Whew! I got away from posting there for a few days but no worries! I'm BACK to finish up this series and telling you about our trip!
Something I failed to talk about in TWENTY TIPS was the option of using the Disney Photo Pass. As a photographer myself it seems pretty dumb that I'd want to buy the Photo Pass. But I'm also a MOM. A mom who is consumed with keeping the party of 10+ we were rocking straight at all times and a MOM who wanted to BE IN THE PICTURES! Suffice it to say, the ONLY PHOTOS I am in, are the ones from PhotoPass. :) It is expensive (but take a deep breath of Disney air and you'll fork over your credit card too! HA!). No really, I purchased it before we event got there and tried to use it to the max. Even that being said, I wished I'd used it even more! :) We even had some FUN with it as you will see below ...
We had a BIG DAY PLANNED for Friday, our 3rd day at the Disney Parks. We had NOT planned on going to Epcot originally. However, when we figured out our reservation for our Princess Lunch was at Epcot, it made the most sense, to start our day there. :) I booked some Fast Passes for us at Epcot to entertain the kids at the start of the day. There is a NEMO ride and next door is a Crush Talk that is AWESOME. We all really enjoyed it. We also road the Soarin' ride (which nearly made me hurl) but the kids loved it.
Did I mention it was HOT HOT HOT this day? The hottest day I think. DRIPPING WITH SWEAT. As a Minnesotan, I did NOT complain. ;) But no worries LUKE did enough for all of us!
Here we are, entering Epcot!



Bella wore a Cinderella dress this entire day. Something really cool and MAGICAL about Disney is that they really go out of their way to make children feel special. ALL of the girls are called Princess ... even in the pool! ("Princess, careful on the side!") When the little girls are dressed special EVERYONE takes note "Hello Princess, you look pretty in your dress today!" I TRIED to get her to do her hair but she wanted nothing of it. Oh well, can't win em all!
We made our way to our Princess Lunch and before seating they usher you right to meet Belle and take a photo! We took several different shots with Belle. (the luxury of the photo pass is that they specialty photos are automatically part of your package. Where they try and sell others the 8x10s and 4x6 prints, ours were givento us! It make it great for sharing the photos right away!)


Again, the character meals are AWESOME. We eat, they mingle around and visit! Here they also had a "Princess parade!" CUTE CUTE CUTE.

After lunch we left Epcot ... not before taking a few photos though!


Yep. We did that. WHO DOES THAT IN DISNEY? Um, us. :) We had a lot of giggles at this photo stop! :)
And then we headed over to Magic Kingdom for the rest of the day.

And from here on out the rest of the day, I didn't take many photos. And honestly I'm bummed out. This day we spent the rest of the time at Magic Kingdom and then participated in the Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween party and that was SUPER FUN! The park closed at 7pm to regular guests and stays open extra hours for party goers. The place really thins down a TON and bracelets are checked to make sure you are party-goers. We easily rode more rides and walked the park without a complete cluster! :) Maybe that is why I don't have photos, I was having FUN! :)
I brought the kids Halloween costumes and they all wore them (not until after dark because it was TOO HOT to put them on!) and attended Halloween festvities including trick-or-treating! We had fun. It was a highlight of the trip in my book.
That night was also the Lunar eclipse. It was BEAUTIFUL. My dad and I took Bella and Luke on Splash mountain and at the top of the last hill his an amazing view of the castle and the moon looked equally amazing. Right before we went down the hill I WISHED I had my phone ready for a photo ... but I didn't. I did grab this photo a bit afterwards though. The photo doesn't do it justice.

This night we stayed very late. There was the parade, an awesome illumination show, a stage show and then fireworks. Noah passed out after the parade and Luke was extremely unhappy. Bella LOVED EVERY MINUTE OF IT (and so did I! It was awesome!).
We were pretty tired after this VERY FULL AWESOME DAY. :) Oh Disney, how fun you are!