Disney Vacation 2013 | Be Flexible

So as much of you know we travel in packs.  Meaning we travel with all of our family and usually a couple of friends.  This year was no different, it was a vacation with my mom and dad, Mandi and her husband Chris, our good friend Nick, and of course Tim, Libby, and myself.

I know a lot of you are thinking, “What are you thinking?!?!?”.  Well, you see in 1998 we lost my brother, Jeff at the age of 20.  This past January we lost Tim’s mom and could have very well lost our mom this past christmas as she was admitted to the hospital on christmas eve for emergency surgery that could have taken her too.

The point of this little blurb is that life is short and when we lost Jeff we vowed that family is too important and we didn’t want to miss anything.  So after having a rough year we all made plans that we had to get away.  Disney was our destination of choice.

Every vacation takes on a life of its own, no matter how much planning you do.  We usually head to Florida during September each year. In our calendar year with work and church it just works out better.  It also is not as hot and has a lot less crowds.

But with that comes the chance of rain. September is the end of hurricane season so you kinda chance it.  This year we thought we were gold.  Not the case.

So one of the things I have learned is to be flexible.  This trip was a little different because we are adding lots of new elements.  All the family trips prior to 2013 did not include a child.  That just adds a whole new curve ball.

Everyone has to adjust to going slower and taking more breaks.  We had in our week vacation several sub plans.  5 of us decided to go to the parks only 3 days due to injuries and Libby.

Dad really wanted to revisit Epcot, since he didn’t get to do Soarin’ last time he was there. Mandi and Chris were doing 5 days plus Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party.

We had planned on the non park days to do lots of pool time and beach days.  So here comes the flexible part.  Everyday had a forecast of rain.  Not just the normal afternoon showers that Florida gets.  It called for full on thunderstorms.

We found ourselves with our tickets already bought and rain in the plans.  What do we do?  Smile and be flexible.  I mean a rainy day at Disney is still better than a day anywhere else.

We switched around some days as to get the best of the sunshine. We did get totally rained out of Animal Kingdom and our beach day.  But we ended up getting another park day so we could see some of the things that we missed due to the weather.

It was a totally relaxing and drama free trip with the ones I love as long as we kept the thought that we are on vacation and we were blessed to do so!

Next week we will have all video re-caps of our trip as promised!

Have a magical day!

~Leann