Disney Day 3, Monday 11/8

So, the daily rising at 5:30 am occurred again today. We had a breakfast reservation at The Crystal Palace to have breakfast with Pooh, Tigger, Eeyore and Piglet. We were particularly excited for this one since Carl's favorite bedtime animal is Eeyore. He chose him from Kohl's when they had the Pooh storybooks. I assumed she would pick Pooh (which she did) and he would go for Tigger. Well, I was wrong and Carl loves his Eeyore! He kept telling me we should "go to Kohl's and buy 3 Eeyores." I am not sure why the stock pile, but he brought it up a lot.

Here we are right outside the Crystal Palace while waiting for our reservation time. They have photographers all over, ready to take your picture in front of the castle.
Breakfast was yummy, again. Well, the kids were going even more low protein than they had the first two days. Things with syrup on them continued to be a big hit. Bacon has protein, right? I don't think she actually ate it, though. Carl chose more fruit today. And a pancake rather than a Mickey waffle... still in the Syrup Food group.After breakfast, we headed over to wait in a fairly short Dumbo line. We had intended on riding twice in a row so we could hand the camera off, but this was one ride that seemed to have longer lines. We opted not to wait again. Mary Poppins was signing and posing right next to the carousel, so we jumped into her short line. She has a very frilly signature. She asked the kids if they knew her favorite word, "supercalifragilisticexpialidoucious" and they said "Yes" but neither one has been able to pronounce it, so they couldn't chime in with her even though we have seen the movie several times. Actually, the first time we watched it, Mary Poppins appeared and Carl smiled at me and asked, "Is this The Sound of Music?" Ah, a small Julie Andrews fan!! The sun by Mary P. here was bad. Her hat shadowed her face, but the shots with the kids looking at the camera are bad because they are looking directly into the bright sun and have bad faces.Then we rode the carousel. See, I was there!After the carousel, we saw the awesome 3D movie, "Mickey's PhilHarMagic". We all loved it! Carl wasn't into putting on the 3D glasses at first, but once the first effect showed up and he realized what it was all about, he was so into it! They were both reaching for whatever objects floated close to us. And, if a character jumped forward to us, Carl was yelling, "Hi Donald!" or "Hi Ariel!" or, "Mom, that's the Lion King!" We loved it!! My favorite part was the "Be Our Guest" song where you could actually smell the baked goods! I honestly would rate "PhilharMagic" as the #1 favorite attraction of the week for our family. Throughout the week, we would see it a total of 4 times, once each day we spent in Magic Kingdom. You know with pre-schoolers, the repetition factor only enhances things. That is what was so nice about being able to do things more than once. They felt familiar and safer to 4 year olds. And their parents.

We headed over to Toontown and rode a small roller coaster called Goofy's Barnstormer. They loved it - and Gretchen asked to go again.... so we did! First picture is Carl & Lew as we hit the top of the hill. The second shot is Gretchen with Lew as we were loading up. I then tucked the camera away because even though it was a short ride, it was kind of rough and the camera didn't sit in the right spot with the safety bar down. See, grown-ups learn things through repetition, too.

There are 2 little houses you can tour, Minnie's and Mickey's. Minnie's kitchen is really cute. Gretchen was so into this air-filled cake rising in the oven! Carl enjoyed the microwave that made popcorn noises!

One of my smartest vacation moves was to overrule Lew and rent a double stroller down in Orlando. They delivered it right to our resort. He felt we could save money and bring our own. Well, after packing the car early in the morning on 11/6, he looked at me and said, "I can't believe you thought we could get our stroller in there, too!" bwah-ha-ha! Plus, there are so many places in Disney that you cannot bring your stroller, so you leave it unattended outside for large chunks of time. It was nice not worrying that my personal one would get stolen. They rode in it quite a bit, not only when tired, but also when we wanted to cover ground quickly to get to something fun. I had it well stocked with water bottles (a bottle of H2O in the park was $2.50. Each night we froze 4 and brought in 6 total daily to save ourselves a lot of money) and snacks. Worked very well.

We had lunch at Cosmic Ray's. Just to be fair to Disney - not all the kids' meals were nuggets and fries. You actually had to request fries if you wanted them. The standard was either grapes or carrots and applesauce. 2 of the 3 choices per kid. Gretchen lvoes PB&J... luckily, she didn't get hooked on these "uncrustables". After our late lunch we went out and saw the sign for the Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor. We got in line and after getting inside realized we had entered 20 feet too soon and were in the Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin interactive ride. Since the line was less than 5 minutes, we figured we'd give it a try. Two people sit in a car and spin around and shoot at different targets. The carts keep score. At the very end of the ride you help put Buzz Lightyear's arch enemy, Zurg into jail. Here Gretchen is posing with her catch. Then we got in line for the Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor (no, really, we did!). This was a pretty neat show as the characters interact with the audience. It was a ~15 minute comedy show with some of the characters. Carl's favorite part was the M logo on the seats. When it ended Gretchen said, "That's it? It was just jokes?"

