Our 8th WDW Adventure..the trip I 'took out' one of my teenage sons..that's Rippin'!

Here it is, the next installment in our Disney adventures hot off the press for your reading pleasure. For those who’ve followed my last reports (and I, theirs) rest assured that this report will rival my first from January ’09. One of y’all must’ve ratted me out to Tinkerbell and had her read my last report because she tracked us down after we got to WDW and thoroughly flogged us with her wand o’pixie dust. We inhaled. Then we drank the water. The result was a rocket-shot straight to the top of the magic-meter....and our faith in wishing upon stars to make dreams come true has been restored in full and then some. So....please stand clear of the doors....por favor mantanganse alijado de las puertas....hold onto your hats and glasses, ‘cause this here’s the wildest ride in the wilderness!!!!


Preface: ((<---heh-heh...Who puts a preface in their TRs???))

I couldn’t do this report justice without a bit of back-story for the usual gang out there who tunes in. Everyone else can just skip forward. Let’s be honest, we all sorta vaguely follow each other’s lives indirectly by reading each others’ reports and conversing over various topics. We catch the milestones as they relate to our common thread of Disney addiction. I don’t know if others are as insane as we are but our lives tend to revolve around our Disney adventures in some way, shape, or form. The significance of our 8th family adventure can’t be appreciated unless you hear some of the highlights since we last left you at the conclusion of our 7th trip in January this year.

Did ya notice the underlying sadness in that last trip and report? We did. For months we blamed it on Mother Nature’s cruel-n-frigid prank with the weather. As 2010 progressed we came to understand where the dark cloud that seemed to follow us around really came from. It came from us. Yep. We did that. Going into that trip we knew that this year was going to be rough. Tracey had already been job searching for over a month. We knew his project was nearing completion and jobs in his line of work were evaporating daily. Even with the nest-egg we had worked so hard to prepare ourselves with, the uncertainty the future held was overwhelming. So we arrived at WDW on that trip not knowing if or when we’d be able to return. The thought that we were staring down what could potentially be our last adventure for quite some time was heartbreaking. For an example: the joy & excitement in arriving was overshadowed from the very start by the sad idea that we possibly wouldn’t have that again. You see? It was those kinds of things that had us dragging that dark rain cloud around with us everywhere we went. At the conclusion of our January 2010 trip we actually gave thought to the idea that maybe our pixie dusted glasses had been shattered and the magic that used to live within our hearts had all but died. I wasn’t sure we’d ever go back even if everything worked out in the months to come.

And then life has it’s way of flinging the perspective stick it at you. In our family’s case, it was the whole stinkin’ tree.

Our year of insanity included: Tracey unemployed for the first time in 17 years, me standing up to the bubba’s in the public school system here and taking back control of our children’s educations, Tracey set a new record for himself (gotta laugh) for the most number of employers within a single year at 4 while the boys & I plunged headlong into homeschool together which is HUGE and life-changing in itself. It’s been crazy with all the twists-n-turns and the ups-n-downs. There were numerous times we could literally see ourselves losing everything we’ve worked so hard for all these years. In spite of everything that life threw at us, we were still happier than we’d been in a long time. Like Mama Odie says to Tiana & Naveen, ya gotta know whatcha neeeeeed. With each other we have always had everything we needed. Everything else, all the stuff, even Walt Disney World...it’s all just the lagniappe. Without life kicking us square in the tookus so our big ol’ heads could pop out for 2 1/2 minutes we might have gone on overlooking the best stuff in life.

And so we arrived at our 8th Walt Disney World adventure raring to go with a renewed perspective and a whole lot to be thankful for: each other.





Enough of all that mushy-gushy stuff. Let’s get this show on the road!

Here’s the particulars and the plan:

WHO: Tracey/DH, Chandler/DS-14 yro, Brian/DS-13 yro, Riley Belle/DFG (Dear Furry Girl), and Kelly/me!

