Silly Bandz

So we are finally back from Orlando and before we left to Orlando all I heard from both of my kids was that they wanted Silly Bandz..

What are Silly Bandz?

Silly Bandz or Silly Bands are silicone rubber band bracelets that come in various shapes including basic, zoo animal, pet animal, dinosaur, sea creature, holiday, alphabet, princess, western and (seasonally) swim suit. Each pack of silly bands contains 24 pieces in 6 different styles, with the exception of the alphabet pack which contains 36 pieces. These silly rubber band bracelets are fun for all ages!

I personally thought it was a girl thing but boy was I wrong!!! Both boys and girls are very into these rubber band bracelets.

What is so special about rubber band bracelets?

The silly rubber band bracelets are special in a very important way. You can slide these silicone bracelets on your wrist and, when you remove them, they pop back into their original shape! Is that cool or what?

Where to buy Silly Bandz?

Well, I have seen them at Toys R Us, Walmart, Walgreens, www.sillybandz.com and even to my surprise I saw them at Downtown Disney at Once Upon a Toy...

This is what some of the bands look like..



Before you buy..

Silly Bandz have taken the elementary school crowd by storm, becoming the hottest craze in classroom. But therein lies the question: should Silly Bandz be allowed in the classroom? Some school systems think not. Schools in Florida, Texas, North Carolina, Massachusetts, and New York have gone ahead and banned the Bandz. The reason? They are too distracting.





My Preschooler (5 years old) took her bandz to school and had no issues.
I find that funny because my elementary school child (8 years old) went to school with 9 bands and came back with 2. Kids doing unhonest trades makes me realize that Silly Bandz are maybe fun for kids at home and at the park but should be kept away from schools to avoid issues and distractions..

Final Day of Celebration...

Today is our final day in Orlando and the last day to celebrate our baby girls birthday! We must finish up the celebration weekend with a great ending.

Our original plan was to do all 4 parks in one day but I knew early on, it was not going to happen. We slept in till late and when we finally got up it was pretty much get ready, finish grabbing all the last minute items and pack up the car. Once we got everything done we hopped on the bus and headed towards Animal Kingdom to get on Everest. We were hoping that Melody can finally get on with us.

It was fun listening to Tristin tell her things about the ride the entire way to the park, They were EXCITED!

We finally arrived at Everest and little to our surprise, Melody is still a little short to ride and I am talking about a little less than 1/2 of an inch. Hopefully by the next trip she may be able to ride. We all decided NOT to wait on the 60 minute wait line and headed into the single riders line, we all got to ride more than once in about 20 minutes. Well, we went to that park just for Everest but decided to ride DINOSAUR since we were already there..

While on the way out we stopped to see the "The Village Beatniks" who grabbed Tristin to play some sticks with them. It was kinda funny cause I can tell Tristin was a bit embarrassed.

We finally headed out of Animal Kingdom and headed towards Epcot but decided to take the Swan/Dolphin bus. We wanted to take a walk by our special place.. Our kids get super excited every time we go by there...

Our Special spot, It was getting ready for a three day event..

Now off to Epcot!



The second we walked into the park Melody saw Alice and headed straight towards her.
This picture was fun to take because while we waited in line we could see the sky turn darker and darker. Then we can see and hear lightning and thundering from a distance.. We were trying to figure out how we would run and head towards Mexico before the storm would head in so I told Ray and Tristin to start walking and that I would run with Melody and reach them up front..

We finally get our picture with Alice and start running towards Mexico!



While running to Mexico we got a few rain drops but nothing to big but you can tell the weather was getting ugly. We finally arrive at the San Angel Inn and they were switching from lunch to dinner and had us waiting about 45 minutes to be seated.

The wait was worth it since they sat us right by the water.. Kids love this location :)
Once seated we ordered our appetizers and drinks.

Tostada de Chorizo y Papas, these are really good...

Guacamole served with chicharrones

Our awesome drinks!! So good

I had the Wild Passion Fruit Margarita



Ray had the usual Blue drink with the light in it, LOL!



We both had for dinner the Filete Motuleno, it was so GOOD!!

Both kids had the Tacos..




Then we had dessert but with a little celebration !!!

Love to hear them sing Las Mañanitas

This was our flan which was NOT all that!!

Both kids had Ice Cream =)


We took a Family Picture!!

Once we finished with our dinner we headed towards the Gran Fiesta Tour Starring the Three Caballeros. All the elements work nicely together to produce a terrific atmosphere, I felt like I was in Mexico... LOL



Now comes a funny story...

If you remember before walking into the restaurant the day outside was HORRIBLE. During dinner Ray and I had made a deal, If anyone knows me they know I usually leave at midnight or later. My poor honey hates it and we had agreed inside that if the weather was bad we would head straight home after dinner. Luckily to my advantage when we walked out the SUN was out and shining, LOL more time at the park for us.

Now we made our usual stop in China. I thought this dragon was so awesome...

It was made with Pineapples and other plants!!

The kids always want something in China!!!


So cute with her Parasole!!


We headed inside the Temple of Heaven and saw "The Dragon Legend Acrobats" which our kids and we totally love.. Those young acrobats are AMAZING!!


We headed towards Melody's favorite picture spot "The Wishing Well" she was hoping that Snow White would be out but she wasn't..

This was her Snow White picture for this trip... LOL



We had a great time and let me tell you that Epcot was packed with Norwegians..
They were all drinking and having a fabulous time because it was their Constitution Day.. May 17 is the Celebration of the Constitution of 1814 of Norway so they were having a fab time... We actually needed to start heading out since it was getting late..