We were close to Space Mountain. The line was only 5 minutes long. We discovered Carl was tall enough to go on the ride and asked if he wanted to go on a really fast roller coaster. He said yes, so off they went! While waiting for the boys to return we saw and got to meet Chip and Dale. I asked Gretchen if she wanted to go back to the Buzz Lightyear ride and she said, "No, we already caught Zurg!" Can't really argue with that kind of logic!

We made more pressed coins after the boys returned. Most of the time in Space Mountain was spent walking through the areas where people would wait in line. When it was their turn, Carl got to sit in the very front seat (single seats for Space Mountain) and Lew sat right behind him to keep a hand on his shoulder through the ride. Carl laughed for the entire ride. He loved it!

At this point it was getting late and we headed back to the condo. Nap started close to 6pm. We woke them up for dinner near 8pm and went to the local Fuddruckers. Carl had a milkshake, but both kids were exhausted and didn't eat too well. They quickly fell asleep after getting back to the condo. They had to recharge before 5:30!!

Disney Day 2, Sunday 11/7

So, you heard they got up at 5:07am. They weren't the only ones who got up that early.

We had a breakfast reservation at the Cape May Cafe in The Yacht & Beach Club resort for 9:05am. We arrived 15 minutes early and checked in. The kids got to sit and watch some Disney videos on TV with a few other kids waiting, too. Lew chatted with a lady at the resort's front desk and she gave him a map of Orlando that showed us a really easy "back" way to get into the Disney park from our condo. Cool!

Once we got seated for breakfast, the characters started to come to our table. They are mingling throughout the restaurant, making the rounds in an orderly fashion. Breakfast was a buffet, so you did have to look around and be aware of how fast they might be coming to see you. You surely didn't want to be up getting eggs and Mickey waffles when Goofy hit your table! Actually, for our whole trip, we did 4 character meals (we ended up cancelling one) and we never missed seeing anyone. At some breakfasts, we were there long enough for the characters to visit us a second time. Again, I think that was an off-season luxury. We were never rushed to eat and get out to make room for more people.

This morning, we met Goofy, Minnie & Donald - all wearing beach clothes since we were in the beach resort. Goofy was first and he hugged the kids, signed their autograph books and then posed for this picture:

It came out so good, I was so happy and figured, if nothing else went right all week, I was happy with getting one adorable picture. (Turns out, I had lots more adorable photos in my future!!)

The kids each had an autograph book. We chose to bring a pack of large crayons to hand the characters to sign with. Most people recommended Sharpie markers - you needed to have something fairly large for a stuffed character to be able to hold onto well. But, I read one note about a little girl who got Sharpie on her princess dress and I knew handing two 4 year olds (still 4 for one week when we went!) permanent markers wasn't going to be easy. Turns out, crayons were a lot of fun. The kids chose the colors carefully for each character and many of them throughout the week showed us that they knew that was a special color. For example, Handy Manny wears a green tee shirt. He took the crayon and touched it to his shirt indicating that he knew why we chose it. Cool. Here's Minnie signing books before posing with the kids. Both kids were a lot more into the autographs than I expected. Their books were set up with a photo sleeve on one side and the blank signing page opposite that. So, now, I have added the photos into the books and they love looking through them!

Carl just kept rubbing Donald's tummy. It was cute!

After breakfast, we decided to leave our car parked at the resort and go to Disney Hollywood Studios (DHS) on the ferry. That worked well. It would not have if it were not off-season. Actually, if it were not off-season, this week would have been insane!

When I say "we decided..." I mean the spontaneous thing was leaving the car, not planning to go to that specific park. We had very careful plans set up for each day. Spreadsheets and all! We had read up on all the attractions carefully and knew which ones were going to be scary for pre-schoolers, which ones the kids were not tall enough for and which ones were going to have long lines. We also knew that DHS had several live shows and we needed to be sure we could make all the ones we were interested in seeing.

The first one we saw was Playhouse Disney. It was a puppet show with stories from 4 of their favorite Playhouse Disney shows: Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Handy Manny, Little Einsteins and My Friends Tigger and Pooh. Every sits on the floor and the kids can get up and dance and join in on some of the fun. They loved it!

