Day 1 and Day 2 of Children's Miracle Network Orlando/Washington trip.

Hi,

Let me start out by saying that this experience will be one that I will never forget for the rest of my life and one I hope Becca will always, always remember!

Day 1

Our plane took off at 2:40 PM yesterday! That in and of itself is amazing. I have not traveled with a baby in some time and had forgotten how hard that is! You have to have the stroller, the car seat and hope that you have enough diapers to last the day because you couldn't fit the extra package in the carry on. LOL Luckily Scott was there and did a great job helping Gary and I carry bags and wrangle the kids! Becca fell asleep 5 minutes after take off, Adam on the other hand was quite a different story. He fought sleep tooth and nail! Sleep finally came about an hour before we landed. Naturally Becca woke minutes after Adam fell asleep. For those of you out there with out kids, as a general rule Mommy's do not get breaks and or time off and certainly no sick time....LOL Both kids did well, Becca was a bit antsy after getting of the plane, but who could blame her. That's a long time to sit still!

We arrived around 5:30 PM and we were greeted by Children's Miracle Network. We were checked in for CMN at the airport and walked to the Disney world express. The express bus took us to our hotel, Coronado Springs Resort. This hotel is huge and beautiful! Once we were at the hotel, we had to check-in with CMN. They gave Becca and Adam a really nice backpack with a water bottle, stuffed animal and sunglasses in it. Gary and I received packets with all our sched. info, Disney passes and money for food. By the time all that was done, we did not get to our hotel rooms until 8! Notice all this time I did not say that we had dinner. Once we settled in our room we met Scott, our CMN contact for Connecticut Children's Medical Center, for dinner. After dinner we explored the hallways looking for pics of Becca posted. There are plenty and I took pics of all of them! Once we were done exploring it was time for bed. Bed time was around 10 last night. Becca fell asleep in a nano second, not Adam.

That was day 1!

Now for today.

We started out the day with a meet the champions breakfast. We sat with a nice family from Canada. There was a real Mounty walking around the breakfast! Adam ate like a pig, Becca I think was too excited to eat. Mickey mouse, Minnie Mouse, Donald and Goofy did show up to the breakfast Becca was so happy, Adam was not too thrilled. Gary has done so much to help me so far! That makes me happy. I go get the kids plates and he's been feeding Adam while I get my plate and eat.

After the breakfast we hit the Magic Kingdom. Becca would ride on a ride with her head buried in my shoulder saying she was scared, only to get off the ride insisting that we had to go on it again! LOL Many rides that she liked we did at least 2 times. We rode on Small World, Snow White, Peter Pan, The Tea Cups, Carousel and her fav, the one that she has been talking about since we told her we were going to Disney..... The Haunted Mansion. She did not like the Lilo and Stitch ride at all... It's scary!

We made it back to the hotel just in time for the Champions dinner. We sat with a really nice family that had premature twins. Her story was very similar to mine with the exception that she did go into labor and her twins do not have the same birth date.... oh and that she had twins...LOL Please keep in mind that it is late as I write this! Dinner was great. After dinner all the Champion families were walked down to another conference room. Each champion was given a table. On the table were books with all the Champions stories, a stamp that was made with each child's signature. This was the time to thank our sponsors and sign there books. Becca cracked me up, one minute she was totally in the mood to use the stamps, sometimes she wanted to write her name and other times she had no interest in either. Towards the end Gary and I stamped the books. After the meet and greet it was concert time! The frirst performance was Steve Young and the pajanimals. Steve read a story and included Becca's name in it! Julianne Hough preformed for us tonight! I love her music! Becca got to shake her hand and dance with her on stage! It was another late night. Becca and I were back in our room around 10:30 and Adam and Gary went back to the room before the concert. Adam was having a hard time staying awake at the signing event.
It actually makes me laugh, when we go to these events who ever is sponsoring the event is so thankful to us. In my eyes, I am so thankful to them. They helped provide equipment that saved my daughters life. They had given my family a wonderful gift, the gift is the feeling that we are helping and thanking CT Children's Medical Center by helping them raise money. I am Thankful to them, Walmart and Sams Club!

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End of day 2... More to come!