Vacation Post #1: The Airplane Ride

OK, we're only on Day 3 of our vacation and already I have so many pictures and stories to tell. And I really enjoy documenting every little thing that we did, not because I think you all want to read about it, but just because I enjoy it! Rather than doing a daily post, I'm going to break my posts down by category for a few days, so I won't end up with ridiculously long posts that completely bore you to death.

For fun, let’s start with a picture of Audrey’s very first airplane ride, almost two years ago, when she was just four months old. We were very worried back then about taking a baby on the airplane (what if she screams the whole time and everyone hates us?!), but she did great on both of those flights.

Two years later, it was quite a bit different to travel with Audrey through the airport and on the plane...but still a pleasant experience. The whole airport experience/airplane ride went very smoothly.

Here are a few pictures at the airport before we left. I really wanted a picture of her sitting by herself in a chair, but she did not want to sit still. I figured we'd better let her run around as much as possible before we got on the plane, so she was jumping and dancing all over the waiting area. And she also really liked the moving walkways that she could "ride".

Audrey liked going down the big ramp to get on the airplane, and then walking through the airplane to find her own seat. And since we were in the 2^nd to the last row, she got to walk through pretty much the whole plane! On the plane, she sat in her own seat for pretty much the whole time. It helped that we had 1) snacks and 2) a portable DVD player with a brand new Mickey Mouse DVD. That kept her pretty happy!

Poor little girl…our flight was right during her naptime and she was SO sleepy. She kept trying to lay her head down and get comfortable, but she just couldn’t quite fall asleep. Until about 5 minutes before we landed, when she completely crashed! Our flight was about 25 minutes early, so we had to sit on the runway for a while. And then we were on the back of the plane, so we had to sit a little longer before we could get off. So she ended up squeezing in about a 30 minute nap!

Once off the plane, Audrey was still in a bit of a sleepy/grumpy daze. Until she spotted a little girl carrying Pluto through the airport. And then she perked right up and got so excited. And then she saw Mickey Mouse on another shirt. And then a Minnie Mouse backpack. And then we walked past a store full of Mickey merchandise. And then we saw a Mickey picture on a bus. And then another bus with Mickey on it! You get the idea…the Orlando airport was full of Mickey characters, and I think Audrey spotted every single one as we made our way out.

In the airport, she kept pointing to things and asking, “Is that Florida? Is this Florida?” We had to keep explaining to her that Florida was really big, and that all of this was Florida! We’ve been talking about Florida for so long, I kind of wonder what she thought it would be like. =)