Make-A-Wish Pt. 3

Saturday was another fun filled day but this time we took a break from the parks. We began the day watching the kids ride horses at GKTW. We were pretty surprised that LJ loved it and of course our little wild girl loved it!

Then we went to a park in Orlando where we met up with most of our village. We had many people from Homestead, Jacksonville, Daytona, and South Carolina travel to spend the day with us! More and more people kept showing up and the look on Em and LJ’s faces was priceless. We were seeing people we had just said goodbye to six months ago when we moved to Alaska that we had no idea we would get to see so soon. The day also included many trips to an ice cream truck that was conveniently parked right outside the playground, and a mega chick fil a run! I think my kids had three ice creams each! We went back to the resort that night with some family and friends.

Sunday we spent the day at Give Kids The World. In the morning we did LJ’s star. Every wish kid that visits the resort is given a gold star that they can write their name on and place inside a chest and Stella the Star Fairy puts the star inside of the star tower overnight. You can then go back and located your star the next morning. This is such a sweet experience for the kids but also a really great memory for the parents. LJ will always have a star there and we can always go back and enjoy it.

After that sweetness, we headed over to Amberville, which has an arcade where all the games are free! LJ had so much fun riding on those little rides that used to cost a quarter and are outside of stores. We also rode Lori’s ride, which is fully wheelchair accessible and allows children to be inside of their wheelchairs in the sky. It was so neat.We also played a few rounds of putt putt!

Next we put our bathing suits on and headed over to the pool! It was freezing! But the crazy kids still wanted to get in. LJ has never really been a fan of large bodies of water but there were sprinklers!! And waterproof wheelchairs! So Joshua had the privileged of running through the freezing sprinklers with LJ in the wheelchair. But the smiles and squeals from LJ made it worth it, I’m sure! Lol!

We went back to the room to get dry (and warm) and headed to Downtown Disney! We had fun in the Lego store and enjoying treats at Erin McKenna’s Bakery! We came back to the resort just in time for The World’s Largest CANDYLAND Party! It started with a fun block party with game and candy stations and led to a huge playground that was a Candyland board! We had a volunteer lead our family with cards describing how we would move along the game board. It was a really neat memory. LJ mostly loved dancing at the block party.

Monday morning we had to say goodbye to GKTW but our trip was far from over. The case managers at the base in Alaska had finalized everything for our travel to Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. We were going to talk to a neuro-oncologist! LJ may be able to have a biopsy! There were options! We checked into my dream resort, the Animal Kingdom Lodge for a dreamy one night stay! We said goodbye to BB-8 and Chewbacca at Hollywood studios and met up with the Purtee family! We monorail’d and went to Magic Kingdom! Emmaleigh got to have a Disney World sleepover with Sophia! Tuesday morning we all met at Chef Mickey’s for breakfast then hopped over to Magic Kingdom for a final goodbye before heading to the airport to fly to Cincinnati, Ohio!