SPRING HAS SPRUNG, PEOPLE! The weather has been gorgeous here the last two days and it looks like it will stay that way, at least through the weekend. I AM SO EXCITED. I JUST WANT TO KEEP WRITING IN ALL CAPITALS.
But I won’t because that’s annoying.
Anyway, we have been spending time outdoors in the evenings and I love it. Hard.
I still have plans to get another real post or two up this week, but tonight it’s already late and I’m tired. But I couldn’t go to bed without posting something quickly about essential oils since time is running out.
If anyone is interested in potentially buying an essential oils starter kit from doTERRA, I have a couple of rebate offers available, but only through tomorrow (April 30th). The graphic is from yesterday, that’s why it says 3 days. But really there is only 1 day left!
If you purchase a Family Physician Kit ($150) through me, you’ll get a $30 instant rebate. If you purchase a Home Essentials Kit, you’ll get a $50 instant rebate. Each of these kits comes with the 10 oils pictured above. They are some of the most popular and versatile essential oils that can be used to makeover your medicine cabinet, clean your house without chemicals, and replace many other everyday products with natural alternatives. The Family Physician Kit comes with 5mL bottles plus a bonus 15mL Slim & Sassy; the Home Essentials Kit comes with 15mL bottles plus a diffuser! The sizes of the bottles plus the diffuser is what accounts for the price difference, but truthfully, both are great kits.
If you want to read up on some of the ways I use the oils in the kits, check out this post: Beginner Essential Oils. I wrote it last year when I was first dipping my toe into the water of essential oils. Since then, I’ve written many other posts, which you can check out by perusing posts in the “Essential Oils” category.
And I am happy to answer questions or help in any way I can. Ping me quickly if you want more details or would like to order something—heatherdriveblog@yahoo.com. I hope to be talking to you!
In the meantime, I hope everyone has sunshine in their skies. YAY SPRING!
Well, huh. I was doing so well at the beginning of the month with getting regular blog posts up, but then shit kind of hit the fan for a little while there. A few busy days led into a busy weekend which led into sickness, medical procedures, and then a trip to Virginia to see my dad. So here are some tidbits from the last two weeks:
* My kids both had the stomach flu. It hit them on the same day, which was both a blessing and a curse. I think this actually deserves its own blog post, so I’ll have to sit down and write that sometime this week. It was crazy, you guys. The circumstances surrounding it… oh my gosh. It’s something that I don’t think we will ever forget. But we are so very over sickness in our house for this year. We have been hit hard and often and I’m ready to be done with it, please.
* I had to have a D&C last Monday to remove an endometrial polyp (sometimes also called a uterine polyp). It was discovered back in early March by my gynecologist. I went for my regular exam and as part of that, she asked a lot of questions about my period. After I told her how heavy they have been, and that I have had a lot of breakthrough bleeding/spotting in between, she sent me for an ultrasound to check on things. I got a phone call a day later that they had found a 2 cm polyp, which is kind of big. They are benign growths 99% of the time, so I didn’t have much to worry about. The procedure to remove it was scheduled for April 20th so it was like a 6-week wait to get it taken care of. But I went in last week and it was an uneventful outpatient procedure, so I’m thankful for that. And then I got a call on Friday saying that the polyp was indeed benign. That’s a relief.
* We are working on a mini garage makeover. Replacing the fire door that leads into the house, patching big holes in the wall, painting the walls (seems crazy to really care what the garage walls look like, but ours are very dirty and beat up!), getting some new storage. It’s slow-going since the garage is not exactly a high priority item, plus the weather has been bipolar so it’s hard to get the motivation to go spend a few hours in the garage when temps are only in the 40s. Add in the sickness, D&C, and travel and there hasn’t been much time, either!
