We’re back and coming down from our Mickey-high. After a week of early-summerlike weather filled with fun and magic, flying home to dreary winter skies, freezing temps, and dirty piles of plowed snow and the thought of getting back to real life this week…well…is just not so fun.

We took hundreds of pictures this week. But, for now, I’ll just post a few of my faves from the first full day in the parks which was Ashlyn’s 7th birthday. We had the kids do the Pirate League experience which was a riot. They got pirate names, took pirate oaths, and were decked out in Pirate attire and accessories. As you can imagine, Drew chose the “look” with the absolute most makeup and scariness to it. Evan, aka James Stormwater, on the other hand, said “makeup isn’t my thing.” His assigned pirate spent her time with him telling him pirate stories instead of putting makeup on him. Perfect. And, Ashlyn, I mean, Emily Sailmonger, became a lovely empress for her birthday in the Magic Kingdom.

You think Drew, I mean, Nate Stormwater, was scary with his face painted? You should have seen him later that night when we tried to wash that stuff off. Despite using nearly an entire container of eye makeup remover which I brought just to remove this face paint since I had read it was hard to remove, we still were looking at a 4-year-old heavy metal rocker.

It only took about 2 days to eventually come off.

(sigh)

More pictures to be posted from our Disney week as soon as I can stop moping about and get myself organized and functional again…