Walt Disney World... day 1 {Epcot}

Our bands arrived in the mail, I ordered personalized stickers, personalized matching shirts, we had finally finished moving, closed on the house, school had started, and we could. not. wait!! 

The planning (that Donnie had to lovingly done for us) which had taken almost a year, was finally going to happen!! Excited was an understatement!

Sunday, September 11th, 2016 ~ We spent the night with Jamie & Bridget's in Minneapolis, stayed up way too late and got up SUPER early for our direct flight! What I should have taken a picture of was LeaAnn's adorable 'memory book' that her Kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Cooksley, MADE for her to take on the trip... she had been coloring in it the whole way :)

Monday, September 12th, 2016 ~ No breakfast, no worries... these girls were OVER the top excited!! Good thing too, b/c the plane ride down was PACKED and not the most relaxing as we were not all together, and I was a bit uneasy... but not to worry. I got OFF the plane and pretty much refused to leave the airport until we had seats remotely together for the way home. Mission accomplished and we were on our way!
{Lauren 11 in 6th grade, Lindsay 10 in 4th grade, Lydia 6-10-months in 1st grade & LeaAnn 5-1/2 in Kindergarten}

We arrived at the Art of Animation resort and fell in love!

Who doesn't love the movie, CARS?? (And Mater for that matter ;)

I was feeling a bit extremely ;) over-whelmed... our luggage hadn't arrived, and I was wearing jeans and LeaAnn had on flip-flops! So we were a bit stuck until our luggage arrived (note to self for next time ;) we figured out where to get food/drink at the resort, and sorta figured out how to use our meal plan... another note to self, it's hard to use up all the food credits, so we should not have been hesitant at the beginning!

But! Regardless, we made it! Here we are!

Already behind schedule for 'fast passes' but little did we know at this point, we didn't even need them!! The park was EMPTY!

I don't even remember what we were supposed to ride first :) But we hopped on all kinds of rides, just walked right on! I was texting Donnie at this point, and I don't think he believed me! Oh yes! We found Soarin' right away and did not have to wait! When we did make our way over to Frozen, we did use our passes :)

And we loved it!! Super adorable :D

Got off the ride, just in time for our dinner reservations!

Our first princess before being seated was Belle :)

We were floored at the dinner options, everything was super nice, plenty of food, the food was really good and we had all kinds of princesses visit us!

Loved Snow White... she was enthralled with the girls and loved that they had goats! :D

The 'princess parade' before our dinner was over :)

And when we left, we walked right outside and got in line to meet Elsa & Anna!

She was funny... the girls tried to ask her all kinds of crazy questions, she handled them pretty well ;)

Anna was SO SWEET!! Loved her <3

She was just as genuine as the pictures look :)

AND then we decided to give Test Track a whirl before the fireworks and we WERE IN LOVE!! Priceless... we all loved it :)

And we brought extra glow-sticks as Donnie suggested to hand out to kids around us that night while we were waiting! :) awesome thought, and the kids loved it... all of them. What an amazing way to start out our vacation!!