* I have been SHOPPING. Clothes shopping. I don’t like shopping for clothes (for me, anyway, I could shop for the girls all day long), really, so it’s quite a chore for me. But my wardrobe needs a major makeover so I have been working on it. I’ve been to the mall twice in the last two weeks which is CRAZY TALK for me. Haha! I usually avoid the mall at all costs. I’ve found some good stuff, though. Now I just need the weather to warm up enough to wear it! And I probably need to make another trip or two. *sigh* I wish I had a stylist! Shopping is hard.
* Thanks for all of your comments on my summer vacation planning post. We looked into several areas but I think we have it narrowed down to Michigan. And then we have narrowed it down to a couple of areas/rentals we found in Michigan, and we just need to make a decision and go with it. Hopefully we’ll be booking something this week.
* Essential oils. I’m still using them and loving them. My friends and I did a webinar/Facebook event last month about cleaning with essential oils. I never had the chance to post about it here in advance of the webinar, but if you’re interested — let me know and I can get you a link to the recorded broadcast. ‘Tis the season for spring cleaning, after all! I need to do another post about how I’ve been using them because I’ve discovered new favorite uses as well. And so many wonderful diffuser combinations, too.
* Vivienne is a beast right now. So much whining, crying, many temper tantrums. I think we have officially entered “the age of many challenges,” a.k.a. the terrible twos. I remember with Nora that 18 months to 2.5 years was definitely the hardest. They have a greater desire to assert their own independence, yet they aren’t actually big enough/skilled enough to do much on their own, AND they don’t communicate well. Recipe for disaster stress, if you ask me. She’s also SUPER cute and funny, which are God-given traits to toddlers so that us parents will keep them around for the long haul.
* Huge amounts of sadness and anger over last week’s Grey’s Anatomy. Yes, I still watch. I’ve watched from the very first episode 10+ years ago, and I just can’t quit. I won’t say anything more in the body of this post as I don’t want people to get pissed off at me for spoilers or anything, but I’m not guaranteeing the comments so if you don’t wanna know, BE CAREFUL IN THE COMMENTS. That’s all. But *sob* and booooooooooooo. OK, now I’m really done.
* In matters of REAL LIFE (versus Shondaland), the coverage of the earthquake in Nepal has been sobering. Many thoughts and prayers to everyone affected. The Mount Everest piece has been especially of interest to me only because one of my former bosses was a mountain climber. He has actually been atop the seven summits—the highest peaks on all seven continents. When I was still working for him, he did a lunchtime presentation one day about his climbing adventures and Everest was a huge part of that story. He also wrote a book, which I’ve read, so I know at least a little bit more than a lot of people do about climbing Everest. So when they talk about people being stuck at Camp 4, or the increased treachery of the ice fall, I can remember all of that and understand what it means. The dangers are numerous. Such a sad situation for everyone and I hope the people who survived—both on Everest and elsewhere—are able to get the help they need.
* Nora brought home an invitation she made for a Mother’s Day luncheon at her preschool. It’s so cute and thoughtful (of the teachers) that I almost cried. Plus, seeing my little girl’s handiwork and handwriting is always heartbreakingly adorable. I can’t wait to go and spend that special time with her.
Alright, I’ve rambled on long enough for tonight. More to come. I’m not giving up on the ol’ blog just yet. :)
Last year, we spent a week at the beach with friends in the Outer Banks. Nine adults, seven children, a lot of sun, water, sand, food, beer, and fun. Everyone had a really great time. It was perfection.
Understandably, we wanted to replicate that experience this summer, but alas, our friends are not on board with us for various reasons. Building houses, other vacations, family obligations. Not cool, friends. NOT COOL. I’m hoping we can all get the stars to align again for next summer instead. But in the meantime, Michael and I have been trying to figure out what we should do this summer, with our little family of 4.
