Christmas was wonderful and magical and relaxed this year. Turns out that traveling with a 1-year-old and a 2-year-old isn’t too bad when you go places that already have everything you need for them, haha! Also, we broke it up into a few little segments…we flew into Orlando early Friday morning (December 20) and spent a half day walking around Disney Springs, then headed to Vero Beach for Kearney Christmas. On Sunday (December 22), we packed up and drove to St. Pete Beach, staying with Matt & Tommie for the rest of the week.

Our crack of dawn Friday morning flight meant we were up in the middle of the night. Sweet Suelen not only drove us to the airport in the dark, she also gifted Caroline and Vivi some sweet surprises–socks for Vivi (hey, she’s one and desperately needed them) and, for Caroline, her very own WATCH. She was in heaven over this new accessory. I turned to Mike and said, “Well, Suelen just won Christmas!” The watch was based on the Disney movie Frozen, which Caroline doesn’t know, so at the airport she kept telling random people to check out her “mermaid watch.”

Disney Springs

Our super early flight meant that we were walking around enjoying the lovely and mild temps of Disney Springs by around 11 am, after landing and luggage retrieval and potty breaks and rental car pick up and a quick Chick-Fil-A drive through for breakfast. Once we were at Disney, one of our very first stops was to get this little lady some gelato…because isn’t that what you do to kick off vacation??

And since the gelato can be quite messy, I insisted she let me pull her hair back into a ponytail. At that moment, my sweet baby looked 15!

Disney Springs faves? The gelato, riding the carousel (on a pony named Merry Go Round, which she named herself–clever girl), seeing the lego statue of Cinderella (where Caroline ohhed and ahhed at her beauty and asked for a picture by her), trying out a new cool swing, and playing with many colors of legos in the lego store.

Not so impressed–the fact that the train wasn’t running (we got 1000 questions about that), the 3 hour line to see Santa, and the amazing (to everyone but her) enchanted Christmas tree forest where each tree was based upon a different Disney movie classic (maybe because she doesn’t know any movies??)

All in all, I think Disney Springs is a good concept and when we left, I smiled wickedly at Mike and said, “How long do you think we can have them believe that THIS is actual Disney?”

Kearney Christmas

As we hoped, the little ladies conked out in the car en route to Uncle Bill’s Lazy K Ranch.

When we pulled in to the driveways 2 hours later, we were greeted by many beautiful signs welcoming us to the festivities:

As usual, the weekend was beautiful loud mayhem and craziness. Matt, Tommie, Mike, Vivi, Bryce, and I all stayed in a rented camper in Bill’s garage, which Preston and Caroline slept in the closet in Kay Kay & Pa’s room. One of the funniest parts of prepping the sleeping space for a 2 year old and a 6 year old is removing all potentially scary Halloween masks (of which there were a-plenty), puppets with long wooden poles that could poke/stab (also quite a few of these gems), and moving plastic dry cleaning bags (of old Elvis costumes, Pink Ladies costumes, and god only know what else) out of reach from tiny curious fingers.

Here is the end result:

Saturday dawned chilly and rainy but never fear, the Kearneys brought the cheer! Matt and Tommie whipped up some weather-friendly Reindeer Games and as usual, there was forced participation. Some of the games I volunteered for and then quickly had to withdraw because they were simply too competitive (i.e., dangerous) for a pregnant lady. This family is nuts. Games that looked like they should be performed in water were carried out on cement–and my mom and her sisters were locking each other in headlocks and trying to wrestle each other to the ground. Ahh, 70 year olds!

We all took turns holding Vivi, hoping to get out of the dangerous games:

 

At this point in the weekend, most of the crew headed to the garage to decorate golf carts for the upcoming parade but I snuck off to nap with Vivi and IT WAS DELIGHTFUL. I woke up just in time to grab a spot holding Vivi on the back of Louis’s golf cart. Caroline sat in Kay Kay’s Gingerbread Man-themed cart and ate all of the mini marshmallows she was supposed to be throwing. Haha, not one went to waste!

Here is the Gingerbread Man crew, with Caroline pretending like she belongs:

(Sidebar: a few months after this event, Caroline encountered a golf cart en route to her park near our hose and stared at it, puzzled. Later she asked, “Mommy, where were all the marshmallows for that golf cart?? I didn’t see any at all!” Ahh, how Kearney events shift your perception of reality and normal behaviors!)

The cousin connection was real and very cute to watch. The three BIG cousins–Preston, Oliver, and Caroline, played together:

And of course allll of the cousins wanted some of Kay Kay:

Note: these pictures were taken during the Gag Gift drawing, where people chant “TABLE! TABLE!” when you have to get a new present once yours was stolen. Caroline loooved this part of the game but the minute Uncle Bill tried to touch her present, she shot him dagger eyes and he retreated. Looks like we have to work on the whole “you’ve got to take it if you’re gonna dish it” concept before next year!

Caroline continued her love fest with Baby Bryce:

And gave Oliver some love, as well…Oliver you are a sweet and tolerant boy!

We even got a picture of all the Betancourt cousins…success!! I mean, don’t they look thrilled?

And then just the big kids:

Saturday night and even into Sunday morning were the sweetest birthday tributes for both me (40!) and Elise (30!) which I talked about here. Uncle Bill and Aunt Nancy outdid themselves (as did my brothers) and Elise and I were both honored and flattered. As usual, the entire weekend came to a close too quickly, and we hit the road around mid-afternoon bound for St Pete Beach!