WHERE & WHEN: (it was a 3 week multi-part road trip)

<-- 11/8-11/11..........Gramma’s house in Pensacola, Florida
<-- 11/11-11/21........Walt Disney World: Port Orleans French Quarter and Best Friends Pet Resort
<-- 11/21-11/28........My folk’s house/Nana & Grandpaw’s house in Monroeville, Alabama

THE TWISTS:

The boys & I aren’t limited to the schedule that Tracey has with work. We drove and had fun along the way. Tracey flew in to meet us at WDW on arrival day and flew back to Houston on departure day. Thanksgiving morning he flew again & I picked him up. Even with all the gas in the car added to Tracey’s airfare(s) we still spent less than we would’ve for the 4 of us to fly round trip to Orlando. We haven’t had our own car at WDW with us since our 4th family trip. Having our car there was something I really, really wanted again and am sooooo glad we did. Besides, I love a good road trip and that time spent with just me & the boys was a blast!

 

[GrumpyFannyPack]

I've been enjoying this report so much I went back and read all of your old ones again. They are all completely un-craptastic!

 

[sweetpee_1993]

Crazy Disney family watching fun!

The guys are always entertained by the stampede when the day guests are unleashed. Here’s the guys capturing the moment.

And here’s what they were shooting.

I like these pics because they captured a crazed Disney family much like any one of us. Look again! Do you see ‘em?! Here, I’ll help.

They’re coming across the center hub to the left of the Partners statue. You can see their crazed Disney family camoflauge...aka the coordinating Mickey icon tshirts. Hey, I’m not knockin’ ‘em. We’ve done matching tshirts plenty of times and will again. It makes for great family pics. My guess is the biggest of the obsessors and the planners of their trip are the couple that broke free of the pack out front with the double stroller. They’re totally blazing the trail for the rest of the family trying to keep up. I freakin’ love this. I wanna go back and run down there to high-five and fist-bump with ‘em! Heck, I’ll go grab the stroller and start trotting along with ‘em! Why not?! Can I get a Mickey tshirt, too????

So then we were on the other side of the castle with grumpier-than-thou. He wanted to go pull on the sword. ((Stop laughing....it’s the Sword in the Stone! Where is your mind?!)) But he was still Mr. Grumpy Gills and wouldn’t cooperate for the camera. So then Chandler had to try and help again.

And then I finally got a pic of Brian & the Sword.

Next up we went to see Snow White & the Seven Guys. Tracey’s youngest niece, Clara, is 3 years old and is quite the Disney and/or Pixar fan. Tracey was talking to his brother just before the trip and Beau was telling him about how Clara really likes watching Snow White & the Seven Guys. That’s what she calls it which is adorable. But then Tracey finds it particularly funny because he thinks it sounds like some cheap title. Leave it to my husband to soil the cute factor somehow. Anywhoo, we went to ride along with Snow and da boys (we laughed about ‘the guys’ a bit on the way). Fun times, I tell ya.

When we exited the ride we snapped some quick pics of the Snow White dress at that little shop there to send to Beau’s phone to see if Clara has that one. He called Tracey right away to discuss it when Clara insisted she talk to Tracey. She got on the phone and said plain as day, “Uncle Tracey. Will you get me a dress like Princess Tiana? Thank you.” Welp, that’s a done deal. We asked Beau if she had any princess accessories or did she need any which he said no and she didn’t need them. She wears pots or colanders on her head for a tiara and has wooden spoons for her scepter. Oh no. That won’t do at all. Not with Aunt Kelly on the job, it won’t. LOL!

Next up was Peter Pan to visit “Nana”. Nana is what the boys call my mom so it’s always an excited moment to ride Peter Pan and spot Nana even if it’s not their Nana! LOL! We spotted our monorail friends in line. Cool! Brian rode with me. He was still a touch in a pickly mood so this was my big push to bring him around. I have the power! It worked.