Honestly, we’ve struggled a bit with the idea of going on a vacation all by ourselves. Maybe that sounds bad. When we went to Disney in November, it was just us, but there was a vacation agenda. We were on the go, all of the time, with things to do and things to see for the kids. They were occupied all of the time. And when we went to the beach last year, the kids were all buddies. When we weren’t at the beach or in the pool, they were running around the house together playing games and engaging in pretend play. We didn’t have to worry about them and there was very little complaining about being bored, wanting us to play with them, etc. They were busy, and the adults were left to enjoy ourselves and each other’s company.
So what do we do on a more laid-back vacation (read: NOT Disney) when it’s just the four of us? Where will we go? What will we do? And how long should we stay?
When we were trying to coordinate a trip with our friends for this summer, we were actually looking at Michigan. We’ve never been before, and I hear it’s beautiful and family friendly, with a ton of cute little “beach towns” to enjoy. Plus, it had affordable house rentals for our big group of people. But now that we’re left with just the four of us, it opens it up more. Should we still look at Michigan, or somewhere else?
The Cape? Delaware? Ocean City? Stay closer to home and just go to the Adirondacks? The possibilities—and the details in them, like exactly where to stay—are overwhelming. Any suggestions? Places that you’ve loved with kids? We’re hoping to go in either mid-July or mid-August, and we would like it to be within 6-8ish hours at the most for driving. Someplace beachy is preferred, but I wouldn’t completely rule out other places if there are alternative activities to keep the kids happy.
And then, we need to decide how long to stay. Typically, a whole week is nice, but for such a “non-scheduled” vacation—and without friends to help occupy them—we think 4-5 days/nights might be our maximum. Then we’ll come home and have a few extra days of a “staycation” to cap it off. So then the question is, can we even find house/condo rentals during the summer that will allow for such a thing? I know most places prefer to rent weeks at a time. If not, we’ll be stuck in a hotel, which isn’t the worst thing ever, but certainly not best case scenario.
Help me plan, people. Please. Where have you been that you’ve loved? Where else have you considered going? What have you heard?
Fun times await. Summer is almost here. Now we just need to square away our travel plans!
A few weeks ago, I hurt myself during CrossFit. I don’t like telling people this, because a lot of non-CrossFitters shake their heads and sigh about how dangerous CrossFit is, and how they hear about so many injuries as a result of it. The thing is—there are common injuries associated with nearly every sport out there. Soccer, football, gymnastics, RUNNING. Things that people do every damn day. CrossFit is no different. And here’s the thing: as “dangerous” as CrossFit is…
…I’m pretty sure I hurt myself getting up off of the damn floor.
That’s when I felt the first shooting pain go through the inside of my knee. It was in the middle of a WOD (workout of the day), and I had been doing an abdominal exercise on the floor. I went to get up, pushing myself off of the floor with both my hands and feet (like in a “crab walk” position at first, I guess, before leaning forward to get up), and boom. Ouch.
So I don’t even have a good story. I wasn’t back squatting 200 lbs. or doing 100 thrusters. Nope. Just getting up off the floor, just as I would if I was playing with my kids.
Anyway, I felt the shooting pain in my knee but it never bothered me to bear weight on it. I was able to finish the workout, despite feeling a little pain in the knee if I twisted/rotated my knee a certain way. And I went on with my day, occasionally noticing the pain again when I tried to sit or move a certain way, or whatever. I thought that I had just tweaked something and that it would work itself out. No big deal. This was on a Wednesday.
On Friday, I went back to CrossFit as usual and did the WOD (for fellow CrossFitters, it was the CFG Open 15.5). I didn’t have any problems with anything in the warm-up or even during the WOD—which DID involve thrusters (which involves squatting down with a barbell and then thrusting it high over your head as you stand up). I felt good except for a few little tweaks here and there. But I “rest” on the weekends, and I noticed that even with rest, I was feeling it. By Sunday, it was hurting more than it had, and I was finding it a little difficult to walk—not because of the weight-bearing, but because of the walking motion itself. It was hurting me to straighten my knee.