When that ended, we headed over to look for Buzz and Woody to meet. We checked into getting Fast Pass tickets to ride Toy Story Mania, but they were all given out for the day already. One the way, we ran into a green Army man. He spent a good five minutes with us mirroring Carl. At first, Carl wasn't into it, so the Army man got his attention and just played and copied all the things Carl did. That was enough to get Carl into it. It was really pretty neat. Turns out, that was really the only time we saw the green Army men roaming around, so I think it was more of a treat than we even realized at first.

Then we found the line to meet Buzz and Woody. It snaked through a building with different photo-op spots as you waited in line. We got in line and someone announced, "Buzz is only going to be here for 30 more minutes." They were very good about letting you know when characters were going to be taking breaks. Well, the sign outside said the wait time was ~40 minutes to get through this series of backdrops and waiting. But, we gambled and waited. Turns out, we got to the front of the line at about 12:28. Buzz was to leave at 12:30. So, we skipped the autograph books so that the family behind us would get a chance to pose with both he and Woody, too. Shhh, the kids don't seem to have noticed Buzz is missing from their books! And we felt good for doing something a little unselfish that morning. (not that we were selfish all vacation)

Next was going to be the best time to view Beauty and The Beast on stage. It was quite a production. The kids liked it, Gretchen loved all the dancing and costumes. Carl just loved hearing the beast roar! He imitated it all week.

Since Lew & I had such a large filling breakfast (we did not skip over eating our protein like the little ones did!) we weren't really hungry come lunch time. So, we were able to split a cheeseburger and chicken nuggets between the four of us. This would turn out to be a trend for the week as well. Lunch was from Rosie's All American Cafe.

After lunch, Lew rode this alone. The idea is that you are in an elevator car in this old hotel and as you are riding up in the elevator, at the 13th floor, you plummet down many floors. We had talked about it so much ahead of time, he had to ride it. Even Gretchen wanted to make sure Daddy got to ride on the elevator ride alone!

Next, we tried to watch the afternoon parade, but the kids were really, really not into it. So, we headed over to Sunnyside Day Care and met Lotso. Gretchen asked him if he was mean and he shook his head "no". I dunno, he was a villain in that movie in my opinion. But, the kids loved meeting and hugging him. You could smell strawberries there. If you didn't see the movie, he is supposedly a bear who had a strawberry scent when he was new. He has now been donated to the Sunnyside Day Care for the kids to play with. Andy's toys have the same fate. Lotso sort of runs the toys at the Sunnyside Day Care center and makes it sound like a great place to be if you are a toy. Turns out that he is not the sweet, grandfatherly bear you first meet there.

Here's Carl making a pressed penny in one of the many machines throughout the parks. Lew is holding the map! We found lots of machines there that day. Some were broken, though.

Meeting Handy Manny was an added treat. We stumbled upon his line and there were only about 4 people ahead of us.

At the end of the afternoon, we went to see the show for "The Little Mermaid". They weren't as into that as the other 2 shows. Could have been the topic, or the fact that they were getting tired. Up at 5:07 and taking no nap will do that do you. So, after that, we headed back to the condo for the night. We took the kids swimming before dinner. The resort's pool was heated. They did not say to what temperature. I changed my mind after arriving there! But, the kids didn't care and Lew stayed in as long as he could. They all then jumped into the hot tub to warm up enough to be able to get out and dry off. I think the high that day was 68*. I should look all of that up online and add it to my reports. (note to self... do that.)

Once we got back to the hotel, we made spaghetti and meat sauce for dinner. Lew shopped at Super Target late Saturday night after the kids went to sleep. Several times during the week he made trips there, but I never got to go. He kept telling me how amazing the store was, but I never got to see it myself. We were that busy!

We actually ate most dinners in the condo. It was nice to have that option. You can eat just so many nuggets and fries, you know? Even Carl would burn out on nuggets every day for 2 meals! I think. Maybe not.

let's jump into Disney posts... Day 1

I have finally finished editing the photos I took. We were in FL from 11/6 through 11/13 and each day we spent some time at Disney. Even the day we drove down there, we checked into our condo and then went over to Downtown Disney, a shopping area with restaurants. That evening, we did not realize we wouldn't get back there again during our stay. I may have spent more money had I known that! Ha Ha!
On Saturday Nov 6th, we left home at 6:40am and got to the condo in Orlando at 4:00pm. Not a bad trip for us. The kids are very used to being strapped into a car for a long day's trip. We stayed in a very nice 2 bed/2 bath condo in a resort close to Disney. Having a bedroom and bathroom for the kids was wonderful - as well as having a real washer and dryer in the unit and a full kitchen. If we had stayed on Disney property, we would have paid almost twice as much for a value room. That would have been just one room with not even a dorm sized fridge. No regrets staying off site!!

