magic kingdom!

alice and i were lucky enough to stay with her friends, chip and nancy while we were in orlando. alice used to live in orlando which is how she knows them. they have a super pretty home and we each had our own bedroom and a shared bathroom. it was beautifully decorated! nancy did it all herself and she has great taste! i need her to come to my house...

we flew in super late on thursday night so friday was our first chance to do anything.
nancy had to work all day and chip had a meeting in the morning. alice and i were tired and slept in for a bit. once chip came home, we all went to the magic kingdom. i hadn't been there since i was 6 or 7 so it was a lot of fun to see it through big kid eyes. chip works for disney in their project management/it area and so b/c he is a 'cast member' as they call all of their employees, we got to go through a special line to get in. it was so fun going with chip since he's worked there for 10 years he told us a lot about the parks - did you know they have 52 sq miles of land!? and that disneyland fits in the parking lot of ONE of the magic kingdom lots. crazy... anyways, we had a nice lunch in tomorrowland and then headed to space mountain. we got a fast pass there and then went to some more rides - i can't remember the one that is like a car that takes you around up above tomorrowland, but it gave a great view. then we went to the haunted mansion and pirates of the caribbean and following that we grabbed some ice cream. bad idea as space mountain was next. i hadn't ridden a roller coaster in forever!! and wow, it sure is different when you are a kid. i used to be able to ride those things all day long. i loved roller coasters! it was fun... but it was a little more sickening and scary than i remember as a kid!

me and alice with cinderella's castle


alice and chip on space mountain - i love chip's face!


chip and alice in tomorrowland


me and alice outside the front gate entrance


me and alice and a floral mickey!


after our disney afternoon, we headed over to the sports complex for the expo and packet pickup. it was a fairly small expo but very nicely done. we roamed around for awhile, collected our numbers and t-shirts, and did a little shopping. then we got to meet sleeping beauty and prince philip. i declared that since this was my princess of choice (you got to pick your princess and your bib color denoted your favorite princess - mine was pink) i should get to stand next to prince phillip. however, alice beat me to him and stubbornly refused to let me take that position. she didn't want to be on the end. the end makes every look larger. so i was mad. he's my prince! and she looks tiny in the pic and i look huge. oh well, whatever... after that all of us were exhausted and we headed home.

the expo floor below us and behind


me and alice at the expo!


all of us with prince charming and princess aurora... notice how alice stole my prince!!


it was then dinner time and we all went to macaroni grill for dinner - we needed to carb load after all! and that we did. we were starving and so plenty of bread was eaten while waiting for our pastas. once we got home we tried to watch a movie - beverly hills chihuahua but we all got tired in the middle. i must admit i thought that would be the dumbest movie ever - and it was - but in a seriously and ridiculously funny way. now, i'm not sure if it was b/c chip has probably the greatest laugh ever or if it was b/c we were so exhausted, but we all found it dumb funny. and then it was bed time... what a great day it was!