So what did I do? I went back to CrossFit on Monday. The WOD was an EMOM, squat cleans. Actually a really FUN one! In hindsight, that probably wasn’t my best idea. Oops. But honestly, I still wasn’t hurting during workouts. In fact, it was bothering me LESS during the workout than it was during everyday life. Growing up, in sports and whatever, I was always that kid who didn’t tell her coach about any little twinges, aches or pains because I didn’t want to be pulled out of the game. And it’s the same now: I JUST WANT TO KEEP PLAYING.
However, I’m also an adult now, with a fairly level head, and I’m smart enough to know that it’s better to take it easy for the short term so that I don’t completely screw myself for the long term. So when I started hurting—actually up further, more in my hamstring—on Monday night, I knew I needed to do something different. I contacted an old friend from high school who happens to be an orthopedic physician assistant. She doesn’t practice locally, but I described to her my issue via Facebook message and asked her to diagnose me. (Not really. But I did want her advice.) She said that it could be anything, most likely a sprain, but that the pain I was describing was also characteristic of a torn meniscus. She told me to lay off of all exercises involving legs.
Do you know how hard it is to workout without using your legs?
I went to CrossFit as scheduled on Wednesday, but did a completely modified workout (different from what everyone else was doing that day). “Rested” Thursday through Sunday for the holiday weekend—as much as a mom of two little ones can rest—but was in pain the whole time. My freaking hamstring was bothering me more than anything now, although I was still experiencing pain on the inside of the knee when moving it certain ways. The ache has been so bad that it sometimes keeps me up at bedtime. I’ve been using essential oils on my knee and Deep Blue Rub (also from doTERRA) on my hamstring to help the pain.
Sunday night, I messaged my old friend again and said that it was still bothering me really badly. She said to get myself to an ortho. This past Monday morning, I called and totally lucked out—they had a cancellation for Tuesday (yesterday). I had heard it could take 3-4 weeks to get in for an appointment, but I only had to wait a day!
I went yesterday. They took x-rays, then I was examined by the PA. She manipulated my knee and leg a lot of different ways but it didn’t hurt that badly, to be honest. The doctor came in and talked to me about my symptoms, the “cause” of the injury (I demonstrated for him how I got up off of the floor that day), and then did some of the same manipulations that the PA had done. But then he asked me to turn over on my stomach. He started pushing on different areas at my knee and in my hamstring and my response was “AH! OW! EE!” He had found the source of the pain. And guess what? It’s not even a knee injury.
It’s my hamstring.
There is a tendon that apparently runs from your hamstring down to the inside of your knee. He suspects I did something to that tendon and/or the hamstring muscle—a strain. But because of that hamstring tendon connecting to the knee, that’s why initially, I felt pain in the knee. It radiated up to the back of my hamstring as the injury progressed because “fluid” (swelling) progressed up that way. Now, if you are an ortho or have ortho experience, I apologize if what I explained is wrong or I sound like an idiot, but this was my understanding of the issue.
Now? Physical therapy. And continued modifications for all of my CrossFit workouts. And time.
I started PT this morning and can I just say that it sucks? I hate it. It hurts. It feels like there is no way that these activities could possibly make my hamstring feel better. I’m only going to PT once a week but I have “homework exercises” that I’m supposed to do every day and I don’t even want to. I will, of course, but I don’t wanna.
It’s funny because all of these medical professionals keep asking me to rate my pain, 1 being not bad at all to 10 being the worst pain I’ve ever experienced. I have not rated this injury above a 4. My PT this morning was like, “Only a 3-4?” I laughed a little and responded, “Well, I’ve done two unmedicated births and a busted appendix. After that, everything else seems trivial.” She said that you can always tell the women who’ve had babies because their ratings for their pain are much lower! :)
The ortho said it could be a few months before my hamstring feels normal again. The PT said that tissue healing typically takes 4-6 weeks and then you have to ease yourself back into your normal activities.
