Make a Wish - final days

On the last couple days of our trip we visited Sea World, Animal Kingdom, and then spent the last half day at Magic Kingdom - again.  The highlight of Sea World was the dolphins.  Wish Kids and families get a free tray of fish to feed the dolphins.  I've never touched, or been that close to a dolphin before, and it was truly one of the highlights of the trip.  What amazing creatures!

It's hard to take a bad photo of a dolphin!

We were instructed to touch the dolphin on the chin and then drop the fish in.  At one point one of the trainers had the dolphin lie on the side and we could pet the dolphin.  What a cool experience this was!

Back at the Village: Ice cream for breakfast!

Later that night we went to the town of Celebration, FL for dinner.  Celebration is a master planned community, and while it does have a rather Stepford Wives quality to it, it is very clean, and very nice.  We went in search of Madeleine's favorite food, sushi!

And sushi we ate!

Later back in our villa, we surprised the girls with a visit and tuck-in service from Mayor Clayton!  They were so surprised when he knocked on our door.

Mayor Clayton is in his pajamas too!

The next morning a couple Disney characters visited the Village.  This was so nice, to see the characters right in the Village instead of having to search them out and wait in long lines in the parks.  Mickey was very impressed with Laurel's light up shoes.

On our final day we visited Animal Kingdom.  We took a tram ride through Africa and got to see a lot of African animals.  I will spare you all the pictures :)

If you look closely you can see that there is a man in this bamboo costume.  

After a morning of Animal Kingdom, Madeleine wanted to head back to Magic Kingdom for one last evening.  I think we spent 2.5 days at Magic Kingdom, but that's okay, it was her favorite place.

We left Magic Kingdom in the early evening because we had to be up super early for our flight the next morning.  AND because it was Halloween at Give Kids the World.  They didn't want to miss any trick or treating opportunities.  This is a picture of Laurel with a fortune teller.  I love the look on Laurel's face - so serious.

And that finally wraps up our trip!  We had such an amazing experience.  Everything was truly magical, and this really was the trip of a lifetime.  Even if we went back to Disney World for a week it would never be the same.  We are so, so thankful to Make A Wish New Mexico, and to Give Kids the World for giving Madeleine (and the rest of us) such an amazing trip.  

And here we are in the middle of October already.  We have been enjoying a month "off" of treatment while waiting for the MIBG treatment to do its thing.  Madeleine has a whole slew of scans and tests starting next week.  These will tell us if the treatment worked, and if we are doing it again.  I'm feeling pretty nervous about the results of the scans.  If her bone marrow is clean San Francisco may want to go directly to stem cell transplant instead of doing MIBG again.  Madeleine's doctor also thinks that this is a good time for us to move.  Ryan's extension on his post doc is coming to an end and we are heading to Tallahassee at the end of the year.  I have mixed feeling about moving (basically I don't want to), but it will be another adventure.