I am so ready for vacation.

We have had some really busy weeks in the Elrod house these past few months, and I can’t help but day dream about this July when we go to the beach and this September when we go to WALT DISNEY WORLD!

We have recently booked all of our dining reservations, so now it is literally a waiting game…and in my family, we make the waiting game fun. One of the things we do is draw out our itinerary!

This is our itinerary for this year. I just finished drawing it out this morning during Jack’s first nap. So fun!

My mom started doing this several years ago when we started getting the free meal plan. It is fun for us artsy girls who love to doodle, and it is nice to carry around in our backpack with us on our trips to have our confirmation numbers when we check in for our meals. I’m adding our reservation confirmation numbers to my drawings tonight when Tim gets home with his computer, where he has them saved.

Ahhhhhh! I’m so excited! I can’t wait to go. We are eating at several new places this year that I am looking forward to trying. I’ll walk you through my itinerary and explain it a little.

Tim and I are going a Friday through Saturday in September. My parents always go with us on our September trips. However, they are coming down a day later than we are because my sister is only eleven and will be in school that Friday that Tim and I leave. This year Tim’s mom and brother are planning on coming along as well! It’s going to be the whole family on this Jolly Holiday in Disney!

On Friday, Tim and I will probably wake up pretty early and scoot on down to Florida. We like to leave early enough that we can get there by lunch time. We will probably grab a bite to eat when we get there, use one of our counter service credits on our meal plan, and hang out, unpack, maybe take Jack for a dip in the pool. Then we are going to have dinner at Chef Mickey’s! Neither one of us have ever eaten there, so we are pretty stoked. It’s an all-you-can-eat buffet located in the lobby of the Contemporary Resort, so we know we won’t leave hungry, but our thought process behind this was getting our Jack and Mickey meet ‘n greet out of the way, so we wouldn’t have to worry about tracking Mickey down the whole trip. You see, Chef Mickey’s is a character buffet, where the characters (including the main-man, Mickey the Mouse, himself!) come up to your table as you eat for photo opportunities and autographs! It will be nice for Jack to see Mickey the first night we are there! [Squeals with excitement!] We are thinking we will probably go into Magic Kingdom after we eat and see the fireworks and hop on a ride or two before the park closes, since it is walking distance from the Contemporary. We have eight days of park tickets while we are there, so we get to go into the park of our choice each day!

On Saturday, we are taking it easy, maybe hanging by the pool or going shopping while we wait on the rest of the family to arrive. They will probably get there around lunch time and it will be a repeat of the day before, only we don’t have a table service meal that day. We won’t eat anywhere too nice. Just grab a few counter service meals, maybe go into a park to see fireworks or a show. We call these “lazy” kind of days Pool Days. We don’t actually spend all day by the pool on these days. Sometimes we won’t go to the pool at all. We will go to DownTown Disney and The Market Place, or check out a few Deluxe Resorts, whatever we want.

Sunday will be our first full day in a park. We are going to Hollywood Studios! We are going to have lunch at Mama Melrose’s. None of us have ever eaten there either. Crossing our fingers we like it! That night I really want to stay to see Fantasmic, the nighttime fireworks show they have there. It is amazing and Tim has never seen it. The only problem is that the seating is very limited and to get seat at all, much less a good seat, you have to wait in line to get into the amphitheater it is held in up to two hours before it starts. Maybe I will be the designated “wait-to-get-our-seats” person this year. I’ve ridden all the rides and seen all the shows before, and it will be important enough to me this year. I think Jack will love it!

The next day is another Pool Day, but we are having dinner at Ohana (“It means family!” 😉 )that night at the Polynesian Resort. Tim and I have never eaten there, but my parents and sister have had the breakfast buffet there before. We have heard great things about the food.

Tuesday is another full day in a park, this time it’s Animal Kingdom. To get our morning started out right, we are having breakfast at Boma at the Animal Kingdom Lodge. Mmm…the menu looks so good. I love breakfast. I love to eat breakfast anytime of the day. I hoping this works out okay time-wise, because the best time to do the Kilimanjaro Safari is first thing in the morning when the park opens. Hopefully our breakfast won’t be too long and we’ll miss our window of opportunity for Jack to see all of the animals on the Safari. I’m sure we will work it out.

Wednesday is Magic Kingdom and we are eating dinner at my favorite Magic Kingdom restaurant, Liberty Tree Tavern! And lets not forget about Jack’s first haircut at the Harmony Barber Shop! [Another squeal of excitement!…There are going to be a lot of those.]

Thursday is when my hubby squeals (or something a little more manly) with excitement because we will spend the day in EPCOT, his favorite, and we are eating at Via Napoli, which he has not stopped talking about since it opened! I’m sure he has already picked out exactly what he is getting to eat. I catch him looking at Disney restaurant menus online all the time.

Friday is another Pool Day, which of course means we will be traipsing all over Disney property trying to squeeze in anything we haven’t done before we leave. We will probably end up going into Magic Kingdom again…you just have to go and say goodbye the night before you leave to go back home! That night we are having dinner at Narcoossee’s at the Grand Floridian. Tim and I ate there two years ago for our second wedding anniversary. It was delicious! Our taste buds have been dreaming about going back ever since, and this year we talked the whole family into going! We are hoping we can watch the fireworks at Magic Kingdom from there while we eat. Hopefully we timed it right. It would be the perfect ending to an amazing trip!

Only five more months! Yahoo!