Disney 1: Awesome Eve

Before diving into  memories from three days at the Happiest Place on Earth for the Four Schneiders, it's really important to share a bit of the back story that involves just one of us - me.  See, the Disney magic was made possible by the perfect alignment of some other magical forces - namely my super duper awesome job that put me smack dab in middle of Disneyworld at a conference during Josie's fall break from school and during a time when Lou needed to interview an expert witness in Orlando. Long story short, we only needed to buy two plane tickets and we got a great deal on the hotel and park tickets using my conference rate.   So, it all went down like this.  Our team met in Orlando for the iNACOL Blended & Online Learning Symposium where we rocked out 8 sessions (and I did a whole lot of stepping outside of my comfort zone & survived to tell the tale). We worked hard and played hard together as a team until Wednesday when my work crew headed back to the Pacific Northwest and my family flew down to meet me.

Here are a couple of pics from our time at the conference. To sum it up at a high level - it was a three day jumble of busting our buns for presentations, yummy food at business dinners, late night laughing til our tummies hurt in the hotel bar with colleagues that have become friends, and dipping our toes into Disney. All this was punctuated by text updates from Lou with pictures of the girls back home & Skype video voicemails before bed. Here are a few pics from the first half of the week.

I'm quite sure there aren't very many people who can say they love their job and the opportunities it affords as much as I do, and really, how awesome is it the the thing waiting on the other side of all this work fun was Disney World fun with Lou and the girls!?

That's right, Super-Papa Lou hopped on a plane with both girls and I sat like a kid on Christmas Eve in the hotel waiting for them.  I had gotten just a taste of the fun we were going to have a Disney while we were all hanging out during the conference and I knew it was going to be insanely-awesome. (Spoiler alert: "Insanely awesome" doesn't even actually come close to describing the awesomeness.")

They boarded the plane & sent me this photo.

I  walked over to the Boardwalk to spend some time alone and mentally switch gears.

And while this happened up in the clouds...

This happened on the Boardwalk...

And then I was totally ready for them!

And just like that, the hotel transformed from a conference hotel....

...to our Disney home base!

I might have run out to the shuttle they were on and cried happy tears as I escorted them wide-eyed into the hotel. It was getting late, but it was ON!  We walked over to the Boardwalk where they had their first taste of what was to come  - sparkling lights, cotton candy past bedtime, street performers, fireworks, and mouse ears in every direction!


It was Awesome Eve. As the only one of the Four of us who had ever been to Disney World, I knew the particular brand of "awesome" in store and honestly, I probably had a harder time sleeping than anyone.

Morning meant Magic Kingdom...