Give the kids the world.

This October we got the trip of a life time.  The wonderful people at the Dream Factory and Boulevard of Dreams Selected Cody to be a Dream Factory recipient to go to Disney World, Universal Studios, Sea World, and stay at Give Kids the World.  We found out late in the summer that Cody was selected for his rare disease.  It was an amazing thing to find out and when we were selected we had no idea how great it was going to be.

It seemed like forever but we finally got to leave for the trip.  Our trip was scheduled from October 1st through October 7th.  We flew out early Saturday morning on the 1st.  Excited is a word that doesn't even come close to describing how we all felt.  It was a non-stop flight to Florida.  We were greeted at the airport by someone from Give Kids the World.  He was holding a sign with Cody's name on it.  He showed us to our rental car and gave us instructions on how to get to the village.  We began our drive and headed over to Give Kids the World.

It didn't take long before we arrived at the village.  It was nothing like I've ever seen.  Little cottages for families to live like they were at home.  They were 2 bedroom "Duplexes" that had a room for mom and dad and a room for the kids.  The kids' room was the "Master bedroom" with a shower and a Jacuzzi tub.  There was a fully loaded kitchen for cooking, if you so desired, and a nice family room with a TV and DVD player.  The cottages were amazing.   We got unpacked and made our way around the village.  Got some free food, 3 square meals a day and all the ice cream you can eat 24 hours a day.  We were there a lot!

We headed over to Disney Springs on day one and got some shopping done and of course did a little Pokemon hunting.  Having a rental car was a new experience for us in Disney because we usually stay on park when we go.  So it took some adjustment getting used to driving instead of taking the bus everywhere.

As I type this post I realize I cannot begin to describe our every day without this being a 27 page post.  There was so much that we did and so much that we experienced that I can't begin to tell you everything.  I can tell you we were in our second ever hurricane and both were while we were visiting Disney.  We got to live through Hurricane Matthew, and because of that our final day was not Friday but rather Saturday the 8th.  We lost about a day and a half due to the hurricane but we wouldn't change anything about the trip.

If you want to see some photos and videos from our trip head out to this link and you can see what all we did. https://goo.gl/photos/Ui5JmdohHCXKKC3FA

The great thing was we had Cody properly dosed the entire time so he was able to enjoy the trip without too much down time.  That is not to say we didn't have to go home early some days and go home in the middle of the day to get some rest, but for the most part he was able to get through all the parks without too much issue.

If you have time go to:

• Dream Factory of KC
• Give Kids the World
• Boulevard of Dreams

All of these great foundations helped us have a great trip, even with a hurricane pounding on us.