Life Lesson Courtesy of Mickey Mouse

I am a perfectionist by nature. What? This isn’t news to you?! I expect things in my life to go the way I want them to go and do what I want them to do. There are many, many things in my life that I can control and making them perfect makes me happy. It's the things that I can't control in my life that make me insane (as if being a perfectionist doesn't already qualify me for the loony bin.)

Our trip to Disney World a year ago was perfect. In every way. And it had nothing to do with me or my planning because we decided to go on a Thursday and arrived 3 days later. No time for planning = no time for stressing.

This trip, however, was booked well in advance and left me plenty of time for planning. And stressing. And trying to make sure that everything turned out perfectly.

Riiiiiiiight.

I'm not quite sure when I am going to accept that the things in my life that I can't control don't always need to be feared and can even sometimes be embraced. But this trip to Disney may just have helped me along.

Despite my best efforts to the contrary, everything did not go perfectly on this trip. In fact, a lot went wrong. I compiled a list:

1. The day before we left, Molly started with a cough. Hack hack hack. Spending 8 hours cooped up with her in the car on the way there solidified that we were all going to catch said cough. And we did. Brody had the worst of it, spending 5 solid days with a fever of 102 in addition to the hacking cough and runny nose.

2. It was the coldest winter on record for Florida (I mentioned just how chilly it was in my previous post... something about being frozen.) There were frost warnings several mornings we were there. Brr.

3. The last 2 days we were there it rained. And rained. And rained. In fact, there was a record rainfall in Orlando... 5 inches in 45 minutes!

4. The box springs under the mattresses at the hotel had to have been 30 years old. Every time any one of us would move (or breathe) the entire bed would shutter and creak and everyone would suddenly be wide away. Additionally, we had the cleanest family in the world in the room above us who felt the need to take 6 showers every night at 10 pm.

The thing is, that despite all the things that weren't perfect about our trip, we had a fantastic time. Better than fantastic even.

We made a late night call to the front desk and got honey from the continental breakfast for our coughs (try this... it really helps!!) I was able to give Brody the Motrin (that I so smartly packed) to keep his fever down so that he was pretty much his happy go lucky self. We wore layers to keep us warm in the morning, but were still able to enjoy the wonderful warmth of the afternoon sun when we took our jackets off. We wore our Wal-Mart ponchos on the rainy days and were able to stay relatively dry while riding ALL the rides in the park. Who knew a little precipitation would keep away the crowds and allow us to walk on to everything??!! And as for the bed situation, Drew dragged the mattress off the box spring and after rearranging the room, we slept soundly on the mattress - on the floor.

In addition to all the things that went "wrong" on our trip, there were also some pleasant surprises that were not part of my master plan. We snagged a wonderful dinner at The Garden Grill in the Land in EPCOT, a place I was unable to get reservations to prior to the trip. We just happened to walk up as they had a cancellation. We were also super happy with the location of our room at Port Orleans, only a few steps from the bus stop! We we also able to eat at the Rainforest Cafe and T-Rex, both happy surprises. Molly and I loved being secret agents while playing the Kim Possible game in EPCOT. And the kids and I had way too much fun trading pins with all the cast members at the park. All in all, it was an amazing family vacation.

Even still, I can't promise myself that I won't stress out over our next trip. I know that I will. But I also know that come rain, or cold, or cough, we will still have a great time. I can't control everything. And maybe sometimes it's better that I can't. Because life does not stop when I go on vacation, it comes along with me. So it might be better if I just accept that fact and pack it its own bag next trip.