Celebrating 21 Years in the Place Where Dreams Come True!

It's official! As of the 21st I am now 21! Hurray! And what a birthday it was! I spent all of the last week in Florida- part of the time in Disney World and the other part of the week at my brother's house in St. Petersburg. Now that I am home I figured that I might as well update you all on the happenings.

Monday the 21st~ Mom and I woke up and were out of the house by 5 am in time to make it to the airport before our 7 am flight. Let me tell you that was brutal! Security would not have been so bad had I remembered that I had liquids and gels in my purse, and mom had nail polish in her carry-on one of 21 surprise presents for me. Anyhow, the guards caught it, opened our bags, escorted me back to the gift shop for a plastic bag to put the contraband items in, and then I had to wait in security behind 20 people just to show them they were all safe! Ahhh!! The presents were a surprise and I got one every hour- making it 21. We arrived in Florida around noon, checked into our hotel, and then since we could not get into our room until 4 we hit up Downtown Disney. We grabbed lunch at a sandwich place, and then headed back to our room to change for dinner. We headed over to another resort where we had a Hawaiian meal. We finished the evening with fireworks from afar.

Tuesday~ Since we had just arrived in Florida we decided to spend our first full day relaxing. We didn't have any specific time to wake up, but once we did we took a ferry ride over to the resort my family usually stays at to have lunch, and then back again to our resort to sit by the pool. Once dinner time rolled around we headed over to the Boardwalk for dinner. After dinner we slowly walked the Boardwalk to watch the sidewalk shows and to people watch. Since it was my birthday week I had to wear a pin that said it was my birthday, so everywhere I went people were telling my happy birthday or doing random acts of surprises for me. Everyone should go on their birthday to Disney World! We went to bed earlier than the night before because we were getting up early on Wednesday for Epcot!

Wednesday~ As stated before, Wednesday was our morning to wake up early and head to Epcot. We arrived 20 minutes prior to when the gates opened, which opened 10 minutes early and were walked down to a ride in TomorrowLand called Soaring where you feel like you're flying over California. Then we hit some other rides in TomorrowLand, and once the front section was completely over we headed to World Showcase to walk around the world. We were back there for about eight hours so we saw all you could see. We saw a candy-making lady, had some flavored frozen ice, and picked out a pearl in Japan, sampled cokes from around the world, ate lunch and saw a concert in America, watched some acrobats in China, ate dinner in Canada, watched a sideshow in United Kingdom, bought some coffee beans in Germany, saw a wood-carver in Kenya, and then a bunch of stuff I don't remember. It was also the Flower Festival while we were there so everywhere we went there were flower sculptures.

Thursday~ Magic Kingdom was the park of the day. There were extra magic hours for Disney members so we were there a whole hour before the public was let in! The first ride I rode was Space Mountain, followed by some kiddie rides like Peter Pan, It's a Small World, Pirates of the Caribbean, and so on. We also rode Big Thunder Mountain a total of 3 times because we got a fastpass (listen up Todd!) which told us to return to the ride at a later time and then we were able to go into a different lane and bypass everyone else who was waiting for 50 minutes. I did that with Space Mountain too and rode it three times. We also saw a few shows like The Hall of Presidents, Monster's Inc. Laugh Floor, and Mickey's Philharmonic Orchestra. There was a parade at 3 that we watched, as well. We ate dinner at Tonys, a restaurant modeled after Lady and the Tramp where we witnessed a couple get engaged! Awww!! There was another stupid parade at 9, and then fireworks at 10. It was the best day because we were at Magic Kingdom. Another great tip (Todd) is that there are professional photographers in certain locations who will take your picture and then give you a code to go online to look at it. Every time we saw one of those guys we had a picture taken. What a magical day!

Friday~ Mom had an annual pass so she decided to spend the afternoon park hopping, while I spent the afternoon at the pool working on my tan. When mom got back around 4 we headed over to DT Disney where I scoped out the souvenirs I wanted. Then we headed back to our resort to wait for Nate and Linds. We took them over to DT Disney to eat dinner and shop, and then headed to their home in St. Pete. We got there close to midnight and headed to bed.

The rest of the trip was spent at the beach, exploring the area, and relaxing with family. Now, it's back to reality which includes work at 10 am.