We headed over to Philharmagic which is always a favorite. We got ourselves seated, looked over to our left, and there was our monorail friends again. We all had a laugh.

After Philharmagic we strolled across the way to Sir Mickey’s. Brian bought his daddy’s Christmas gift & shipped it to the resort. I ooh’d and aah’d over the Disney Dooneys they had even though both designs I already have. I’m such a princess. What can I say? LOL!

I’m not sure exactly when I took this picture but it had to be somewhere in this first hour or so. For lack of a better place it will go here. It’s just too pretty to leave it out.

 

[sweetpee_1993]

I've been enjoying this report so much I went back and read all of your old ones again. They are all completely un-craptastic!

I think this post ranks as one of the sweetest things anyone's ever said to me! Thank you for such a nice compliment. Seriously. I knoooow I need to go to sleep but I'm so pumped with all the nice compliments I want to keep on posting!

 

[sweetpee_1993]

We walked on towards Tomorrowland just because. We decided on the Peoplemover next. I must say, I love seeing the Peoplemover signs. I never stopped calling it that but it was so great to actually SEE it with my own eyes.

Pics from our spin on the Peoplemover!

During the ride and after it just seemed like the park was rapidly filling up. We were pretty tired from the early morning and after a quick discussion decided maybe we oughtta wash some jeans and rest up for the late night tonight. So we made our way on out...

On our way back down Main Street we stopped in at the Emporium to take a peek at the Tiana dresses. We spotted the Tiana ornaments so we sent a quick pic to Tracey’s mom (who has all the princess dress ornaments when they did them like a gown on a hanger).

Oooh..I saw these adorable little plushies. The slippers kill me.

Then we finally headed back out.

The express monorail still wasn’t running. How curious. Tracey has forever bugged me to ride the stinkin’ ferry which I never want to because we aaaalways had to ride the stinkin’ ferry when I was a kid because my step-dad liked it but us kids preferred the coolness of the monorail. Today seemed as good as any to let the man have his 1 trip across Seven Seas Lagoon on the stupid ferry. The wait wasn’t too long. As we watched the masses exit the ferry I mentioned to Tracey I that I think we timed our exit just about right.

 

[sweetpee_1993]

I took the opportunity to practice my paparazzi skills for Hollybelle and her upcoming nuptials at Seabreeze Point. But then I was thinking of Fashionista007 and her upcoming nuptials at the wedding pavilion. I really think these two should coordinate their wedding dates/times because us other ladies could do a bang-up job with the stalker-pics! See?!

When we got to the TTC side of the lagoon you shoulda seen the crazy masses waiting to get on the ferry! Wow! I bet there was no less than 2 boats full already queued up. Man, not a good day to not have the express monorail running. Wowzers!

We hiked the short little hike back to the car.

It wasn’t so bad considering our car was right behind that first row there.

We got back to the resort and washed up what laundry we had. Yes, we do laundry a lot. I don’t pack a ton of clothes because trying to avoid laundry on long trips isn’t possible. It’s a long trip. I’m not buying that many outfits for each person. And I don’t do re-wears before washing. It’s one of those marks leftover from my childhood. Don’t question it. So we washed the clothes and enjoyed the broken drier in the laundry room. We watched a lady take her clothes out of a top row drier and leave right before we were throwing ours into the driers. The little light was still on that tells you there’s still time left on the drier so I told Tracey to throw our stuff in there so we could take advantage of the bonus time that lady left behind. Yay! Well, we had to restart all the other driers once but we never had to put a nickel in that one drier. Apparently it’s broken as in no quarters required and it’ll keep on running. Cha-Ching! We don’t question these little perks from heaven. We just enjoy. ((Criticize if you like for us not reporting it & taking advantage. Be honest. If you just spent $6 to wash 3 loads of clothes and another $8 to run 2 driers...is that what you really woulda done???))

