For Keith's birthday, we took a mini-vacation to Disney World. In exchange for sitting through a time-share presentation, we were given a 4 day and 3 night stay at Orange Lake Resort in Orlando. Our friends Brad and Kathleen and their baby Dominic joined us and we had wonderful long weekend in Florida.
The resort was beautiful and it was nice that the kids played together from the moment they woke up to the moment they fell asleep at night. Friday, we arrived and settled in. Dylan and Dom (or "Moose" his nickname) knew each other from before and they hit it off right away, running from room to room together. They shared the toys and held hands when we left the suite to walk anywhere, it was all adorable. Saturday we went to Magic Kingdom and Dylan enjoyed the Dumbo ride with daddy, the It's a Small World, the Peter Pan and the Winnie the Pooh rides with mommy AND daddy. That's what he was really excited about, that we were all on the ride together...it was so cute! He also really liked riding a little tram that rode around one of the sections of the park. It was pretty hot and sunny and there was a lot of walking around so that day was exhausting. Here is a picture of Dylan and Dominic taking a nap in one of the shady areas we were able to find. Kathleen had bought the boys both Micky shirts with their names on them and little Mickey dolls. they looked so cute wearing them together!
Sunday, we spent the morning doing the time-share presentation, which was an example of relentless salesmanship. For the record, the initial offer to buy a week a year at the resort was around $50,000 plus yearly maintence fees. By the 5th salesman, the price had gone down to around $5,000 plus maintenance fees. pretty insane! After that, we spent time at the resort pool, which was fun and then we headed to "Downtown Disney" for dinner and walking around. This place was great and we are so grateful to Keith's friend Krista for giving us this tip. We never would have known to go there, but it was perfect. Dylan and Dom spent almost an hour just playing on the little playground and Dylan loved Lego-land. We had a nice dinner, and Dylan rode a little choo-choo and a merry-go-round. All for a fraction of what we had paid in the park the day before.
The best part of the night was when we stopped along the path to hear a performer playing guitar and taking requests. There was a grassy area behind the singer and the boys started running around and playing while we listened to music and watched them. Then two older girls (maybe 7 and 8?) started playing with the boys and running around with them. They boys loved them and they played for a long time together as this singer provided a really sweet soundtrack for it all (Paul Simon and the Beatles). It was a perfect moment on a pefect night!
The boys exhausted themselves and slept beautifully that night.
On Monday, we went to Sea World where Keith and Seth's friend Krista works. She hooked us up with some free tickets and some half-priced tickets and gave us great advice about where to go. We saw the Shamu show, that Dylan is still talking about. Then we took a secret entrance and avoided the lines at the polar bear exhibit that was wonderfully air-conditioned! We saw all sorts of cool stuff in there while escaping the very hot sun outside.
Eventually it was time to go home. Our flight was delayed several times and we were given three separate seats in three separate rows (We had to work it out with people on the plane because Continental didn't help us in getting 2 seats next to each other for me and Dylan!). But through it all, Dylan was so good. He stayed in his car seat through all the delays on the plane and didn't cry the whole flight. The man next to him who had his two fighting sons behind us was impressed.
All in all it was a wonderful and perfect vacation and we can't wait to take more time off with our sweet little boy. Here's also a link of my pictures from our trip...
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=169787&id=650388930&l=774d5644ce
Just a few pictures and a link of some more of our memorial day BBQ at Merrill Park. It was a beautiful day with perfect weather for a picnic. Dylan, of course, loves being outside. A lot of people couldn't make it but some new folks were welcomed. Always nice to spend a nice day outside relaxing and playing games. 
