The appetizer of our trip...

The long flight from our beloved desert home to Orlando is extremely tiring on our children -- especially Benjamin. So in order to get that behind us, and get the kiddos rested and ready to enjoy every moment of the cruise, we flew to Orlando on Thursday and spent two nights at the Animal Kingdom Lodge!

Wow. That's really all I can. Because when we opened our curtains that first morning....this is what we saw:

And this:

And we were only a bus ride away from our favorite shopping location ever -- Downtown Disney -- so we spent Friday afternoon hanging out there! (We would have been there earlier but we simply couldn't quit watching the animals from our balcony!! So very cool!)

And our timing was perfect because Dave Barry and Riddley Pearsons, authors of the Peter and the Starcatcher series, were on hand for autographs! Now, we enjoy their books...but when my former self was a newspaper reporter, Dave Barry was one of our syndicated columnists and I just adored his writings. So I was delighted to get to meet him. Clearly from the photo, the kids were following my lead as no one went and stood by Mr. Pearsons. It wasn't personal, really, Mr. Pearsons. Next time, we promise to be divide up more evenly for the photo op!

Of course, Cate was excited about the carousel at Downtown Disney and Daddy was only too happy to oblige his favorite four-year-old.

And this picture when she got off just makes me smile -- such bliss! Oh, if we could bottle that!


That kind of joy is what I long for each of my family members -- isn't finding joy the best blessing of all?!

More to come...