Mellow Monday...

Monday morning we were still waiting for our Disney tickets to arrive by FedEx, so we begrudgingly decided to take advantage of an RCI presentation. We were treated to breakfast at the Columbia Restaurant in the nearby Walt Disney community of Celebration. The Columbia offers a quaint Cuban cuisine, and we thoroughly enjoyed traditional breakfast favorites, along with Cuban varieties of potatoes and peppers and french toast. I forgot to take my camera (yes, it does happen), but I found this photo on a great little blog about Orlando. The catch was a one-hour pitch that, not surprisingly, turned into over two hours. We finally extricated ourselves without buying anything and decided to spend the afternoon at the pool.

Okay, maybe I went a little overboard in prepping the princess,

but I've been waiting to take this trip for a LONG while!

And, from experience, I know she's only little for such a short time...

We properly prepped our littlest princess before our trip to the land of Disney, and Caroline was one stylin' gal in her Princess bathing suit, sunglasses and "fee-foppies". Mickey was all about trying out that new boogie board from Ron Jon's, and Mindy was anxious to get some sun. Unfortunately, Abby came down with a fever and spent most of the day feeling puny. A little ibuprofen perked her up enough that she was able to enjoy a little fun in the sun, but she spent a lot of the evening curled up under a blanket. She hadn't felt well a few days before we left, but she seemed to recover. I think she was continuing to fight off whatever that was. The tonsils continue to plague us, and I'll be glad when they're gone!

I know she was in kindergarten just yesterday...

Poor Abby...

Caroline tried out her new floatie suit. It's the same kind we used with all three of our older kids, and I'm convinced it helped them learn how to swim. Although it's age-appropriate, Caroline didn't seem quite ready for it. We'll go back to the Speedo suit and try it again later. She had the most fun pouring water over Daddy's head and taking a spin on the boogie board.

Daddy was a good sport, to say the least!

I did finally put the camera down and got in the pool for a bit. There is truly nothing like the pool water in Florida...it just feels great! I played with Caroline and dodged the squirt gun bullet from a couple of cuties we met that were adopted from China and Korea. I judged a couple of handstand contests for the girls and had a ball watching Mickey thoroughly enjoy himself. At one point, he was practicing the "dead man's float", fairly convincingly. I started to get concerned when Mindy asked him if that's what he was doing. His stillness in the water was abrubptly interrupted by his head popping up with a "Yup!" and followed by his head going right back down in the water. You just had to be there...it was hilarious!

Mickey's version of the "dead man's float"...

Just add water...

It was a beautiful afternoon, but true to Florida form, an afternoon thunderstorm blew up a couple of hours into our afternoon, and we tried valiantly to ride it out under an umbrella. We finally gave in when the wind whipped up and the lightning got a little too close for comfort. We made a run for the van and, if possible, got more wet than we were in the pool! Oh, well...it made for a good laugh. The rain actually never let up the rest of the day. Combined with the fact that Abby didn't feel well, we were actually glad we weren't at Disney World. We took turns warming up in the wonderful jacuzzi tub back in our condo. Then Jon and I went in search of Wal-Mart to stock up on some drinks, fruit and late night snacks. We turned in early in preparation for our first day at Disney.

Time to call it a day...

Here's a slide show of our day with a few more shots...click on it to view the photos individually...