Qik - Disney World - Hollywood Studios - Osborn Holiday Lights by Craig Benner

This was from when we went to Disney in December 2009! Recorded from my phone and uploaded using QIK. Pretty Cool; both the phone technology, and the lights!

Disney World 2009 - Day 2 Animal Kingdom

Since none of us has ever been to Disney World, we didn't know what to expect. So between booking a time for our Lunch plans, and knowing animals were at Animal Kingdom, we choose to go their first. With us being exhausted from Traveling the day before I felt like we didn't get out as much as was offered at the park, but we got to enjoy, but not limited too, Finding Nemo Musical, the Kilimanjaro Safari, and character meeting. After the fact, I thought this was a great park to kick off our vacation. We took our time, enjoyed the scenery and left the park early without feeling disappointed - especially since the park closed at 6pm that night.

A fun event that happened at Animal Kingdom was in the Kilimanjaro safari ride. Noah and I sat up front, and as you can tell in the pictures Noah was a pirate. The driver fed on this and interacted with Noah during the entire ride. It was awesome!  Especially, I don't want to ruin the ride for anyone soon going, how the ride is played out.  Noah kept on asking the entire vacation if the elephants were safe.

Another cool thing that we just happened to stumble upon was the character meeting.  We were looking to waste time between a ride and our lunch plans.  So we started to walk the park, and came across chip and dale.  Then noticed 4 other lines, Donald, Goofy, Minnie, and Mickey.  This photo should explain it all.  Look how excited Noah looked meeting Mickey for the first time.

Disney World 2009 - Day 1 Traveling

As I mentioned before, this was going to be a stress free vacation.  Stress free huh? A winter storm is going to hit the east coast on the day we leave. Ring-ring airline calls us, your flight has been delayed. Damn stress setting in and we haven't even left yet. How long of a delay, only an hour whew. Ok, That gives me time to check-in for our flight online, successful but noticed time has changed again which would cause us to miss our connecting flight. REALLY STRESSED NOW. Tiff asks me to call the Guy from airport who called us to inform us of the delayed flight. He gave vague information on our flight but suggested to switch airlines, which he could do for me while I travel to the airport. Awesome, crap flight leaves in an hour gotta pack vehicle and drive in ice and snow. Yeah me. Well with little issues we get everything taken care of. Get on plane and have a great flight to Philadelphia.

We have time to have lunch and relax for a little before our next flight. Walk up to our terminal and WHAT our flight is delayed -UH. During this time I use my phone to check on the 'old flight' out of state college. It was canceled, THANK YOU, united employee for talking me into switching airlines and flights!

Luckily our next flight was only a two hour delay and it was taking us to our final destination, Orlando. Arriving in Orlando was awesome, we walked out of our terminal up the concourse, and sat down and ate Wendy's. Funny, I know, we travelled many hours to eat at a Wendy's in an airport! Anyways, that wasn't the cool part, we took the train (tram) to the main concorse to catch our bus, but when we made it to the main concourse we saw the Disney store, and a huge holiday tree. Just amazing! Then we went down stairs to the catch the bus, that is right staying a disney resort we didn't have to worry about our checked lugage. We walked to the magical express caught our bus and on our way to our resort. Noah thought the bus trip was awesome, TVs came on and showed a little highlight of disney world. Of course, Noah being TV junky, wanted to watch it again.

Arriving at our resort was different, the check-in was normal, but then we had to wait for another bus. The Carribean beach resort was HUGE, not in the number of people staying, but the amount of land it took up. Trinidad South was the village that our building and room was at, and then Old Port Royal was the hub that the food court, restaruant, gift shop, etc was at.

Anyways, the check-in was smooth, waiting for the bus kind of stressful we just wanted to get to our room, and making it to our room seemed like forever. But when we made it to our room, Noah got so excited for his gift, to make the first night special Tiff and I had a basket of goodies delivered for Noah. He absolutely loved it.

After settling in the room, Noah and I decided to walk to Old Port Royal to check it out and get some fruit for breakfast (Remember tiff was pregnant). Anyways, it was so late when Noah and I were walking there we got to watch the Epcot fireworks, truely amazing! And did I mention cold, it got down to upper 40s lower 50s. After watching the fireworks, we finished walking to Old Port Royal, and by the time we made it inside, Noah fell asleep. Poor Kid

Disney World 2009 - Preparing

I've always wanted to go to Disney world resort in Florida.  But my Tiff and I never went.  Well in December of '09, we got take that trip.  It turned out great, no stress and lots of fun times!

Let me roll back time to describe and fill in some details.  In the winter of '08, Noah (our son at age 4) decided we were going, we actually decided with his excitement as a driving force, but wasn't sure when, what resort, and for how long.  After many months of research, in February I booked our Disney world resort and park portion of the trip in December.  It felt so easy, being a computer geek I wanted to book online but had so many unanswered questions.  So I called their booking number.  And WOW what great customer service.  I was on the phone for about 30 minutes booking and getting my answers.

Cool we are going on vacation now... how do we get there.  Disney offered to book our flight for us, but being an informed freak I decided to use the discount websites.  And OMG they were expensive.  Called Disney back almost same price.  For some reason I jumped on united.com to check out info and found a cheap flight.  Bamb it's booked, and this was middle March. 

Ok, now the waiting begins... 9 months to go.

Uh oh.  What we thought wasn't going to happen after many years of trying came true.  TIFF WAS PREGNANT.  It wasn't by accident, but with our luck we didn't think it was going to happen.  When is the due date, early February. Hurry do the math, she is going to be 32 weeks at vacation time.  Hmm, do we cancel?  Do we wait and see?  Well, obviously we waited.

All the months pass, during which We did a lot of reading, general planning, booking of our meals, calling Disney to apply the latest discounts, and documenting all the possible ways we could accomplish a successful and stress free vacation.

I'll be posting more articles on each day with pictures.  Check Back :-D  I know it was a long time coming.

Chaperoning Way's Fruit farm trip

Today Noah, Tiff and I went with Noah's day care to the Way's Fruit farm.  Below is Noah and his classmates with his teacher.  As you can tell it was a cold day today.

I would have taken more pictures, but my batteries ran out.  We didn't just sit on the ride, they actually took us through the fields. :-D

First Pictures of Baby Benner #2

With a due date in late January, we had an ultra sound where they should of been able to tell the baby's sex.  Well the technician's are 75% sure it is a girl!  At the same time they took more ultra-sound print outs.  Here are all the pictures.

We are pregnant and doing good

After some difficuties staying pregnant since Noah, we've finally made it to the 2nd tri-mester (well into it).  And for the most part we haven't been broadcasting it, but Tiff is hardly hiding it!!

Yeah, we had a first ultra-sound, and there is only one in there.  If you remember, Tiff was huge with Noah.  If you don't remember, I just posted a blog about it, go and check it out.