Our Disney Trip May 2020 – Minus the Disney
Can I say I’m SO GLAD I didn’t set a goal of visiting Disney World every month in 2020? Glad I knocked out that goal in 2019 😉
During March, April and May our Disney Rental House was not able to be rented since Florida, like most states, were on quarantine as well as Florida rentals weren’t even allowed to be rented.
Zach and I traded off going to the house solo for a bit over the quarantine time period but in May decided to take a family trip down to the house.
Zach was not yet back able to work and we figured it made sense to use that time to do some updates and a big deep clean of the house to save money! The cleaning crew charges around $800 to do a deep clean so we thought we could knock it out ourselves and have some family fun time at the same time 🙂
We got new carpet put in throughout the house back in March (like right before Corona hit #ofcourse) and Zach had the super smart idea to use some of the left over carpet to have a rug made for the living room. It looks great and is so much more practical than buying rug after rug to replace.
We transitioned Spear to sitting in a “big kid chair” and he felt like he’d been doing it forever 😉
Even though we’ve been swimming a lot at home – just. being somewhere else while doing the same thing was SO FUN for the kids. Britt was especially just BEYOND happy.
She’s my little mini-me with our love for travel and experiences!
A lot of my mission was to keep the kids BUSY and away from Zach so he could get things done. The kids were awesome and HUGE helpers!
Right now with everything basically being shut down we didn’t have a whole lot of options of things to do to stay busy so I’m super glad we brought their bikes with us! We did a WHOLE lot of walking!
Britt was SO thrilled to get to play on the playground and RACED across the park and then bum bum bum a sign was posted that the playground was closed because of corona. Of course the two year old can’t read so he raced on up to go down that slide. Even posing for a picture ha!
We have a few storage items throughout the house to allow us to leave things there (mostly Disney stuffed animals haha).
Kye was able to use the locks to practice for the locker this fall!
The big kids did awesome watching Spear in the mornings so I could focus on the deep cleaning stuff while Zach was working on the updates of things.
The kids also helped a ton too by wiping down all the baseboards and railings and such throughout the house. They had really great attitudes about it and did a GREAT job!
I don’t even want to THINK about how Zach installed the new light in the entryway. I mean HOW?!?!
Kye and I did a lot of the repainting of the garage together and I enjoyed the time with him so much. We had some great talks and were able to get a lot of it knocked out so it was less for Zach to have to do.
We made sure to take time out for FUN even with all the work going on!
We decided to paint the kitchen cabinets so that meant really, really keeping Spear out of the kitchen for a large chunk of time.
We were blessed with gorgeous weather and hung out outside as much as possible!
I LOVE the umbrellas we bought from Amazon – they offer tons of shade and are truly just awesome!
The girls LOVE having sleep overs together at the Disney House and we’ve found that having them sleep in the master bedroom upstairs works out the best so we don’t hear them in our room below 😉
Lots of patio picnics!
A little corona life update from this week – obviously every business across the board (just about anyway I mean the hand sanitizer industry is killing it) is struggling. I’ve shared how Zach was unable to work during the quarantine and blog revenue has taken a large hit as well.
I’m so thankful for opportunities to work with great brands from time to time on Instagram and especially love it when the product is AWESOME.
That’s what happened this month and it worked out where I was able to get the pics for the product while down at the Disney House.
The Simple Sarong is awesome. I’ve already bought one for a gift since receiving mine for the campaign and totally plan to get another one for myself as well as another one of the cute matching kids versions!
I also got GREAT cruise news…Disney canceled all cruises through departure dates of July 27th. Our current booking? Sails JULY 31!!! As of right now it’ll be the FIRST one to sail!!!
Disney updated their cruise guidelines which also makes me feel pretty hopeful and optimistic!
I still didn’t tell the girls yet but I’m hopeful we’ll be rocking our cute new coverups on the cruise ship this summer!!!!
I also saw that Frozen on Broadway is not going to reopen, super sad news and SO glad we got to see the show on our girl’s trip to NYC.
We had another morning of cleaning and getting things done and I ran errands to try to pick up a few items decor-wise for the house update.
It felt SO GOOD to be OUT running ERRANDS. Like browsing in a store was SO awesome!
It was interesting to see how different things were in Kissimmee versus in Valdosta.
Masks were REQUIRED in TJ Maxx and Target and it seemed like WAY more people were wearing them than they do around Valdosta. They were also counting people in Target and TJMaxx (which I did see once we got back home too).
I ran to Walgreens and was able to get both toilet paper and hand sanitizer and was pretty pumped haha
We celebrated Spear’s Finalization Day while down at the Disney House and it was such a great evening together.
Britt went with me to pick up dinner and she wore a mask when we ran into Walgreens to grab some ice cream.
It was the first time any of my kids have been out and about in months and the first time any of them have worn a mask.
She did NOT like it and her complaint was that you can’t tell people are smiling – I feel you Britt!
We had a wonderful night as family – so thankful for our sweet boy and his journey to our family!
