Day 2-GKTW/Welcome dinner

Wednesday morning we let the boys sleep as long as possible because we knew it would probably be a late night that night.  We all woke up happy and very excited to begin our fun in Florida.  There weren't any activities planned with the Warners until late afternoon so we thought it would be fun to spend our day at Give Kids the World (GKTW).  We decided to start our day by going to have breakfast at the Gingerbread house with our friends, the Aranda family (we knew them before our trip).  It was Andrew's birthday that day so we thought it would be fun to celebrate his birthday with them.

Before we headed to the Gingerbread house I took a few pictures...

You gotta love Caleb's pose and Kyson's cheesiness just can't get any better!  He really didn't want to stop long enough for a picture so he was upset but forcing a smile so we could get going. :)


While eating they brought Andrew a yummy treat and sang happy birthday to him!


After eating we walked out and the kiddos wanted to ride the carousel.  



Once we finished the carousel we heard they were doing pony rides so we decided to head that direction.


They gave everyone who rode a horse a cowboy hat.
Very stylish!

Next we headed over to the Amberville train station to enjoy all the activities there.

The train set is awesome. There are buttons all around it that you can push to make the different trains go.

Next were the sail boats that you can steer around. Caleb just LOVED them. Every time we asked him what he wanted to do, he said he wanted to "go sail boats." It didn't matter if we were at the Disney World parks or somewhere else, he could not stop thinking about these boats! Sadly just about every time we went back to GKTW, there was lightning in the area and they pretty much shut down anything that is outside, including the boats.


After spending quite a while inside the Amberville Train Station, I convinced the boys to go goofy golfing with me. Unfortunately, the theme of the course was dinosaurs and they were all over which the boys were scared of. In fact one time if you hit the ball in the hole the dinosaur roared at you...definitely scared the daylights out of Kyson and he was NOT happy! I don't think laughing at him made the situation any better either:)
We did end with smiles on our faces, so it turned out ok!

After goofy golfing the boys really wanted to go fishing. I was a little hesitant because I wasn't sure we would catch anything, but I was surprised. In fact the first thing Jared caught was.....a turtle!

The funny thing was, Jared was not willing to hold the turtle and get the hook out of its mouth. He couldn't figure out what to do but he finally broke the line so that poor turtle has a hook stuck in his mouth!
After the excitement from the turtle we didn't catch anything for a while. I was getting bored and tried to convince the boys to go swimming with me. They were pretty determined to catch a fish though! Surprisingly Caleb was the lucky one of the day who had a fish bite his line. He refused to touch the fish so I had him point at it for the picture:)

Of course Kyson was more than willing to touch it!

Finally once the boys caught a fish they were willing to go swimming with me. While Jared took the fishing poles back, I walked around with the boys and took a couple pictures.

Caleb wanted a turn behind the camera too.

Once Jared caught up to us, I got one with all three boys.

We walked back to our villa and got our swim suits on and headed to the pool just in time to have it close. There was lightning in the area so they had to shut it down:(
At this time, Jared had to go to orientation at GKTW. Since we couldn't go swimming we went and "rented" a couple movies for the boys to watch.
Soon it was time to go to the welcome dinner with the Warners so everyone who was in our group loaded up in a bus. They took us to a conference type room close to Epcot for the dinner. It was there that most people met Kurt and his family. Of course we met them the day before, but we were still very excited. The dinner was amazing and so fun to get to know everyone. Mickey and Minnie showed up half way through so all the families got pictures taken with Kurt and Brenda, and Mickey and Minnie.
Like I mentioned before, it was Andrew's birthday and also another kid, Emmanuel's birthday. They brought them special cupcakes. I uploaded a video of them eating them. It gives you a glimpse of what it was like spending time with the Warners.

 Just before it was time for the Illuminations fireworks show at Epcot we all got prepared to go. We had people from Disney come to direct us to our special place to watch the show. They held up long light sticks to keep everyone together. Our family volunteer (the Warners provide volunteers to help with each family and since we had two kids and a baby we had a volunteer just for us:) gave our boys small light sticks so they could help too:)

Here's Kyson with Brenda watching the show.

Kurt is sporting the "Mickey" glasses they gave us. They made all the lights have mickey ears!

The fireworks show was such an amazing way to end such a spectacular day!
After having so much fun, we couldn't believe that it was only the beginning...we still had six more days that were jam packed full of more fun and exciting activities!