first night there: downtown disney

we've been planning our trip to disney for several months now--and to answer some of our local friends' questions--we went through AAA for planning and booking the trip. i love doing research for traveling, but it was helpful to have their advice in planning and to take care of the actual reservations. we booked our own flight and were able to make payments towards our trip for the last couple of months after putting down the initial deposit. if you have AAA, it is worth talking to them about any future trips. they're not just for towing and when you get locked out of your car :)

so--we got in around 6:30 and after taking the "disney's magical express" (airport transportation) to our hotel, we checked in and got to see our room right quick. we were staying at the coronado springs, a moderate-price level resort, and i loved the design and the architecture.

our room--the teal and browns were right up our alley.
of course, i found a hidden mickey in the design right away...
but then it was time to head out to downtown disney to find some dinner and explore!

we had some fish n' chips--very tasty!
and then checked out legoland, where justin found a lego version of frank lloyd wright's falling waters. justin is a draftsman with a building design/architecture firm, so it's fun to find things like that that he enjoys.
these rows of lego blocks looked so cool to me...
this was a new edition--a series called vinylmation with funky painted mickeys.
i ALMOST bought this for pepper-dog (she ended up with a pink mickey collar.)
and then my nerdy star wars-lovin' husband went crazy over the build your own light saber booth--brought out the kid in him :)
another neat feature was this hot-air balloon that you could ride around the shopping area. it went 400 feet in the air and was supposed to give an amazing view of the disney parks. i loved this reflection of it in the water...

we knew the next day would be long and would come quickly, so we strolled back along the streets of downtown disney and headed on home.

tomorrow--our first full day at animal kingdom!