Quality Family Time...in a Parking Lot

The last time the kids and I rode with my mom down to her place in Central FL, we decided to meet-up with my little sis for the day at Disney World.

The kids had a great time, even though it was pretty crowded, and my sister and I got a chance to catch up while Granny spoiled the grandkids. Bella and Marshall watched the light parade thanks to their super-nice parents holding them up above the crowd (I must note that little kids' weight seems to multiply exponentially while holding them up this way!) and after the fireworks, we said goodbye to Aunt Chrissy and mom, me and the kiddos went to do one last ride before we too, headed out before the second parade of the night started, in order to beat the crowds to our car.

We did manage to get out of the park just before of the start of the second parade (it had to be a pretty funny site, Mom and I trying not to run as we noticed the Main Street lights go off and heard the parade music starting. I was thinking of the bible story about Lot's wife the whole way as I was repeating under might breath "Don't look back, don't look back" and hoping against hope the kids would not turn around to realize what was going was starting right behind us). Luck was on our side (or so we thought) and we made it out of the park with the kiddos none the wiser as far as that second parade was concerned.

We quickly got on the ferry and made our way back to the Ticket and Transportation Center to catch a tram (no lines b/c everyone was still watching the parade) back to our car.

As we get to the car, it's well after 11pm and we are really tired; even Marshall was asking for milk (which at this time of the night is code for "I want to go to bed"). And that's when things got really interesting. My mom caouldn't find her keys. My mom, the queen of great organizing ideas and neat little organizing gadgets, who always has her keys hooked on a carabiner (sp?) on her purse strap, can't find her keys. Turns out, she had taken them off the strap to move them to "safety" insider her purse - to make sure she didn't loose them. We guessed they must have fallen out at some point during the day. Now what?!?!?

So, off I go to find help. A ride on the tram to find a Disney Security officer led us to Disney Security manager who galantly offered to drive to the Lost and Found at the Magic Kingdom to retrieve the missing keys for us (instead of making us go through all the trams, boats, etc it takes to get back to Magic Kingdom). To keep entertained, Granny and Marsahll rode on the tram until the tram service shut down for the night (at this point it was well past midnight) and then we huddled in the empty parking lot to wait for our night-in-shining-uniform to arrive with the keys. When she did, we hugged her, thanked her and prompty headed home.