Disney-whirled

The fam went on an extended vacation to the land of round ears and bad drivers. We flew down last Thursday, and since Kieran had been fighting a cold, his ear drums could have fit in Mickey's ears no problem. Try calming down a baby on a flight. Now multiply that 10x when a 7-year old is going into a fit of misery and rage, and telling me to land the pain plane. Yea, that was real fun. At least our nice Southwest hostess explained that gum doesn't work, and the only thing that really does is to pinch your nose and try and blow out. I'm pretty sure K was blowing so hard he was shuddering. That kid doesn't do anything at 99%.

We finally landed, and was greeted by 80 degrees and a warm breeze. Weather like that doesn't endear me to the midwest, especially when we got back it was 35 degrees with flurries and all I had was shorts. Over the course of the next 6 days we went to Animal Kingdom, the Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, Epcot, and finally capped it off at Discovery Cove where Kieran snorkle-chased a 100-pound manta ray around until he wore it out and let him touch it. Star Wars was in full effect at Hollywood Studios, and they still have a few things coming out in the next few months. Of course, I found reason to complain, as I'm not sure why everything wasn't ready then. TFA came out in December, and it's 3 months later! Where is my fireworks show!?!?!

Anyway, after logging multiple days of 15k+ steps and standing in a couple of one hour lines, we packed everything up and drove to the beach for a couple of days of roasting relaxing. The boys got sunburned a bit, but that's too be expected with our pale Kansas winter skin. At least they are ok now and starting to peel in relative comfort.

Our 10th and final day was pretty much crap. Penny for reasons forgotten by all, decided to book an 8am flight out of RSW. We were cutting it close by arriving at 6:50, but of course got held up at the rental return because the lady receiving the car thinks we put a huge gash on the front bumper. I told her we didn't hit anything, and weren't given an opportunity to check the car out before we left. We'll see how this plays out, but I'm not optimistic and may have a blog post/internet rant about Alamo. Fingers crossed.

We made it through that, and had checked in with the American Airlines front desk when she told us out gate was 4D. By told, I mean mumbled. We go hauling arse down to D terminal's security checkpoint when the TSA guy told us we need to be at B, on the other side of the airport. Thankfully RSW isn't huge, but of course B terminal had a 30 minute security checkpoint line. Penny and I start puckering up, but I try to remain calm. We get through security, and I'm the first one so I grab my shoes and belt and backpack and bolt for the gate to get them to hold the plane. Thankfully we all just squeeze on to the plane, and then realize 1.5 flights later that we left a bag in security at RSW. Figures. We finally make it back to MCI and get this lovely weather that I spoke of earlier, and that was a wrap. The car started and we didn't run out of gas on the way back. That was a long vacation that happened in the blink of an eye, but I think we made some good memories. I even rode a couple of small rollercoasters. That's a big step in itself.

That's it for now. I have more stuff to post but it'll have to wait.