I’m so, so relieved that it doesn’t appear to be anything torn in the knee, but it’s still a bummer to be injured, especially when I was feeling so good about CrossFit, challenging myself and enjoying it. Hopefully PT and time do the trick so I can be back to my normal self sooner rather than later!
For now, I’m just wallowing in feeling old. Enjoy your young muscles and joints while you have them, kids! :)
I took a bit of a hiatus from blog posting, and therefore from working on my “Disney Digest” series. Planning a Disney World trip is somehow really intimidating unless you’ve done it before, so although I am not at all an expert, I figured I would share tidbits of information from our experience that may help others with theirs. As part of this effort, I’ve already shared some of our thinking behind our Disney World planning, as well as our experience with the travel.
Now? Let’s tackle a review of the resort. We stayed at Coronado Springs.
I mentioned very briefly in my planning post that we decided pretty early on to book our stay at one of the moderate level resorts. We’re pretty low maintenance people when it comes to hotels when we travel—we don’t need a ton of bells and whistles, just something clean and comfortable. I’ve heard pretty great things about the value level resorts, too, so I would consider it—although after perusing the resorts’ websites and Trip Advisor reviews, we did lean toward the moderate resorts. In choosing which resort within that category, I relied on experienced Disney friends. Coronado Springs and Port Orleans seemed to be the two recommended most often, and we somehow landed on Coronado Springs.
{Photo Credit: DisneyMeetings.com}
I will admit that when we were about two months out from our trip, I panicked a little bit about our Coronado Springs choice. After further reading reviews and experiences, I worried it was going to be too big, too annoying to get around, and I regretted not choosing Port Orleans instead. I actually called Disney Reservations to see if we could make a switch, but not surprisingly, there weren’t any rooms left with the Free Dining promo at either Port Orleans resort, so we stayed put at Coronado Springs. Looking back? I can’t say that we wouldn’t have liked Port Orleans better, since we’ve never been there and can’t compare, but Coronado Spring was FINE. More than fine. We had very few complaints.
My friend, Kim, recommended Coronado Springs because of its Mexican vibe, its great, HUGE pool (with a water slide!), and activities for the kids. She told me they do a “Waterfall Opening Ceremony” every morning with the kids, and that there are pool parties with games and activities. While we were there, we noticed that they had “campfires” in the evenings to make s’mores by the pool, and that they also hosted movie nights at the pool, too (Disney favorites, of course). Unfortunately, as I mentioned in my previous post(s), we did not have pool weather while we were there. And most nights, we were still at the parks during the s’mores and movies—but if our trip had gone according to plan, I’m sure we would’ve taken advantage. They also served breakfast by the pool every morning—complete with the famous Mickey waffles—but since we never ended up staying at the resort for a “rest day,” we didn’t experience that, either.
{Photo Credit: MickeysDreamVacations.com}
Our plan leading up to our trip had been to take a day or two to relax a bit and enjoy the pool and the resort, but given the weather, we chose to spend all six full days at the parks (with one evening in Downtown Disney) to keep ourselves occupied. Next time we go to Disney, I hope we do get to enjoy the resort a bit more!
We had a standard room, and within the resort, we were able to request certain preferences—close to transportation, close to lobby, close to pool, etc. We chose close to transportation so that we didn’t have to trek too far to catch a bus each morning when we headed out for the parks. We were in Ranchos 6A (here is a resort map, if you’re curious). As you can see, we had a bus stop right outside of our building so all we had to do each morning was roll out of our room with the stroller, take the elevator down, and cross a small parking lot to the bus stop. Very convenient for us.
Now, it WAS fairly far away from the lobby and the restaurants (labeled as areas A and C on that map I linked above). The restaurant thing was no problem—the times we ate on site at the resort (three times total, I think), we were fine to take the winding walk around the lake. The scenery is beautiful, it’s quiet… as long as you’re not in pouring rain, what’s not to like?
