It’s been a trip 3 years in the making. Geesh, my old 6th grader was only in 3rd grade when visions of Dole Whips started dancing in his head. For the last 3 years, any time my kids were bored, my default was, “Let’s talk about Disney World.” And, it always worked; must be the most magical conversation starter in the world or something—a conversation starter that grew into hours and hours of very serious work. Ashlyn created an online store to earn spending money for herself and the rest of the gang. Evan created an activity book for all of us to work on as we counted down. And, now, here we are, right in the middle of the countdown (and a concerted effort to grow a Mickey Mouse head chia pet), and all are seriously abuzz here.

When Evan dreamed up a way to countdown in style, I was all for it. He’s seriously creative. He may just have a future as a Disney Imagineer after all.

We started by finding a silhouette image online of Cinderella’s castle. I think this one was actually solid black when I found it, but I saved it to my own computer then inserted it into a Word document, made it fill the page and then made it super light to save on ink.  After we printed it, I outlined the castle with a sharpie to see the edges better.

We taped 4 pages of white paper together to make one big page. Then, we (okay, whatever, I) drew the outline of the castle, trying that method we used in elementary school of looking at what was in the lower left corner of the original and then translating that to the lower left corner of the big paper and so on. There’s gotta be a name for that method—any of you remember it?

We decided we wanted to countdown from 20. So, once the castle was drawn, we spaced out 19 different “doors” and drew them first with pencil and then a sharpie when we were happy with where they all were.  The last door is the big door to the castle. The “I”s or doors on the bottom were about 2″ x 2”. Others were slightly different to better fit the space.

Using gigantic paper clips we found in my desk, we secured the paper template to our cloud patterned poster board we happened to have on hand for some random reason. We cut through the pattern and the poster board. Leaving the pattern attached, I used an Exacto knife and cut along the lines for the doors. Note: don’t forget a cutting board!

When we removed the pattern, the castle looked like this. Starting to take shape!

Evan had already made a list all by himself of 20 different little activities to go behind the doors.

1. Wear a Disney shirt
2. Play Disney name that tune
3. Drink out of a Disney cup
4. Talk like a Disney character
5. Pick out a toy to take to Disney World
6. Talk like a pirate
7. Pretend the car is an airplane going to Disney
8. Pretend to be a cast member
9. Play Disney charades
10. Be a Disney character for the day
11. Pretend you are eating at a Disney restaurant
12. Sing a Disney song
13. Design a new Disney ride
14. Draw a Disney poster
15. Do your best Monsters Inc. roar
16. Design a new themed Disney restaurant
17. Trade a pin
18. Share your favorite Disney ride and what you like about it
19. Draw your favorite Disney character
20. Do a Disney parade around the house *THE LAST ONE*

And, I wrote them on small pieces of paper that were only slightly bigger than the openings of the doors. (Since they had to be written pretty small to see the words well when the doors were opened, I did this part for him.)

Evan taped them to the back of the castle shape wherever there were door cuts. And, I decorated the last large piece of paper to go behind the door on the last day. You could use a page cut out from a Disney travel magazine for this piece if you wanted and then use white paper as conversation bubbles with the words coming from Mickey. We went with simple.

Evan then wrote the numbers from 1-20 on the doors, mixing them up and adding his own little decos.

 

We taped this thing up to the wall in the kitchen at the kids’ eye level and open a door every morning and then do what it says.

FYI: Drew can do an awesome Mickey impression. And, I have no idea why Walt Disney World does not have a restaurant that looks like the Star Wars cantina. That would rock.

14 days to go until 17 of us head to the most magical place on earth!!!