Christmas Time at Dollywood

Last weekend we ventured to Dollywood with Matt's parents. We love getting to go whenever possible but it is especially fun to go in December b/c of all the pretty lights and that you can ride the roller coasters in the dark! This is one of Taylor's favorite things to do. There are so many good photo opportunities also. We experienced the Polar Express in 4D which was really neat. We rode almost all of our normal rides. The kids were very sad that the River Rampage was closed....they didn't understand why nobody wanted to get wet in the winter :)

Madison driving us on the old cars...theses are a must for our family.


Taylor riding Shooting Star...one of our favorites


Nana and Peepaw in Santa's Workshop


A really pretty blue tree! We asked Madison how many lights were on it and she said "140"


This tree changes colors every few minutes from red to blue to white.


The tree in red

Magic Kingdom Day 2

Day 2 at Magic Kingdom was all about character signatures and riding our favorite rides again. The kids loved Pirates of The Caribbean, It's A Small World, and Peter Pan's Flight so we rode those again along with a few new rides.

Madison was all about seeing the Princess's. She was most excited about seeing Ariel as that is her favorite princess. We headed off to The Hall of Fame and found Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Belle, Tinkerbell and Rosetta. Caleb was hoping that the Beast would be walking around but he is only in the parades. Caleb wanted to find Woody and Buzz. Unfortunately we were never able to find Buzz but we did find Woody and he had Jessie with him :) He was also hoping to find Mr Incredible but we didn't find him either. The princess's are always in the same place but most of the other characters are just scattered throughout different parts of the parks so it makes it a little harder to find them.

Taylor and Ariel


Madison and Ariel




Taylor and Sleeping Beauty


Madison and Sleeping Beauty


Madison with Cinderella


Taylor and Cinderella


Caleb and Belle....loved the look on his face! This is the only Princess signature he got.


Taylor with Belle


Madison with Belle...love this sweet picture!


The girls with Tinkerbell


The girls with Rosetta


Madison with Woody and Jessie


Caleb with Woody and Jessie


Taylor with Woody and Jessie


At the end of the day Madison was pooped and fell asleep in the stroller :)

Pirates of the Caribbean

One of our favorite rides at Disney was Pirates of the Caribbean. We are huge fans of these movies (Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom definitely make the movie more appealing). Matt, Taylor, Caleb and myself have seen all 3 movies, in fact we have them on dvd, the IPOD and the external hard drive so we can take Johnny and Orlando with us where ever we go! Madison has seen pieces of the movies....she never sits through a whole movie unless it is a kid one. When we took Taylor to Disney when she was 4 this was one of her favorites rides. We knew the other 2 would love it as well and we weren't disappointed! We rode it numerous times. On our 2nd day at a Magic Kingdom we even ran into Barbosa and the kids got their picture taken with him :) Now if we only could have found Will Turner or Jack Sparrow walking around! That would have been one of the highlights of my trip :) With the huge success of the movies there have been some additions to the ride. They added Jack Sparrow throughout the ride. He is 3 or 4 places throughout the ride.

Pirates of the Caribbean


Jack Sparrow


Jack Sparrow hiding in a whiskey barrel






Taylor and Caleb posing with Barbosa

A Dream Come True Parade

There are a couple of different parades throughout the day at The Magic Kingdom. The biggest one is held each afternoon. It features the 4 main princess's as well as tons of other characters. People line up an hour before the parade starts in order to get a good view. We didn't do that though and still had front row seats...we got really lucky. The characters walked right up to the kids and interacted with them! It was a highlight of the trip!

The start of the parade!


Pluto, Chip and Dale


Mickey and Minnie


Snow White and her Prince


The Genie


Captain Hook


Cinderella's mice


Cinderella's Stepmother and Step-sisters. The step-sister in green and yellow (she is to the right in the picture) walked up to Caleb right after this picture was taken and asked him if he was "single and rich" :)


The Fairy Godmother


Cinderella and Prince Charming


Ariel


Woody and Jessie


Donald Duck

Typhoon Lagoon

Day 3 was our day at the water park, Typhoon Lagoon. It ended up being the coolest day that we had while there. Luckily though the water is heated to 82 degrees that day and it wasn't too cool, only 76. It ended up being the best day to go b/c with the cooler weather the park wasn't very crowded. We didn't have to wait in any lines to ride the slides. The kids all had their favorite areas in the park. Taylor loved the wave pool which produced 7 ft waves every few minutes. Caleb enjoyed the water slides. He rode his very first "body slide" and loved it! Madison loved the kiddie area. It had little water slides and lots of sprinklers. It was a perfect area for her.

The kids at front of the park.


Water shot out of the top of this ship every 10-15 minutes.


Matt and Taylor wading out to the deep part of the wave pool to await the waves.


Caleb going down the slide.


Madison going down the slide.


Matt, Taylor and Caleb coming down the "family" slide.


Taylo and Caleb going down Mayday Falls.




Madison going down a little river in Ketchakiddie Creek


The huge waves in the wave pool


Taylor, Matt and Caleb going down the body slides.