The Mickey Adventure Day 1

(Note: This journal of our Disney World adventure is mostly for a memory keeping thing for our fam and also for the grandparents who wanted to hear all about it...but feel free to read along if you love Disney or like to see the adventures of a large family in Disney!  I am also hoping that some tips I might have to share might help others who have children with disabilities to navigate long trips and Disney with their kids as well.)


Our Disney trip is entitled "The Mickey Adventure" because that is what Cam named our trip before he could get the words "Disney World" out to tell people at church :)  We left on Thursday at 6:30am which was an amazing feat for our family..people said it couldn't be done but we did it!  We had packed for many days and had things pretty well organized with sandwiches and snacks all prepared and then put into the cooler.   We left our home in fog and rain and prayed for safety since we knew a large storm system was moving through the entire south.  We spent 13 hours in the car together.  Highlights of our day included stopping at a McDonald's playland right outside the airport in Atlanta, GA where the planes were flying right overhead.  We looked like a bunch of country folks oohing and ahhhing over each plane that passed.  We had looked forward to a small break but when we took our laptops in to check the weather status on the internet we realized the area we were headed to in Georgia was under a tornado watch.  We had already had extreme fog through Tennessee and were concerned.  So in typical Hanna style we raced everyone to the bathroom and got back on the road praying we could get as far as possible before it hit.  God was gracious to us and although there were many times on this trip that the weather was really scary, we made it safely to Valdosta, GA on Thursday evening.

The kids did well in the van all of those hours.  One of the best things we did was to plan ahead a little for bags of things to do and I would distribute them every few hours.  We found a lot of items on the clearance dollar section of Target post Christmas that helped to make the trip more enjoyable.  One of Cam's items was a squishy toy elephant that he named "Droidika" (inspired by Star Wars of course).  Corey had a lemon squishy caterpillar he named Lemon (because it kind of smelled like one..and Corey sniffs everything as his main way of approaching something new!).  The best find that worked well in the car were window clings..gingerbread men and cookies found in the post Christmas clearance.  As long as your child has NOT been exposed to Jello jigglers, you'd be ok using these for fun (if he/she has..then you might want to refrain since these could easily be mistaken for something you eat!).  They have a squishy texture and Corey liked them once he got used to them!

A little miracle occurred on our trip and Corey fell asleep!  He has done this only a handful of times and we were thankful to figure out that he needs a heavy fuzzy blanket to help him sleep in the car (once we got him used to it at home when it's bedtime).  It's blurry but he's so stinkin cute :)

And last but not least, this is the AT&T building in Nashville, TN where Cam said "MOM take a picture..it has eyes and ears..it's scary"  I agreed with him..it reminds me a bit of Batman (but Cam has never seen that show so he was seeing this on his own..he's a very observant and creative little person).