach. Of course, I was the girl with a giant camera, too. ;-)

Thanks for letting me share with you today!

Mickey Mouse Pancake Fail...or...Daddy Makes The Magic Happen!

So, when I planned the whole "Magical Morning Surprise", my plan was to make the kids Mickey pancakes for breakfast, to add to the excitement, memories, whatever. However, a little practice might have been a good idea ;-) . When I actually went to execute my plan, my pancakes were looking nothing like Mickey! In fact, they just came out like rather odd, deformed circles. Luckily, I married someone that has more patience than I do (at least while cooking!), so Eric took over and brought my idea to fruition. His Mickey pancakes looked great:

And the kids loved them-they ate them (ears first, of course!) without even needing syrup on them.

I will, however, be purchasing a Mickey waffle maker soon, so I can make a Disney breakfast, too!

A Magical Morning Surprise

 Have you ever tried to keep a secret from 4 very smart kids? It is tough, I will tell you! Especially when it is one as big as Disney World! We told the kids that we were going to Florida for 10 days, but we just told them that we were going to the beach in Sarasota. Our plan was to stop at my sister's house (about midway for us, near Atlanta), and tell them about Disney when we woke them up, on  the morning of our drive/arrival to Disney World.
I got up around 5:30 after a very restless night, tiptoed around setting everything up, then said, "get up kids, look at the table!"
Natalie and Evan were up in a blur:

 Before leaving home, I had typed up a letter in a free( Waltograph )font, which I laid out, along with Disney t-shirts (Mickey for the boys, Minnie for the girls), gift cards for spending money,  and a stack of Disney movies so they could "brush up" on the 6 hour drive from Atlanta to Orlando:

 The expressions of shock and awe were worth the work and planning:

 Such a fun thing to do-aren't surprises awesome?

Exhausted...Exhilarated...

And...just like that, our vacation is over, and it's time to get back to the "real" world. Between 5 days at Disney world, and 4 full days at the beach, it was a long vacation, but it seemed to go by so quickly! And, of course, I took lots and lots of photos, so I plan to share some of the photos and stories to keep a record of them until I get a chance to scrap them. Between my camera, and all of our phones and ipods, we have somewhere around 4000 photos, so there are plenty of pictures and stories to share! Oh yeah, and I purchased the Disney Memory Maker (used to be known as Photopass Plus), so I actually got to be in a few of the photos myself! I truly think it was worth the advance purchase price of $149-we got over 200 photos from it-including characters, rides, and those classic park icon shots of the whole family, so that works out to less than a $1 per photo. Here are some of my family's Memory Maker "icon" shots:

Magic Kingdom:

 We arrived at the Magic Kingdom around 5pm at the 24 hour "Show Your Disney Side" party on May 23rd-which gave our "castle shot" a lovely color/glow.

Hollywood Studios:

After staying at Magic Kingdom until 5 am, we got up a little late for our day at Hollywood Studios-we didn't get started until after noon. Luckily, I was able to change most of our fast passes- the only one I couldn't reschedule a fast pass for was Toy Story Midway Mania, but I was able to get one for Rockin' Roller Coaster instead. We skipped Toy Story-90 minute waits in 95-100 degree heat wasn't even an option in our minds, and there was plenty of stuff to do and see, especially with Star Wars Weekend festivities!

We went back to Magic Kingdom on the 3rd day, and didn't do a castle shot right away, but we did get one after dark:

Love how beautiful the castle is at night!

We definitely discovered the benefit of Evening Extra Magic Hours on this day, but I will share more about that in a later post!

Epcot:

 

Spaceship Earth is pretty beautiful at night, too! Another late start for us-everyone was tired and really hard to wake up-this is the park that I would really love another day (or 3) at to explore. At least we had Evening Extra Magic hours here, too!

Animal Kingdom:

We loved Animal Kingdom, too! This was our check-out day, so we got up early, packed the van and cleared out our room, then we took the resort bus over to DAK for the day. We were running when we entered, to make our Kali River Rapids fast passes, so we got this shot at the end of the day.