Looking Back...

Take a close look at these photos. When you are done wiping the coffee off your screen that you sprayed while laughing so hard...you may continue reading below:

Yes, this beauty was me. :) At 12.5 years old, I was quite fashionable. Gotta love the "Florida Beach Bunny" 1/2 shirt, pudgy belly and tube socks :) Oh, lets not forget the egg-beater hair. You know, the kind that looks like it was styled with an egg-beater?! Yeah, that was me.

Oh, I was in HEAVEN though. :) It was my first trip to Disney World. :) I wanted my photo taken in front of Journey Into Imagination...my favorite ride back then. I had developed a love for Figment, and was absolutely fascinated with the interactive area. They've since changed the ride, but the memories are still fresh in my mind. In fact, I still have my stuffed Figment, from 25+ years ago. :)

As I look back on that trip, the "why" comes to my mind the most. My Mom took Scott and I on our first trip to Florida. We had struggled through another bitter New England winter...I remember we used to only turn the heat on when I could see my breath. We then had finally gotten the money from our horrific car accident nearly 5 years earlier. Mom was recovering nicely and wanted to treat us to a wonderful trip. We went to Disney World (Magic Kingdom and Epcot at the time), Wet and Wild, Busch Gardens and Kennedy Space Center. We had SO much fun, and we were celebrating life. I had almost lost my Mom back then, and I was too young to really understand how close I really came. She survived not only a car accident, but also a painful divorce. Where did she go? She went to Disney World!! Even back then, Disney was a place for healing. A place to celebrate, a place to begin again.

Since then, I've made countless magical Disney memories. :) Every once in a while, I like to look back at these photos and laugh. Then I think of the circumstances surrounding that trip, and I am moved nearly to tears. That trip was a bright spot in an otherwise painful time in our lives. Disney's magic made a tremendous impression on me then, and it continues to today :)