We managed to sleep in a little bit this morning.  This was a day to do all of our favourite things and connect (once again) to this wonderful resort we were lucky enough to be able to stay in.  Once we were awake, we left our house to find Matthew’s Boundless Playground.  This was a park that we hadn’t come across yet, so we wanted to see if we could find it.  It was quite amazing and fit in well with our Candyland theme and was fully accessible for all kids – something I think every park should be!

SONY DSC

SONY DSC

After we checked that out, we headed to breakfast.  The kids, of course, wanted a full ice-cream breakfast again…why not?    By now Ben had perfected his order:  cut a banana in half, put hot fudge on the banana, 2 scoops mint chocolate chip ice cream, whip cream, cookie crumbles, and cherries.  Living the dream!  Hannah’s order was a bit simpler with cookies and cream ice cream, hot fudge, cookie crumbles, and cherries. I was expecting social services to come grab them from me at any time for not providing the necessities of life…like produce and protein???

After our ice cream, we headed to the Castle of Miracles to check out Ben’s star placement.  They took us into a room and told us that Stellar had left directions to our star.  She said that we could use her magical fairy telescope to find it.  She was also leaving a Giant (Franko) there to protect our Wish Star and Keep it safe.  (I forgot to take a picture of Franko). We looked where the light was shining from the magic telescope…and sure enough…there it was – hung in the tower in a section called the Galileo Galaxy. Ben’s wish star will stay in that tower forever.

After checking that out, we went to Amberville (of course), so Ben could play with his remote controlled boats again.  We then went bowling and played video games.  We also went on Lori’s magical ride again.  We then explored the park some more and noticed a quieter pool that we hadn’t noticed before.  We played basketball for a bit (our skills were unimpressive to say the least) and then we headed back towards our villa. Enough adventures…it was hot out and time for a swim.  We spent the afternoon playing in the pool and in the waterpark.

Afterwards Hannah and I ran to buy some last minute souvenirs from the Gallery of Hope, the only place in the park you can spend money.  We had decided to go to Medieval Times for dinner that night.  It’s pretty cheesy, but Jesse thought the kids would enjoy it, which they did. It was not too far from the resort – a short cab ride. It’s basically a huge arena where Knights battle in order to impress the Queen and get her favour.  The big draw for Jesse and the kids was a three course dinner with no utensils (yup…soup was a course). This etiquette is a means of embracing the Royal Court’s traditions and hedonistic pleasures. In our family it was just a fancy red neck restaurant. We had fun cheering on our knight – the Black and White Knight as he attempted many skilful (yes, this is technically spelled right unless you’re an American) contests – attempting to put his lance though a small gold hoop at breakneck speed, jousting with other knights, and performing some other weaponry type of games. Frankly our knight was not incredibly skilled, but he was awfully pretty. He didn’t win, and our support of him became rather limited when we determined he was not winning. Pretty doesn’t buy loyalty. We did however grow to love the Blue Knight who could take a whole lot of heckling fairly light heartedly….we may have had a few cocktails!!! He was secretly our favourite (although we would never tell the B&W Knight that).  The kids had a medieval blast.

We headed back to the resort and had a little bit of time before things shut down for the night. We went for ice cream again (ummm…hi….Weight Watchers…yeah…it’s me again….I’ve done bad things – real bad things…ummmmm…save me a seat for the next meeting…ummm…maybe make that two seats…) then decided to split up to do our favourite things again. 

Ben was in his pajamas because he wanted to go play with the remote controlled boats then go to the movies. Hannah and dad went back to change and go for a swim.  We went to play remote controlled boats again for a while then we played some video games (my Ms. Pac-Man skills were improving. After, we went for a ride on Lori’s magical ride. By then it was a bit late for the movies, So we decided to check out what Hannah and dad were up to in the pool.  It looked fun, but it was almost time for the pool to close.  Ben had changed his mind about swimming, so I told him to take off his pajama top and jump in.  It was the perfect ending to an amazing trip!

We got back to the room about 10:30ish.  It was time to start packing.  Ben changed into different pajamas and was asleep in no time.   We noticed that he was wheezing quite a bit, so we woke him up to give him his medicine.  I’m not sure why….maybe the horses?  He didn’t seem to have problems the day he went horseback riding?  We gave him his medicine twice, and it seemed to settle him down quite a bit.  Then we packed, packed, and packed until about 12:30 a.m.  We went to sleep for a few hours (literally two) because our alarm was set for 2:30 a.m. We were getting picked up at 3:05 a.m. to take us to the airport.  We groggily woke up, got dressed, met quickly with GKTW staff to thank them and get our exit package. Then we went on our way.  Thank you Rainbow Society, Give Kids the World, Disney, and Universal for an amazing week of spectacular memories! We hope to come back one day to “pay it forward” by volunteering to help other families!

See man … see man eat meat! (He’s never looked at me that way!)

Imagine a fireworks show that makes you believe anything is possible! (Disney Stock Photo)