By Friday morning we were fairly packed. Fortunately, one of the gifts left in the villa on Thursday (since there was a pile of gifts left every day) was a collapsible GKTW duffel bag. I thought I had enough cushion and space for our souvenirs, but I really hadn't planned for all of the extras from the Village. With the addition of the big duffel bag, we were fine. Now we were at our four pieces of checked luggage limit!
We ate a big breakfast. One of the volunteers at breakfast was super-extra sweet. He was likely in his 80's. Many of the breakfast volunteers are retired individuals. GKTW has a little over 140 staff but relies on over 3,000 volunteers (called 'Angels'). The volunteers that come to Florida for the winter are called 'Snow Angels'. Anyway, this gentleman was adorable and wished us safe travels home.
After breakfast we found Carson's star in the Castle of Miracles. We got to see where the Star Fairy had placed it in the rafters. He was amazed. Next, we enjoyed Amberville for a while - mini golf, arcade games, pool tables, radio-controlled boats, a magnificent train set and more. Amberville is simply amazing. Carson loved it. We spent quite a bit of time there. With one last stop of soy ice cream with rainbow sprinkles (at 10:30 in the morning!!!) we were soon checked out of our villa.
It was hard to hold our emotions in check. This was such a special, special place. Everyone here cares about kids and wants their time here to be the best ever. No labwork, no needle pokes, no CT's, no ultrasounds, no EKG's, none of that. It is a place where kids can be kids. Our week had been so carefree. While at the theme parks, we saw so many people on 'vacation' that were rushing from one place to the next, sticking to a critical schedule trying to cram as much in as possible. We saw parents snapping at their kids and parents snapping at each other. Certainly not magical memories. GKTW certainly set the tone for having such a carefree week.
With tears and hugs to the staff, we said a tremendous thank you and good bye.
It was on to the airport. We gave ourselves plenty of time to return the rental car, have lunch and get through security. We arrived at our gate with about an hour to spare. The kids ran around for a bit before boarding. Once on the aircraft, the crew saw Carson's wish shirt and invited him up to the cockpit at the end of the flight. Grace napped for the first hour of the flight and did fairly well the rest of the flight. She clapped and shouted "Yeah!" as the plane landed, as if on cue. Everyone around us laughed. The biggest complement came from a gentlemen seated behind our four seats. He said we had the best behaved kids he had ever seen. Wow!
After some time in the cockpit, Pilot Carson was okay to de-plane. Minneapolis was a 'warm' 40 degrees. When we left Orlando it was 87 degrees with high humidity. What an adjustment! We gathered all of our luggage and quickly found our transportation. To Carson's delight it was another limo! We had the sweetest limo driver. Carson was so tired that he was goofy and giddy. After trying to buckle his Mickey Mouse in, we were able to take off for the hotel.
I got Grace settled down for the night and the boys went swimming. I started working on repacking all of our luggage. We had things so crazy to try to ensure we were under the 50 pound limit on our luggage (sounds easy, but for two of the bags we were nervous). So, everything came out and was re-organized. It took a while, but soon all was in order again.
Exhausted, we all settled in to bed.
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