The only time our room location was a real disadvantage for us was on the morning we were leaving. It was disgustingly early (like 4:30 a.m.) and we had to drag all of our belongings—three suitcases, backpacks, stroller, still half-sleeping children, etc. what seemed like 5 miles. In the dark. And go figure, it was muggy and HOT that morning (after being in the 40s for most of the week we were there, ugh!). Still, even knowing this, I would’ve still made the same choice to be closest to transportation.
The room itself was nice and clean. Not tremendously outdated or anything, at least not in my opinion—except the tub/shower area could’ve used a little work. We had two double beds, one for Michael and myself and one for Nora to sleep in. We requested a crib for Vivienne and they brought a standard Graco Pack-n-Play (we always bring our own Pack-n-Play sheets from home since you never know what you’re going to get from the hotel).
We were worried leading up to the trip how we were going to handle all four of us sharing a room. We have done it numerous places—at my dad’s, in the Poconos, on our beach vacation last summer—but it was always in a house, where Michael and I had somewhere else to hang out in the evenings, after the girls were in bed. Here, we knew we would pretty much have to hang out super quietly, lights out, possibly in the complete dark, while the girls slept.
But, as it turned out, one nice “bonus” feature about our room was that there were two big wooden sliding doors that separated the “bedroom” from the bathroom vanity/closet (and then a regular door that separated the shower/tub/toilet from the bathroom vanity/closet). So naturally, we put Vivienne’s crib in the closet/vanity area so that we could put her to bed and shut the doors, keeping light and noise out from our conversation, TV, etc. It was really nice how that worked out! Plus, by the time we were back at the hotel and putting the girls to bed each night, they were so exhausted that it didn’t much matter. Nora generally didn’t have any problems passing out, even if we had the TV on (very quietly). The thing was, Michael and I were pretty beat from the full days as well, so we were falling asleep pretty early ourselves! We all got a lot of sleep on this trip.
{Not our photo, but this is exactly what our room looked like. Photo Credit: EasyWDW.com}
As far as amenities, the room had what you would probably expect. The mini fridge was definitely nice, for us to put our bottled water (as mentioned in a previous post, we ordered a case of bottled water with our stroller rental from Kingdom Strollers), as well as milk for Vivienne. Oh, and complimentary WiFi is always appreciated, of course.
Our room was always cleaned nicely while we were out for the day, and we always had fun towel shapes/animals to come back to, waiting for us on the beds. One day, the cleaning staff took some of Nora and Vivienne’s toys that had been lying around and incorporated them into the towel design. Nora got a huge kick out of it and left a “THANK YOU” note on the bed (that she wrote herself, so cute) the next day, but I don’t think we ever had that same cleaning person again because despite leaving the note every day, no one ever acknowledged it in any way (they probably had no idea what it was referring to!) and the toys were never involved or moved again.
Although we didn’t get to spend much time at it, the pool was really nice, and beautiful. The pool area is pretty enormous, and the pool itself is pretty huge, too. When we arrived on that Sunday afternoon, it was our one pool-worthy day—the temperature was in the 80s.
We tried to check into the hotel upon our arrival (which was maybe around 12:30-1:00?), but our room was not ready. We were told that we would get a phone call and/or text message on my cell phone when it was okay to head to our room. We dropped our suitcases at bell services, grabbing some shorts, bathing suits, and sandals out of our bags before handing them over. We first headed to lunch right at the resort, but then went and spent time at the pool.
Once I changed Nora into her bathing suit and put on one of the children’s life jackets (provided for free, a variety of sizes hanging right next to the pool! so nice!), she literally walked right into the giant pool and began swimming out into the middle of it. Michael didn’t even have his bathing suit on yet! Thankfully, there were lifeguards around to help if something had gone awry, but she managed to swim over to the other side and get back out until Michael was ready to take her swimming. Vivienne was not feeling well and we wanted her to nap, so I was sitting quietly with her and walking her around in circles in a calmer area of the pool to try to get her to doze off. During my travels with the stroller, I discovered a cute little toddler-sized pool area right nearby the main pool. Would’ve been great for Vivienne if we had ever had another chance to go back and use the pool again!