I had sent my friend a text earlier so that we can meet up and just say, Hi!!

It was nice getting to see her and after a while hanging out at the Boardwalk it was time to say BYE..

We got on the bus towards Downtown Disney to get the kids a little something before hitting the road. We then took the walk back to Saratoga Springs, it is a really nice walk even though we heard they spotted a black bear in the area..

I took this cute picture of Downtown Disney from our walk..




We arrived at the hotel and Daddy headed inside to go get all the items we had purchased at the parks and had sent to the hotel . While he was inside I was with the kids by the pool, I just had to give them a chance for the last swim. I knew that a 15 minute swim would make them extra sleepy for the 4 hour car ride...

I finally took them out of the pool, dried them up and dressed them for the car ride home.

Daddy did two more stops:

One at Earl of Sandwich and purchased food for the road and the other to put gas... The trip was so much fun for the kids and us but it always feels like it goes by so fast... It is always sad to leave our favorite place but it makes you plan for the next trip faster!! We got on the road at about 11:45 PM and got home at about
4:00 AM oh well, back to reality...

Princess Night!!!

It was time to get ready for our special planned evening. We got to the hotel at about 6:30 PM and I put the kids right into the shower. First we got Tristin in the tub and scrubbed his beard off, lol that process took some time. Then it was Melody's turn but luckily her make-up washed right off.. After the kids we took our turn to shower and started getting ready. I was actually excited since I had heard nothing but good things about this place..

Can we say Happily Ever After!

We arrived at 1900 Park Fare and from the moment we walked in she was in total shock. When we entered the dining room and she saw Cinderella, her face was just glowing..

The entire walk to the table you can tell she was excited! She kept looking back to get a glimpse of all the characters inside the restaurant.. The moment we sat down we noticed Lady Tremaine was coming towards us and Cinderella was not that far behind her. It was actually funny cause Melody was worried that Tremaine might do something bad to Cinderella....

Lady Tremaine and the kids..

Cinderella with Melody!!

Then Drizella came over and decide to bother Tristin a bit... LOL

Drizella with her HUGE smile and Melody...

She bothered Tristin so much that she finally got him to pose with her and

Melody for a picture, HAHAHAHAHA Tristin just wanted to eat...

A few minutes after they called everyone who was celebrating a special event to join Drizella and Anastasia on the center of the main floor. It was so cute looking at all the little kids running towards them and just having a great time..

I was even more happy to see my baby girl just loving her special night.. She was just enjoying everything that was going on. To see her smiling and giggling with pure joy and excitement made my night complete..

Notice how she holds her dress as if she was wearing a princess ball dress, LOL so cute!

Then came the very loud but very funny Anastasia.
Melody really likes her ;)

We were soon finishing up with dinner when we realized that Prince Charmin had not been by our table. Dad decided to mention it to our waiter who soon got a cast member involved and told us that they were very sorry, the prince did not realize that he missed our section..

Finally the cast member came over again and escorted the kids and I to a secret location where the "prince" would be meeting us.. I thought it was really nice of them to get him back for us..

While I was away meeting the prince, daddy created this masterpiece for me...

We finally finished up dinner and headed outside to catch the Magic Kingdom's fireworks "Wishes" was about to start and we wanted to see it from across the Seven Seas Lagoon.. We actually LOVED the view and the kids thought it was cool too...



While waiting a bit for the marina to clear we noticed the boats from the Electrical Water Pageant were coming back towards us to go into where the parade storage area is. I thought it was cool that the guy driving the boat turned it on for a second so the kids could see it..

It was truly a wonderful day that ended with a very special night!

So we finally headed back to our resort.. I had to put the kids in bed and do some packing since we were leaving the next day.. While getting everything done I realize daddy was eating more birthday cake... Did I mentioned how good and tasty the cake was? It was real good!!

Time to say goodnight!!

Magic Kingdom time....

We finally finished up at the Pirate League and decided to head right into Pirates of the Caribbean... When headed towards the ride we had to stop for this wonderful picture opportunity with Pirate Goofy!!

Off to ride Pirates!!



Once we were done we headed out and saw “Captain Jack Sparrow’s Pirate Tutorial,” which was fun for the kids, Tristin even participated!!

She was taking a picture for Daddy's phone when I took this shot ;)




Then we had to find Ariel for the birthday girl and we waited in line FOREVER!!!

I must say it was all worth it because it was all she wanted!!!!

Ariel here is going through her pirate's booty bag, LOL..




The picture we were hoping for :D

Then we headed to Frontierland to ride some rides and the way out we found Donald and that made Ray's day...




Time to head over to the haunted mansion and let me tell you, the parks for some reason were extra full this year... We go every year this very same week and it was full like never before.. I said if we are going to wait a long time in the heat we might as well take a break from the heat and wait to see some fairies and princesses..



Along the way we had a few stops...



So cool to see where Disney Imagineers have began to work..
Can't wait!


The Tea Cups are a MUST!



Finally made it to Toontown's Hall of Fame..













Soon as we finished doing Mickey's Toontown Fair we got on the Walt Disney World Railroad and headed towards Main Street, U.S.A., to head out of the park and get ready for our night time event....

Can you tell how Happy she is??

Daddy and his princess!

I love the WDW Railroad!

Upon arrival to Main Street the Pirate was VERY tired!!

Overall it was a great Birthday, DAY!