June 14th to 21st: Charlottes Make-A-Wish Trip

Here is where we stayed, the amazing Give Kids the World village...

 Here was our villa, there are 70 duplexes in the village... so 140 families at a time. It sounded like they are usually pretty full year round. Families get to stay for a week, and they have to be referred through a wish granting organization. That means 140 kids / week all year; there are that many sick kids whose wish is to go see Disney World and all the parks. Each wish kid gets a special star that they put on the ceiling in the castle... there are over 10,000. This whole place is just mind boggling. They have 1500 volunteer shifts per week! I had so many pictures from the village that I broke it down into 3 other posts... the Park of Dreams, the Enchanted Carousel and the Ice Cream Palace were all in the village too. Once a family arrives at the village everything is taken care of, all meals are free, all events are free, free ice cream all day long. Our villa had a kitchen and laundry, two bed and two bathrooms; oh ya, and a couple of cute little frogs that snuck in one night- not part of the regular GKTW package I'm sure!

 We knew this place was going to be fun but, wow were we surprised! Giant cookies and chocolate dipped strawberries. Below is a picture of the cookie truck, he just rides around delivering fresh cookies and cold lemonade to everyone.

 Here we are back at our villa with our cookies and lemonade... so fun.

 In the model train room, it took up an entire room. There were whole rows of buttons to press that activated different things- like the Ferris wheel, or a flag waving, or a fisherman, it was a kind of treasure hunt to find everything.

 Just chatting on her cell phone while getting a pedicure from... Grandpa? With a crayon? Hmmm.

Riding the little train around.

This was where we ate supper and breakfast, the Gingerbread House.

 Cute, I thought... oh wait they were both blowing bubbles and then drinking, ew. Oh see the table? Real peppermint candies shellacked into them. There we so many fun touches on everything.

Here she is writing on her star for the ceiling.

 Putting the star in the box, the star fairy collects the stars from the box and puts them up. Here is what her finished star looked like, if you are ever at the Castle if Miracles keep and eye out for this little star.

One morning the girls wore their crowns to breakfast, true princesses!

Here we are at the My Little Pony Spa, getting our nails done. The girls got little hearts painted on their cheeks too. I thought it was cool that the toy company Hasbro made a special edition Pony just for here, Twinkle Hope.

Aaaahhhh, this is the life! Such a little princess.

This is the Castle of Miracles, where the ceiling is covered with the kids stars.

 A great time was had by all!

Thank you to Make A Wish and Give Kids the World. We had an amazing family vacation, some great memories that will always be treasured.