I think it was after 4:00 p.m. by the time I started saying “WTF?” about our room. I still had not received a phone call, nor text message that our room was ready, and it was getting kind of late. I posted something on Instagram and someone there mentioned that it definitely should’ve been ready by then. I called the front desk from my cell phone, still at the pool, to inquire about what was going on. Turns out our room was ready, we just did not get the call. :( So that was definitely disappointing. I had a sick baby (suspected ear infection) and it would’ve been great to get into our room earlier than that so I could’ve laid her down to nap instead of trying to make do with a stroller nap. Who knows how long it had been ready without us knowing. Although, I got to hang out in the sunshine by a pool for a few hours, so… hard to complain too much.
On that first day, we ate at Coronado Springs (specifically, Pepper Market, the quick-service restaurant on the property) for both lunch and dinner since we didn’t venture off resort property at all. I will go into more detail about our dining experiences in a post I am planning about dining, but for the sake of making this a complete review of Coronado Springs, I will say that we loved Pepper Market. It was one of our favorite quick-service restaurants of the whole trip, with a good variety of food to choose from. We ended up eating dinner there another day, so three times total and it was great every time.
{Pepper Market. Photo Credit: Walt Disney World}
There were a couple of nice little cabana bars on property, too. One right outside of the dining/lobby/front desk area—situated right on Lago Dorado (the resort’s lake)—and another (with a little quick-service dining, too) at the pool. We grabbed beers “to go” on our way back to our room a couple of times, but we didn’t get to enjoy them otherwise. First of all, we had tired kids at the end of each day, and secondly, it was always freezing once the sun went down so we did not partake. But if you’re going and you will have child care back at the room, or you’ll otherwise be able to occupy your children… the bars are nice! :)
Finally, transportation from Coronado Springs was great. If you look at a map of Disney World, you’ll find that Coronado Springs is closest to Animal Kingdom, but it’s also pretty close to Hollywood Studios and Epcot as well. Magic Kingdom is the furthest away, which may be a negative to some people, but I will say that the bus rides were not long, no matter where we were going. It may have taken 10-15 minutes to get to Magic Kingdom? I’m totally estimating, but it wasn’t bad at all. We rarely had to wait very long for buses to come to the stop outside of our building, either. One morning, we *just* missed an Animal Kingdom bus as we were walking out to the stop, and of course, we were heading to Animal Kingdom that morning AND we were already running a little late for a breakfast dining reservation. So, of course, that was the one time it took like 15-20 minutes for another Animal Kingdom bus to come. That’s just our luck, though!
{On the bus our first full day. Poor Vivi was still sick; look at her pathetic little face!}
I really enjoyed our stay on Disney property, which allowed us to take advantage of the dining plan (especially since it was FREE!), as well as the bus system that took us easily to and from the parks. I do recommend Coronado Springs to anyone looking for a moderate level resort. When we go back someday, we’ll probably opt for one of the Port Orleans resorts if we can, just to have a different experience and try something new, but I also wouldn’t hesitate to stay at Coronado Springs again.
Disney 2016? (Just kidding.)
About
I'm Heather. I'm 33 and have been married to Michael for seven years. Together, we have two beautiful little girls we love more than anything, and a miniature dachshund who drives us crazy. I'm a full-time working mom who has very little time for my own "stuff" these days, like home improvement, cooking/baking, cake decorating, and photography. Despite the team not making the playoffs since 1999, I'm STILL a Buffalo Bills fan, which I think speaks to my loyalty AND sense of humor. I can't wait to pick up the pace with travel again some day... you know, when we're done being ruled by tiny fists. Welcome to my blog.