Next on the agenda was a 2 hour nap. Oh yes. Me likey the sleepy. When we woke up we called my Aunt Laura again to see where she was. She was driving down from Pensacola to do her usual trip to see the Christmas stuff at Disney. She’s my aunt who is also like a crazy-huge Disney fan but she doesn’t do these discussion boards the way I do. We enjoy hanging out with her at WDW. She booked her room on pretty short notice so she just got a room at one of the All-Stars.

We showered and got all refreshed for the late evening EMHs at MK. Woot!

First we drove over to DtD to do some browsing and see what’s what with the art festival at about 5:30. All the lots were showing “FULL” on their marquees so Tracey dropped Chandler and me off near where the old McDonalds was so we could high-tale it over to Sammy Duval’s Curl shop. Chandler had already purchased the family gifts at our resort and was itching to look for some Oakley sunglasses. His daddy is a diehard Oakley man so it’s natural that he wants to be cool like that, too. I was thinkin‘ I might have to slip him a few bucks to cover a part of the cost because Oakleys can be pretty pricey. I didn’t say anything to him but I was a little concerned he’d get his feelings hurt.

On our walk we spotted Tracey & Brian coming over from the direction of the parking lot. Apparently when they dropped us off they pulled on thru the front side of the parking rows and hit a mega jackpot with another front & center parking spot in what was shown as a “FULL” lot. WooHoo!!!!

We walked on to SD’s Curl. Chandler got right to it studying all the options when we got there. The sales guys naturally approached Tracey & me first but we put them onto Chandler so he could handle his shopping. One of the first pairs that caught his eye and he really liked were on sale. He got the Oakley sunglasses and an Oakley vault to store them in for $125 walking out the door. Pretty good, Chandler!

We took the Sassagoula Steamboat over to the Marketplace side. While we waited we watched that big balloon ride thing land with a load of people. Man, it bounced around a lot when it landed. I woulda freaked out! Wow!

We went to the Christmas shop to take care of getting our usual personalized ornament for the trip squared away. The shop was packed. We took care of what we needed and got out. Brian wanted to walk into Once Upon a Toy which was fine. I love that store, too, and wanted to see if they had any Duffy stuff (which they didn’t). Again, DtD was just really crowded and we had dinner reservations to get to so we walked on back to the car. It was kinda fun seeing the cars come flying to get our spot when they saw us get in our car. That’s terrible. I know. I’m sorry.

We drove ourselves over to the Beach Club little early arriving at 7:00 p.m. although our Cape May ADR wasn’t until 8:10 p.m. On the way I called Aunt Laura who was also on her way on over to meet us at the Beach Club in her car. We were a little disappointed the Christmas decorations weren’t out just yet but I was pretty sure they would be within a couple days. We went ahead and checked in at the podium just in case they could seat us early. We figured we’d just sit there in the waiting area and chit-chat to pass the time. We ended up being seated almost immediately which was nice. We were pretty hungry.

I enjoyed the food alright as did Aunt Laura. Neither of us are all that big on seafood. We were there mostly for the guys to eat crab & shrimp. Boy did they ever! They definitely got our money’s worth on the crab alone. My favorite item of the meal was the rolls with butter. Stop laughing. They were reeeaally good! Aunt Laura and I were both sorta disappointed in the limited dessert choices. I did enjoy the Oreo cookie thingies and the little cheesecake things.

After dinner we split up with Aunt Laura again so we could each drive our cars back to our resorts and park ‘em for the night. We hopped the bus to the MK for EMH while she was still getting squared away with whatever room change issue she had at the All Star (Movies, I think). And she had to get her ECV from bell services still. No snarky ECV comments, please. No, Aunt Laura doesn’t appear to need an ECV (ie. she’s not elderly, has all her limbs, isn’t overweight, etc.). She was in a bad car accident 20+ years ago that caused her to have a severely broken leg/foot/ankle or something. It never healed properly and she has had problems with it ever since. She can walk but not too far or too long. One can definitely tell if it’s bothering her by the amount of limp she has when she walks. WDW isn’t possible for her without an ECV. I totally think it’s the utmost in cool that she doesn’t let her leg or the fact that sometimes she travels solo slow her down. She doesn’t take advantage of bypassing lines and is always happy to wait for a couple buses if she arrives at the bus stop and there’s a crazy long line of folks who’ve been waiting longer than her. She’s not the nightmare person on an ECV you read about. I promise. Aunt Laura gets miffed, too, when people take advantage & use them when they aren’t needed just because some people are lazy. LOL!

