It was truly a miracle that we were able to take all seven of us to Disney World (arguably the potentially most expensive place to vacation!) for just at $3000. We were able to get lodging, food, tshirts and memorabilia, gas, parking and 6 days of park tickets. All in our budget!

Andre' and I decided long ago that we wanted to give our kids memories and have purposley chosen to drive older, paid for vehicles and live in a smaller home with a smaller morgtage in order to have the freedom to travel with our family. Thankfully my incredible inlaws see the value in what we are doing and often help us make these dreams possible. Each year about Thanksgiving they begin asking what the kids want for Christmas, this year we asked them to help us take our kids on their first trip to Disney World and they graciously agreed by funding nearly half of our trip.

Our Heavenly Father provided the rest. Andre's business stayed busy through all of December and January. Jan is usually a pretty dead month for us, not many people are buying new computers right after Christmas! The children and I prayed daily (well nearly daily!) for God to provide the finances we needed to make this trip happen and He came through just in time!

On the second day of our trip, as we were wandering through the lands of Epcot, I was chatting with the children and telling them how glad I was that God placed each one in our family and reminded them of Gods goodness in providing for this trip. As we were reminiscing it was as if God tapped me on the shoulder and reminded me of a prayer I had offered up six years earlier. When I was pregnant with our caboose, Geoffrey, I had been pregnant or nursing without a break from 1996-2002. I love my babies, but I wanted to take a trip to DW with all of our children and not have to deal with bottles and naps, strollers and diapers. I also wanted to take the trip before my oldest graduated highschool. That was of course not the deciding factor to make Geoff the last one, but it was a future perk, if you will. That prayer / thought / desire of my heart had been long forgotten in the busyness of life. It is just like my God to remember even the prayers I forget. He never forgets and delights in giving us the desires of our hearts. As I was walking in Epcot laughing and playing with my family, Jesus whispered that memory to my heart and just made me smile. Disney's Year of a Million Dreams ain't got nothin on my Jesus!!!

And just in case you missed it - Geoffrey is 5, fully potty trained, no stroller needed, no naps anymore, totally capable of long term memory - he will never forget this trip! And Preston, the oldest, is 15 and a sophomore in highschool. Is God's timing awesome or what?

I will post soon with more details of how we budgeted and made every penny stretch. We had a blast, were not "deprived" and did not go into debt to make this happen.