Elena's Make A Wish Trip, part 2: Saturday - Arriving and Give Kids The World

We set out Saturday morning, bright and early, for the airport, giddy like little kids on Christmas morning, to be starting our much anticipated adventure! Our flight went pretty well - steroids and two little kids considered. :) But we were very happy to leave the 3 degree weather in Utah and arrive in 80 degree weather in Florida. When we got off the plane and passed a window, there were palm trees and it was sunny and gorgeous outside. Elena said, "It looks like a beautiful spring day!" :)

A volunteer from Give Kids the World (GKTW), Art, was waiting for us at the airport and helped us get our luggage and rental car. It was so sweet- at the rental car place, they told us to pick any car we wanted off of a certain row. It was fun to be able to pick out our car. :)

Elena waiting at the rental car pick-up - happy to be in Florida

Our car for the week

We drove straight to the GKTW Village (aka "the village") to get checked in, attend orientation, get some dinner, and do some exploring because the village is like a theme park in and of itself.

Our first stop was the House of Hearts for check-in. Everything was still beautifully lit up and decorated for Christmas.

Now, let me give you some background on the Village, so you can understand what an amazing place it is. Give Kids the World was started by a man named, Henri Landwirth. He was in several different concentration camps between the ages of 13 and 18. After he was released, he came to America and wanted to give children from all over the world the childhood that was taken away from him. To make a long story short, about twenty years ago (I think), he owned a hotel near Disneyworld and would often get asked by wish families if they could stay there. He helped as many as he could. There was one little girl, Amy, with leukemia, who asked to come, but she passed away before she could make the trip. Back then, it could take up to 6 months(!) to get someone on a wish trip like ours. He wanted to make sure that would never happen again and that every kid who wanted to, could come and have a place to stay. So, he set out to create Give Kids the World. What has sprung up is a 70 acre all-inclusive resort with 140 villas and tons of activities, attractions, and fun things to do. GKTW handles all of the paperwork and coordinating between the theme parks - now they can get a wish child to GKTW and the theme parks in 24 hours! It is incredible what they do!

On top of that, most of what keeps the village running is donations, generous corporate sponsors, and an army of volunteers. It is truly inspiring to witness the volunteers and see all that love and compassion in action. We learned that for every one staff member at GKTW, there are 30 volunteers! They have over 7,000 volunteers working at GKTW. Isn't that staggering? It truly is a special, special place. We were blown away after learning in orientation about all that was available - for free - to us: airplane tours over central Florida, themed dinners, water parks, swamp tours, a media center in the village where you could borrow a video camera for the week and have your pictures downloaded onto a cd as many times as you wanted, mini-golfing, two pools, all you can eat ice cream, every meal taken care of, a photographer taking pictures around the village for you, an arcade, snacks waiting for us in our villa, daily gifts for Elena delivered to our door, etc, etc. - and of course our entrance to the all the theme parks. I could go on and on. It was incredible.

After checking in, we headed to the Gingerbread House Cafe for some dinner and were totally overwhelmed by tons of sweet retiree volunteers swarming around us to help us figure out where to go, carry our trays for us, watch our kids at our table while we got our food, get us refills on our drinks, and tell us about the "southern food" we had to try. I tried black eyed peas for the first time, but couldn't quite work myself up to try the collard greens. :) Like I said, I seriously wanted to cry about every two minutes from how great everyone was being to us.

After dinner, we ran into a party. Every Saturday night is Mayor Clayton's (the mayor of GKTW - he's a bunny) birthday party. There was dancing, cake, lots of music, activities, and hugs from Mayor Clayton and his wife, Ms. Merry. Elena loved it! This was the first glimpse we got at how much she likes to meet characters.

Elena and Ms. Merry

Elena and Mayor Clayton

After we partied, we were taken to our villa and we all had big, goofy grins on our faces by that point.

It was pretty sweet to be told, "here's your house". :) If only, right? At least for that week!

Our house and our car! :)

And now, a look inside our villa:

Our front porch:

If you looked out from our front door, you saw this:

And if you looked out from our front porch, you saw this:

Our villa was all decorated for Christmas

The dining room

The kitchen

The happy children produced by the village/Make A Wish :)

The Living Room

Elena and Lily's Room

Elena and Lily's bathroom "suite" - complete with jetted tub

The view down the hallway, with our bathroom on the left and laundry on the right

The Master Bedroom

A view of our villa in the daylight

Chillin - in shorts! In January! :)

And to finish things off: here's a few more pictures of various things in the village for your mental image making convenience. :) GKTW gives you a CD with your pictures from the week on it when you check out and they also throw in some "stock" village pictures (the really good ones are theirs, the so-so ones are mine... haha).

The House of Hearts

The Gingerbread Cafe (imagine it filled with sweet old people :))

Elena enjoying her ice cream at the Ice Cream Palace

The Carousel

The Star Tower - each wish kid has a star with their name on it on the ceiling

Amberville Train Station

Some giant cookies that Elena LOVED (not sure why...). Seriously, every time we would pass them, she'd stop and hug them and talk about them.