M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E!

We're back! After a rough start (our plane was supposed to leave Houston at 1:10pm and didn't leave until almost 9pm getting us to our Orlando hotel after 1am) we woke up and reintroduced ourselves to nephews and nieces, some of whom I had never met! Then we got on a shuttle and headed to Port Canaveral where a ship was waiting. After getting on the ship and dropping off our bags, we immediately began eating which was a good example of how we would spend the majority of our time (either actually eating or thinking about it). There was a nusery that we dropped Kate off at so we could have dinner in peace. She cried at first but when I went back to check on her 15 minutes later she was almost asleep so I took that as a good sign. The next day we got to Castaway Cay which is an island that Disney bought. It was gorgeous and not at all too "Disney". They had the actual Flying Dutchman ship from Pirates of the Caribbean and you could get your picture taken with Captain Jack (I think this was Alicia's highlight). We spent the morning playing in the ocean and then after lunch we rented bikes and rode around. Poor Kate was so tired she feel asleep in the bike carrier! That night the theater put on Toy Story the Musical which was pretty cute and Kate seemed to enjoy it. The second island was Nassau which I was not at all impressed with. There was lots of shopping close to the dock, but it was mostly the same junk you can find in Mexico or the streets of New York. The beach was too far to walk to and we didn't want to get too far from the ship so we decided not to go (I heard from other people later that we didn't miss much). After walking around for a little while we went back to the ship and played in the pool. The fourth day we went back to Castaway Cay. Jason, Kate and I rode bikes around while Bev, my dad, Greg and Alicia went parasailing. Then Jason decided he was beached out so he took Kate to the ship for a nap and I went to the "adult" beach with my sibs. There was hardly anyone esle there and we swam and relaxed in hammocks and saw a (baby) shark and it was glorious! Before dinner we went to another show called Disney Dreams (I think). I wasn't expecting much but it was really fun! There were songs from lots of Disney movies and they threw confetti into the audience, blew bubbles (for the Little Mermaid song) and even made it snow on us (during the Beauty and the Beast song)! After that was our last supper, sniff, sniff. The next morning we disembarked and made our way as slowly as possible back to the real world. All in all, I think this was one of my favorite vacations. It was sort of hard with Kate, but it was so worth it and I can't wait to go again when she is a little older!