We named our Disney House “Hidden Mickey Hideaway” in honor of our love for hunting Hidden Mickeys.
We hid about 20 hidden mickeys throughout the home back when we first bought it but a) didn’t note where we actually hid them and b) had guests or cleaning crew remove them over time.
It was time to do so more hiding! Britt LOVED helping me find sneaky spots to put them and I think it’s a fun touch for guests to enjoy when they visit!
For Christmas I got Britt a Harry Potter card game and the kids hadn’t really shown interest in playing with it but I brought it down with us and got them to try it out and BAM instant obsession!
It’s called Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle Defense Against the Dark Arts. It says ages 12 and up but its a nice change of pace for the girls to be a bit more advanced in order for Kye to enjoy something. So often he’s having to play games way below his age.
Kye LOVES it and it’s a great preteen game! It kept the big three kids entertained for SO LONG which was super nice for us to be able to get things done.
The kids had a lot of fun playing all together too. While Zach and I were busy cleaning and updating things the kids all played and had fun together. It was funny to see some of the things they got into – they play pretty rough and Spear is ALL ABOUT IT!
We got into a pretty quick groove for our walks and decided to venture out a bit and walk allll the way to the entrance of the neighborhood to check out the fountains in person.
It was a fun mission and, of course, RIGHT when we got there Zach text me and said he had dinner ready. Oops! We had to RACE back as fast as we could to eat – but worth it for that brinner!
We originally had talked about heading home on Sunday and then discussed coming home Friday or Saturday instead, but the kids were having SO MUCH FUN that we decided just stay through our original plan of Sunday 🙂
I love that they had such a great time not really doing much. There aren’t many toys at the Disney House. We were pretty busy cleaning and doing updates. But they had a BLAST!
Such a good reminder that simple fun is still super fun!
Zach noticed on one of his errands runs that the neighborhood has a nature trail that we had NO IDEA existed.
Perfect thing for me to do with the kids while Zach was replacing a few loose shingles on the roof 🙂
We walked down to the front of the neighborhood again so we could take more time to check out the fountains and the dolphins and then walked over to the nature trail.
We had no clue where the nature trail would end or what the conditions would be. At first Britt and I started to leave her bike and the stroller at the start of the trail but quickly became SO glad we decided to take them with us…the trail was long and mostly sandy but it ended up near our house and would have been a huge pain to go back to get everything!
Spear loved the freedom and did really well staying on the path.
It was so fun getting to explore and especially fun to find a new gem in the neighborhood to enjoy in the future too.
It was a beautiful walk and the kids did great being patient while Spear carried sticks and hunted for bugs. Life can be slow with a toddler and I’m thankful we were all able to enjoy it together 🙂
We had such a wonderful time together as a family and are SO excited with the updates on the house!
We got news while down that Disney Springs set an opening date – it was a good sign that a Disney opening date was coming soon too. I also hit the day where I could book all of our cruise stuff so I’m staying optimistic that it will sail!
We knocked off everything on our list and then some too! Zach had several updates he wanted to make and they all look SO AWESOME.
Such a blessing to have such a handy husband!
It was a great use of our time during corona-life and a great way to be productive in a way to benefit our family while Zach wasn’t able to work.
Plus we had FUN too!
We did a movie night for our last night and watched the new Trolls movie…it was a bust. I mean the kids liked it, but it was terrible and didn’t come close to being as cute as the first one for sure.
You can see “before” pics of these areas of the house in this post…which is funny because it’s a “before and after” post of the house at the time we bought it and then after all the changes we made initially. Now we’re updating some of those updates ha!
If you’re ready to GO somewhere but want to travel safely, our house is an awesome option.
It has it’s own pool and game room and is located in a great community with places to walk and explore.
It’s also close to a TON of other things to do in the area. Things are really opening up now in the area where our house is located.
There is a waterpark around the corner that is open and does not require masks, many of the restaurants are open with dine-in, carry out and delivery options, many outdoor activities are nearby and open (including places that aren’t requiring masks), Disney Springs is open now as is Universal, and Legoland…and Disney is opening soon!
Plenty to do either at the house if you just want to escape home and chill, and plenty to do if you want to venture out 🙂
The major updates included painting the kitchen cabinets gray, redoing the entry room with a new couch, bench and tables, hanging some new lights and updating decor items, and revamping the game room with new paint too!
Our property manager has dropped the rates to rent our home by 20% for bookings through the end of 2020. We’ve also updated our cancellation policy. You can check into availability here!
A video should auto play in this post recapping our fun together time 🙂
My work has been featured on Love What Matters, Today Parenting and Babywise.Life. I'm also honored to be a member of the Babywise Friendly Blog Network.
You can read more about our family on my About Me page. Also be sure to follow along with me on Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest!
- Effective Parenting Tips to Discipline a 5 Year Old Child - September 24, 2024
- Happy 9th Birthday to My Daughter – Letter to Tess from Mom - August 26, 2024
- The Best Travel High Chair for Baby and Toddler - July 11, 2024
