Day 2...the one true wish

If you are just tuning in....catch up by scrolling down for Day 1



Today was the big day. Keyan's wish was to sing with Ariel. We had an appointment with Princess Ariel at 11:00am. We completely underestimated how long it would take us to get through breakfast at the gingerbread house. Everyone is so kind, and they all wanted to dote over the kids. We did not get into the van 9:45. After the 20 minute drive to Magic Kingdom, we had about 40 minutes to get to Ariel.....well, once again, we did not account for the walk from handicapped parking to the monorail. By the time we got to the monorail, we had three people in tears, one of whom was me!!! I was so worried we would miss our appointment! We rode the monorail to the park, went thru security (who had to go thru our bags of meds, Keyan's food syringes, nebulizer machines, and so much more!), made it thru the ticket turnstyles, and had 5 minuted to get to Ariel's grotto, which happens to be at the back of the park!!! Notice, we did not have strollers yet!!! I made the decision that we did not have time for strollers, took 30 seconds to explain to the kids that we were going to have to run past a lot of very fun things and we would come back to them but for now we had to get to ARIEL, and off we went. Mom pushed Keyan in her wheelchair, I grabbed two kids hands, Paul grabbed the other two, and we were off. We had to look pretty funny dragging 4 three years olds crying thru Magic Kingdom. Ah, memories that we will never forget!

We found he cast member in charge of Ariel's Grotto at 11:03! Not to bad...We explained who we were, they very kindly said, "We will take care of everything from here...don't worry." You have to understand that by this time there was an hour and a half wait to see Ariel and people were standing in line all over the place. The cast member took us thru a different entrance, held the line, and we were escorted in to meet Ariel. The girls were speechless. Keyan climbed right up next to Ariel and chatted for awhile. I explained that Keyan's one true wish was to sing with her so I started to help Keyan sing "Part of this World". Keyan knew more words than Ariel, but only the adults realized that, and even we did not care. Ariel spent about 15 minutes with us, we took lots of pictures, shed even more happy tears, played with Ariel's long red hair, and than said good-bye! It was an awesome experience.

After drying my tears, we took a minute to collect ourselves, put on our sunscreen, get a drink, and come up with a plan. We had to be in Epcot for our 1:50 reservations for lunch with the princesses, but we had some time to ride Dumbo, and the Carousel. On our way back to the front of the park we stopped into the Castle. The Castle now holds the Bippity Boppity Boutique where girls get transformed into princesses by the Fairy Godmother, for quite a large sum of money. Times that by 4 and it was not an option for us. However, as we were walking by, one of the Godmothers spotted us in our beautiful princess outfits and stopped us. She let the girls come into the salon and sprinkled Pixie Dust onto each of their heads, than led them to the mirror so that they could see. It was so special...and absolutely priceless! We were so touched.

We decided that we had better get to Epcot so that we did not have to rush.

We finally found the time to get strollers when we got to Epcot. What a difference a few wheels make! We took a potty break, fed Keyan, and made our way to Norway. I went to the booth to check in, and they just looked at me. I repeated, "we are the Hogans, party of 8 for a 1:50 reservation."The Lady said, "Oh, Stephanie, I am afraid that your reservation was for 1:15, it seems that you have missed it!" I tried to calmly explain that Make-a-Wish had made the reservations, I pulled out my paper which clearly said 1:50, pointed out my four princesses and handsome prince who were expecting to eat with their princess friends, looked her straight in the eye, and asked her "How are you going to get us into this lunch?" After a few phone calls and some negotiating, she informed us that they could squeeze us in at the next round of seating and we were welcome to wait inside in the air conditioning. Thank you Lord!!!!! We don't mind waiting as long as it is out of the heat!

While we were waiting, Jasmine noticed us in the lobby and came over to chat with the kids. As she was admiring the girls outfits she suddenly stopped and looked perplexed..."But where am I" she asked. "I see Belle, Aurora, Ariel, and Cinderella, but no Jasmine!" The girls faces were so cute as they had no idea what to say. I explained that we couldn't convince Jamahl to wear Jasmine so... we were sorry, but she was out of luck! She was so great with the kids and Daddy didn't mind looking at her either! When it was time to be seated, our first stop was to get our picture taken with Belle. She was so pretty and the first thing that she said to us in her high pitched, princess voice was, "Oh, my friend Ariel said that she met you this morning!" How did she know that? We were all very impressed with the Disney magic. After pictures with Belle, we were seated. Throughout the lunch, we met Aurora, Jasmine, Ariel, and Cinderella. They all spent lots of time at our table and enjoyed the kids immensely. McKenzy had a constant shrill of excitement bursting out of her as each different princess came into the room. She would shout out, "Oh Abby, here comes Cinderella! Oh Keyan, here comes Ariel!" It was so cute how they got excited for each other. Lunch was fantastic and God Bless Jamahl for hanging in there thru all the princesses calling him Prince Charming! He loved the Mickey Mouse shaped pasta and got a glowing Captain Hook on his drink. It was not all bad!
After lunch, we figured we had better divide and conquer. Paul took Jamahl to do test track and the rest of us went on a search for Snow White. We found her in Germany and got our place in line. Poor Keyan had had enough so she went to sleep. She even slept thru meeting Snow White so Snow White carefully moved Keyan's ponytail, gave her a kiss, and put her ponytail back. It was so sweet. The dwarf Dopey was helping Snow White and after giving Abby a kiss, she squealed, "I got a dopey kiss!" Their enthusiasm was contagious. We met back up with the boys, did a few more things and a little shopping, then back to the resort for Christmas!
Thursday night, GKTW is transformed into a winter wonderland complete with Santa, presents, penguins, snowmen, reindeer, a parade, snow, Christmas music, and lots more. We made it back just in time to get in line to meet Santa. He had this magic glowing light on his finger that he "found" in each of the kids hands and than it magically flew up to the sky. All five of them were in complete amazement. It was so cool. After getting our picture with Santa, the kids got to pick a gift from racks and racks of presents. It was like a dream come true for them. The best part of the night though was Keyan dancing. She danced and danced. At one point, she had all the characters in a circle around her and she was in the middle dancing her heart out. It was amazing. She had not been feeling well on and off through out the day, but to look at her you never would have guessed she struggles with lung disease and cerebral palsy. Her hips were swaying, her hands clapping, and her feet stomping. I will never forget the pure enjoyment on her face as she was dancing. I know that God gave me that moment to hold onto in the dark days. Long after the music stopped, she was dancing....we finally pulled her away so that we could get some dinner into the other kids. We ordered pizza from the resort pizzeria. It was a late night but a great one. Again, we made memories that are engraved in our hearts.