We actually went to Downtown Disney that evening just to be sure we knew how to drive from the condo to Disney property. Turns out, the website's name was pretty darn accurate. "disney2miles". The resort was 1 mile off the main route. After you drove that mile to get back to the main road, the "Disney 1 mile" sign was right there. Being an off season trip, we never spent more than a few minutes going from our condo to the parks.

So, we walked around a little, doing some window shopping (ear pics above. Both kids tried them on, but really didn't like wearing them so we skipped those purchases) until we got to the Lego store. No window shopping there - that place was much more hands on and age appropriate! They had bin upon bin of Legos to play with. The kids found the bigger ones and spent a long time playing. They never even discovered the smaller versions. I kind of wish they had to see if they are truly ready for the tiny ones.I just loved this wall of Lego people. It was hanging behind the cash registers. I should have asked them if I could come back there to take a couple pictures. It was that cute.Just some of the bins of bulk pieces for sale.

Woody is completely made of Legos. They had several huge statues outside, too. Really cool!

After shopping, we stopped for dinner at The Earl of Sandwich. Before going to Disney, I had read dozens of websites and reviews and message boards and reference books. This place had been praised as having good sandwiches. (hence the name) And, Disney frequenters raved about the Holiday Sandwich. Well, being in early November, the sandwich had just been added to the menu for this season. Lew & I both ordered it. Toasted.... turkey, stuffing, gravy and cranberry sauce. I will admit, it doesn't look all that great in the photos, but trust me... it was delicious.

By now, the kids were pretty tired and they were less than thrilled with their sandwiches. All the sandwiches were toasted for starters. So, Carl's turkey and cheese wasn't what he was looking for. And, Gretchen's toasted peanut butter & jelly on a homemade roll might as well have been monkey tails with liver pate on them. Luckily, I was able to take the top of her roll off and when she saw the sandwich as open faced, then it looked like something she could possibly eat without dying. Phew! She ate all of it! (It was sooo good!)

Luckily, they had fresh fruit and the kids inhaled that! Melon for Carl and strawberries for Gretchen. It was a perfect combo fruit cup!!

After dinner, we wandered a little more. We picked up a map for the machines that make those pressed pennies for souvenirs. And made a couple pennies. It was about 8:00 pm when we headed back to the parking lot. On our way out of the Downtown Disney area, Gretchen looked around and said, "Wow. There are a lot of people who stay up late!"

When you consider that we got her up at 5:30am and those kids refuse to sleep in the car unless it is pitch black out (so that's right - they did not sleep at all) I guess 8:00pm feels pretty late!

This night, we would gain an extra hour of sleep due to the fall-back time change. It also meant it would start getting dark on us one hour earlier each day on vacation.

The kids woke on Sunday, 11/7 at 5:07 am. I could hear them talking.

Gretchen: "Carl, are we still on vacation?"

Carl: "Are we going to Disney World?"

I'll pick up with Sunday morning and tell you all about that day in the next post.

leftovers

my muffin man

Today was Gretchen's day at school. We dropped her off, came home for snack and then headed back out to do a couple errands. I needed rolls and ice cream. We did pretty well in Walmart. It wasn't too crowded at 10am. mostly old people shopping who were very friendly. We said "Happy Thanksgiving" to many folks. Then, we headed to the library to renew a princess book and pick up a couple movies. They recently extended the loan time on videos to one week. It was 3 days. That was hard to actually get to watch the movie and get it back a couple days later.

Carl picked 2 movies (one Donald Duck and one Christmas mix of PBS shows) and 2 Morris the Moose books. Man, he was excited to find those on the shelf! He went up to some father who was sitting reading by himself while his daughter did a puzzle. The guy did not seem to realize just how freaking adorable this boy was who had the Morris The Moose book shoved in his face. I mean, he was polite and smiled a little, but he didn't respond to Carl's questions or excited statements. Here's Carl later this afternoon reading some of his favorites, Morris The Moose and Biscuit books. Molly & Angus don't like to be far away. Ever.

Then, we came home and baked our pumpkin muffins for tomorrow. There's the challenge. "Tomorrow." Both kids managed to get one with dinner and were trying to scam more out of us. I managed to save a dozen still for tomorrow's snack and dinner. They are Lindy's favorite, too.

He looks good in his apron, too! It doesn't get as much use as Gretchen's. He did enjoy reporting to Lew all about how we baked today.