Photo 149/365

Photo 147/365

Photo 138/365

Opening night of Calvin's shows is my favorite date night of the year (sorry anniversary, birthdays, and all the other usual culprits). It's the culmination of months of work, weeks of blood, sweat, and tears, and a very emotional, very exciting moment truth. They always pull it off, it's always wonderful, but the natural nerves before the show add to the intensity of the evening. Many backstage parents love to work the opening night, to be there in the midst of the jitters it brings, but for the me the evening represents a sigh of relief; my hardest part is over, let's celebrate with a dinner for two and tickets to a show with a very special performer (our very special performer)! It feels indulgent. It feels decadent. It's my favorite date night of the year.

Photo 87/365: Disney diary day 9, headed home

Photo 86/365: Disney diary day 8

Our last full day. Tomorrow we will be sneaking in some pool play before packing up, enjoying one final meal at the resort, and heading home to chilly mud if we're lucky, cold slush if we aren't.

But today? Magic Kingdom take 3!

Since Epcot is our favorite park, you might wonder why MK for a third day? Well, there really is more to do there, plus Calvin was having so much fun with the Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom game that we thought we'd give him some more time to play. Once we knew we'd be here today we booked all three meals plus FastPasses for our favorite rides. And we decided to try our park morning, pool afternoon, park evening plan again. 

But fate and fortune had other ideas. Remember when I said that pin trading, aside from being built-in entertainment everywhere we went all week long, also gave us one very special, very magical extra experience at the end? Well here it is. After a second go at early hours breakfast with Pooh and Friends (a favorite of ours) we headed into Tomorrow Land for a final ride on the People Mover and Carousel of Progress (love!), and were headed back to Adventure Land when we spotted a cast member with lots—I mean lots—of pins. I suggested that we walk ourselves over there to take a gander at his pins, plus the bathroom was right there, too, so win-win. That pin trade turned into a fifteen minute visit about where we were from, what we'd done on our trip, what our plans were that day...and an invitation to be the Grand Marshals of the Festival of Fantasy Parade that afternoon. Yes. Grand Marshals. Um...pool afternoon, or Grand Marshal afternoon? Calvin picked the latter. 

So...hightlights from today???

Breakfast with Eeyore and friends (see what I did there?) at Crystal Palace, of course.

Playing Sorcerers throughout the park

Getting to say goodbye to our favorite Tomorrow Land rides

Amazing lunch at the Jungle Skipper Canteen 

Oh, and being the Grand Marshals of the Magic Kingdom parade! So, riding in the special car, waving at all the crowds gathered along the entire parade route, having our own private photographer for the duration of the parade plus some extra special "cast photos", and extra special FastPasses for the remainder of our evening. Awesome.

The entire day took on a whole new kind of magic for us. Following the parade we were relaxed and happy, enjoying our last dinner (back at Tony's), our last rides thanks to our special passes (more Splash! more Dwarfs! More Thunder! Plus, one last People Mover and even another Carousel). We ended the night, our last night, with a walk through a darkened park, and fireworks.

This was magic. This was heart warming, heart awakening, family time. Not just today, but the whole trip. So. Much. Magic.