Make A Wish trip-Day 1

We found out that we would be going to Disneyworld with Kurt Warner only a little over a month before the trip.  Of course to our boys it seemed like FOREVER away so we made a paper chain to help them visualize how many days it was before we left.  Each day they would take turns taking one chain off.  The day we were leaving they were so excited to take the LAST chain off together. 



We were all so very excited.  All morning Jared and I ran around getting the final things packed and everything ready to be gone for eight days while our boys asked every five minutes when we were going to leave.

A little before ten our wish granter Cindy showed up.  She sat with Kyson and asked him about his wish and what he was excited about.


Just about ten on the dot, I looked out the window to see this stopping in our driveway...


Kyson was excited to go see this super cool car:)


 Here's Kyson standing next to the Make A Wish star on the side of the limo...


Soon we got our luggage loaded up and we were on our way to the airport!




The boys loved riding in the limo!  


Here we are approaching the airport.


After riding in a super cool car, the boys were very excited to ride in an airplane!  First we had to get through the dreaded security though.  We had never attempted flying with kids so we didn't really know what to expect.  They definitely weren't thrilled about taking off their shoes and it was kind of crazy getting them to cooperate.  Jared was taking care of them while I held Brooklyn and tried to collapse her stroller one handed and get it onto the x-ray machine.  Gratefully there were people behind me in line that were helping me with the stroller and everything.  Finally we got all the way through and there, right behind us were Kurt Warner, his wife and a few of his kids!  (I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure he was the one helping me the whole time and I didn't even know it!) I leaned down to Kyson and pointed him out and he just ran up to him and gave him a big hug. :)  That was the first of many hugs that he would give to Kurt Warner over the next week.

As we walked down to our gate we talked to the Warners and enjoyed getting to know them a bit.  They stopped and got a snack and bought a candy bar for each of us.  Of course our boys picked out the biggest bag of M&M's they could find!

Once we got down to where our gate was we still had about 45 minutes so we sat and visited for a while.  Brenda asked to hold Brooklyn and she loved on her until it was time to board the airplane:)

Not long after we got settled into our seats, the flight attendant came back and asked if we were interested in flying first class.  Kurt and Brenda were willing to come back and take care of our kids so we could have their first class seats.  While the idea was intriguing, we politely declined.  I'm not sure I would have enjoyed it since I would have worried constantly how our kids were behaving for them.  I'm glad we did decline because another wish family that was on our same flight got to ride first class instead.
  
Here we are all ready to take off!


Isn't she cute?  We had an extra seat next to us on the flight to Florida.  That was really nice!  Of course I held her the whole time...just sat her here for a minute:)


Once we got there we realized there were three wish families plus the Warner's on our flight.  Together we walked to the area where we knew someone would be holding up a sign for Kyson to help us out.  Once we found them they helped us get our rental car and gave us directions to Give Kids the World.  Here's Kyson's sign...


Kyson picked out our car for the week...


All ready to go!


We got to Give Kids the World around 8:30pm.  We checked in and they took us to our villa.  We just loved our little home away from home!


When we checked in they gave Kyson this Mickey Mouse and Caleb and Brooklyn got the whales. 


Our boys were so excited to get to our villa and find all of these amazing gifts.  On the table we found...


On the couch we found bags full of things from First Things First (Kurt Warner's foundation).  The boys tore into them before I got a picture so here is everything after they went through it all:)


We ordered dinner in from Katie's Kitchen.  It was Boston Market chicken with several side dishes.  It was so yummy!  One of the side dishes was Mac N Cheese.  Kyson scarfed it down and begged for the rest of Caleb's...which thus began Kyson's week of eating Mac N Cheese for every meal we could find it on the menu (which was at least once a day!!!)

Finally the boys got tired enough to go to bed.  They grabbed all of their new stuffed animals (can you believe this was only the first days gifts and there were many, many more to come?!?) and snuggled up in their new beds!