Disney!

Greetings from Disney World!  Right before Christmas, we (and 80 million other people) took advantage of some great military deals and headed to the Happiest Place on Earth.  See!  They have a castle!

And views like this...in the middle of December!

And they let kids drive cars!

And they have Viking costumes for people who have been drinking at Epcot late into the evening and happen to wander into Norway.

And of course they have rides.  Mitch, turns out, is a roller coaster freak.  You name it, he rode it and loved it.  The faster, the higher, the better.  Yeti's?  No problem.  Careening through total darkness?  Bring it on.  Run away train car?  Yes, please.  It was definitely a thrill to see him so very excited about impending doom.  Perhaps another adrenaline junkie in the family?  (I am referring to myself, of course.  Nothing gets the blood pumping like teaching a group of 14 four-year-olds or heading to Wal-mart with a really, really long list.  Driving a Honda Accord is totally living on the edge as well!  Oh, and I guess you could say Mike is a bit of a thrill seeker, too).

Matty found joy in other venues.  Please reference the telehphone booth.  Or is that a defibrilator?

He also ate more food at Disney World during the course of 6 days than he usually does in a month.  Evil genius.  Now all we have to do is take him to Disney everytime we want him to eat a good meal.  He rode most rides, and seemed to enjoy many of them.  He claims that his favorite was Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, but he certainly experienced some trepidation.  He is still, to this day, talking about the rocks moving in the tunnel, and how we barely made it out in time!

Thankfully, what we did not do very often, was this....

Our kids were not ones to need to (or even want to) meet the characters.  They just wanted to go on rides.  Here we are with Santa Goofy who we accidentally bumped into while having dinner at the Animal Kingdom.  There.  That's it for the character aspect.  No autographs.  No waiting in line to pantomime with Mickey Mouse.  Just one wayward Goofy that Matty wanted nothing to do with, and Mitch was neutral at best, and we were done.

Now, off to plunder some dinner for my Viking hubby.