Wish Recap, Part 1

We have so many wonderful pictures and memories from our trip. I am working on creating a massive digital scrapbook that I'll try and figure out how to share later on. In the mean time I have finally sorted through all the pictures and I'll share some of our very favorites here. We are so blessed to have had this opportunity.

We were in Orlando for a week. The kids were great on the plane both on the way to Orlando and on the way home. My sister Amy was able to come with us as part of Olivia's Wish trip and my parents drove from Texas to spend some time with us. We spent 2 days at the Magic Kingdom and then 1 day at Animal Kingdom and Epcot. Mike, Amy, and my Dad were also able to go on a special adventure but I'll share more about that later. We were also given passes to Sea World but we just weren't able to fit that in.

The Give Kids the World Village was WONDERFUL. Everyone kept telling me how great it was but we were still completely overwhelmed with how perfect it was. The Give Kids the World Village is a special all-inclusive resort for families that are in Orlando for "Make a Wish" trips. The resort is completely accessible. It is primarily run by volunteers all of whom were wonderful! We were met by one of the volunteers at the Orlando airport. She had a huge "Welcome Olivia" sign and a giant luggage cart. We were all THRILLED to see her, especially Mike and I because we had decided to travel without a stroller so we were exhausted after schlepping the kids and luggage all over the place. Make A Wish was generous enough to get us a rental car for the duration of our trip. We loved the minivan and were able to easily and comfortably travel around.


Our Villa. We had plenty of room to spread out in a beautiful 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom private villa.

One of the sayings at Give Kids the World is "Ice Cream for Breakfast". While we made the kids have a little something healthy for breakfast we did make quite a few stops at the Ice Cream Palace (open from 7:30 am to 9:30 pm daily)



We spent quite a bit of time at the Give Kids the World Village. Peter and Olivia LOVED the carousel and we rode on it at least 2 or 3 times every morning after breakfast.




Olivia also enjoyed the horseback riding at the village. I was impressed by how well she did.

They had a beautiful pool and splash park area. Peter had a blast!

Amy was nice enough to watch Peter while Mike and I took Olivia to Universal Studios one afternoon. Olivia LOVED Seuss Landing. We went on all the rides there at least twice and the Caro-seuss-el several times. She was excited to see all the Seuss characters--the Cat in the Hat, Sam-I-Am, Thing 1 and Thing 2 but the Grinch was by far her favorite. We also make a quick trip by the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Olivia rode on one of the roller coasters. Mike and I tried Butterbeer (it tasted like butterscotch root beer) and while neither one of us cared for it Olivia LOVED it! I wish I had pictures of that but she drank it before I could get the camera out!






More on the Disney leg of our trip later this week.