Day 1: Magic Kingdom

We had our first full day at the parks (Sunday).  The dance competition didn't start until Monday, so we scheduled a lot of fun things this day!  Ella's request was to eat at Cinderella's castle.  We booked breakfast this time at 8:30am, before the park opened!  It was a great feeling to see the castle without too many people around.  After we finished, we were able to walk on some rides at Fantasy Land.  It was a great start to the day!  If you ever want to feel special, go to WDW around your birthday and wear your birthday button around the parks.  Emily and I wore ours most of the week and got lots of "happy birthdays" throughout our days there!

We really enjoyed going on all the fun rides in Fantasyland. Since we were able to walk many of the rides like Winnie the Pooh, The Little Mermaid, and Peter Pan's Flight, we quickly switched some of our fast passes that day!  They also loved It's a Small World, Dumbo, carousel, and Mickey's Philharmonic!
We watched the parade before their Bibbiti Bobbiti Boutique appointment.  It was a highlight of last trip and they both really wanted to do this again.  Emily did not want to wear a princess dress this time, but did decide to do the tight bun again.  Ella wore a princess dress and also chose the bun.  They both really enjoyed it, but it just wasn't the same as it was last time!  It was so much hotter this time, so the dress didn't last too long on Ella. ;)

We had a late lunch at Be Our Guest Restaurant.  This was a quick service meal where we had the table service here last time.  I enjoyed the lunch and we still got to choose the same neat desserts like they serve for dinner.
We had some fast passes to use after lunch and headed to Splash Mountain and Big Thunder Railroad!  Ella and Cita didn't want to ride the roller coasters, so they headed on a ride on the Liberty Belle boat.  I still didn't manage to ride it again this time, but they had fun!  The rest of us really enjoyed the rides. Next, we went on the new Snow White roller coaster.  I loved the details of the cars and we really enjoyed it!  It was much smoother than Big Mountain railroad, but Ella still didn't want to try it.  After this, we were getting very tired and I knew Emily needed to relax before her dance competition the next day (her solo was on Monday).  We decided to head back to the resort.  We stopped at Tomorrowland and danced some before we headed out.  We ate dinner at the resort.  We enjoyed the food court, but the lines were very long sometimes!  We also had a little swim before settling in for the night.  We noticed that they were playing a movie at dark, but we didn't stay for long.  Emily practiced just a little before we called it a night.  I got a fit bit for my birthday (right before the trip) and we walked 22,000 steps that day (around 7 miles).  This was the average each day we were there!  My body ached and I'm sure Emily had to be exhausted/hurting as well.  I was praying she'd be able to make it through her dance.  I know a part of me wished we could just be on this vacation without dancing, but I know this was the main reason we were at WDW and it was exciting!  We didn't rent a stroller the whole week this time.  We did cave and rented a single one the last couple of days for Ella since she is only and it was easier than carrying a whiney kid around.  ha!