We're still on arrival day of our Disney vacation and I thought I'd share a few more pictures of the resort and grounds.  The above picture was taken in the lobby of the Polynesian resort.  There are little Tiki people all around the resort.  There used to be a huge waterfall in the lobby (which frankly, I preferred) but the newly redecorated lobby is still very nice.

 If you look up above Mr. Tiki, you'll see all these lanterns.  There is also a second floor to this room with restaurants and gift shops and access to the monorail.

 This is the waterfall into the main pool area.  This end of the pool also has the end of the waterslide (just to the left of Larry Lifeguard).  The other end has a zero-entry which is always nice for little kids or those of us who might not want to do stairs.  It was nice to have full-time lifeguards so that parents didn't have to get in the pool if we didn't want to.

This is the beach area and to the right, the newly constructed (and highly expensive) villas.  It's a great place to get the beach experience (you can't go in the water though) and to watch the fireworks from the Magic Kingdom, which is just across the water and trees.

 Scattered all around Florida (the resorts and parks) are a ton of these little fellows.  If you're not scared of lizards, it's a fun diversion to try to spot them while standing in lines at the parks. 

Honestly, I don't remember what I was taking a picture of specifically, but this is looking out over the pool area.

And here are the kids at our first park...Epcot.  Hey, look....we found Nemo!

Ethan wanted me to take a picture of him posing in front of the fountain.  Mission accomplished!

So We Went On Vacation

 Well, I haven't been a very good blogger lately because, well, life has been busy.  But in the midst of all of that, we took some time for a family vacation.  Andrew got a nice bonus from work earlier in the year and after the rather difficult year we had last year which left us unable to do anything but go to doctor's appointments and tests and surgeries, a vacation was sorely needed.  So we packed up, drove to Indy and flew south to Florida...Disney World, to be more specific.

Since I took something like 700 pictures (don't worry, I won't subject you to nearly that many!) I'll start at the beginning of our journey...our resort.  We got to the Polynesian resort (a Disney resort) around 2:30 in the afternoon and went up to check out our room.  The first picture was Ethan discovering our hotel room.  There were two beds and then a nice fold-out bed that is pictured below.  

The picture above is from our hotel room balcony.  We were on the third floor of the Samoa house, overlooking the pool area.  The entire resort has just been remodeled in the last year and the rooms are lovely and the entire resort feels very tropical and relaxed.  The pool features a large volcano, complete with water slide and off to the left in this picture is a very nice kids splash pad area.  

If you turned to the right and looked off the balcony, this was the view.  The resort you can see across the water is Disney's Grand Floridian hotel.  It's the very top of the line, fancy-pants Disney resort where Disney weddings are held.  There is a nice little beach area and a dock where you can catch a boat to the Magic Kingdom, if you so desire.

 This is the couch/fold-out bed that was in our room.  It was pretty comfy for a fold-out.

 And because we're weird, here's a picture of the bathroom.  It was quite spacious with plenty of counter-space for 4 people. Just across from the bathroom was a little counter area with a coffee maker (totally unused) and a mini-fridge and two closets.  Overall, the rooms were really nice and tasteful, compared to what I remember from our last stay, where the tropical feel was a lot more "in your face". 

 This is one of the ponds around the resort, specifically the one you can see from the monorail station.  The resort is one of three that the Disney monorail visits, making transportation very easy.  I love all the tropical plants and waterfalls scattered all around.  It would be very easy to believe you were vacationing on a tropical island.

And here are two very excited kiddos, waiting on the monorail to arrive so that they can get to their first Disney park.  Sorry the picture is a bit blurry.  The weather was HOT and humid (even in November!!) and my camera lens always needed more time than I had to clear up the condensation when we would first leave our room for the day.  

Be sure to check back over the next week or so to see more posts from the rest of the week.  I'll try to be timely in posting them, but no promises!