The Adventures of Evan: Day 348 - Trip to Orlando (Day 1)

Greetings from Florida to readers of Evan's blog. We left this morning around 6:00 so that we could try to beat traffic and take advantage of everything this Make-A-Wish opportunity has to offer. The kids were both super excited last night and I had a feeling the trip down here might be a bit longer than they wanted, but other than a few car sickness issues we arrived relatively quickly. We pulled into our resort, Give Kids The World, around 1:30.

Getting settled in.

Upon arriving we had a volunteer meet us to go through orientation. This involved a tour around the resort grounds, an explanation of our tickets and perks, gifts for the kids and shuttle service to view our villa. I'm humbled and honored to have organizations like Make-A-Wish and Give Kids The World working on our behalf to make this experience so memorable. If you're not familiar with the great things Give Kids The World does I'd strongly recommend you view the link below. They work with about 276 charity organizations to help children with life threatening illnesses and while Make-A-Wish is their largest and most well known charity partnership, it's far from the only one.

About Us - Give Kids The World

Our volunteer, Mrs. Claire, showing us to our villa.

The resort has putt-putt, an arcade, cafeteria, pools, movie theater, horse riding and a fishing pond just to name a few amenities. Of course this is all fine and good, but the part that really took me back was the personal touch they provide for each child. For example, Evan was given a reflective star that he could personalize and hang on the ceiling in their Castle of Miracles. To date their are over 135,000 stars on the ceiling of the chapel and growing. One story that touched us was about a child who lost his battle, but his mother returned later and got married under his star.

One of the ceilings in the chapel that contains stars.

In addition to the star they also allowed the boys to make custom pillows to keep. The staff is predominantly volunteer driven and everyone goes out of their way for the kids and tries to make them feel special. It's uplifting to see kids of all walks of life and with various ailments get to stay in a place that allows them to feel normal.

Feeling like royalty.

Tomorrow we're getting started with the Magic Kingdom. We'll spend the day there and try to let the boys do as much as possible. This being my first time inside the parks I don't know what to anticipate in terms of parking, crowds, etc. but we've had several people give us pointers. Trial by fire has always been the most effective way for me to learn so I'll be much more educated tomorrow evening. Closing out with some more pictures from today.