So it was pretty busy when Tracey, the boys, and I got thru the gate and onto Main Street. We actually got to take the little bypass behind the Confectionary, Art of Disney, etc. to Tomorrowland which was sorta neat. Again, the boys enjoyed the little ‘in-the-know’ moment in being behind the scenes.

We headed over towards Tomorrowland thinking we’d hit up Space Mountain before Aunt Laura arrived since she doesn’t ride that anyway but it was down. Dangit. No FP’s either. We took another spin on the Peoplemover just in case maybe the lights in the building might be on...which they weren’t. From our tour of Tomorrowland we saw Space Mountain’s queue open back up so when we got off we made a beeline over to it. I guess we weren’t the only people who spotted it reopen or maybe a lot of people hung in there while it was down. The wait ended up being 45 minutes which is officially the longest we’ve ever waited for this ride. We passed the time talking it up with the nice couple behind us. They had 5 kids between them that they left at home to come celebrate their wedding anniversary. Yay for them! We chit chatted and found out they’re from Wald Lake, MI which is where my mom’s family is originally from. I love meeting so many different people from all over on vacation. It just makes it more fun and colorful for me!

After our ride on SM we got Aunt Laura on the phone and had a great time trying to find each other in the dark in the masses. LOL!

Since we were right there we grabbed some FP’s for Buzz then checked out Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor. Here’s 1 of 2 night pics I took tonight because I still was thinking my night photography was too pathetic to make it worth while.

The show is so funny and I agree with others who say it gets a bum rap. I really love it. The lady they had trying to tele-pathetically send her secret number to whats-his-face-the-monster was hysterical. We imitated her all week. One of the kids did it again since we’ve been home! Good stuff, I tell ya!

After the Laugh Floor it was time to use our Buzz Lightyear FP’s. Yay for FP’s! The line was still at least 1/2 hour long. We were on in less than 5 minutes. Guess what? I still stink at the game. I have no clue what I’m shooting in there. LOL!

When we exited we decided to cross the hub over to Adventureland. It was an adventure in itself managing some of the bottlenecks with the ECV but Aunt Laura is good with that thing. She doesn’t run anyone down while getting herself thru somehow. Chandler was really dragging and wearing down. He’s naturally like his daddy in that he’s an early to bed & early to rise kinda guy. It’s hard for him to stay up late and, admittedly, it was getting pretty late with it being quarter to midnight.

We’ve never been on Aladdin’s magic carpets to nowhere so Tracey & Brian went on it that with Aunt Laura while I took Chandler in search of some liquid energy (ie. sugar + caffeine = Coke). I was hopeful I could recharge his batteries but it didn’t work all that well. Oh well, I tried. So now I had a PITA Chandler being all sleepy-grumpy and the rest of the crew wants to keep on movin'. Heck, Aunt Laura got only a few hours sleep the night before and she was still thumpin’ along. And she hadn’t even had a nap!

We rode Pirates which was great. As always. When we got off the ride Brian wanted to shop and the shop was near closing. I told him I’d wait while the others moved on to our next destination but he refused. I don’t know why he got his drawers all up his tush over me waiting while the others continued but he was irked somehow and got all in a huff. Again.

So now both boys are grumpy. Chandler was draggin’ and I knew Aunt Laura had to be dead tired. Even tho it wasn’t quite 1 a.m. and the park was open until 2 (which I really wanted to stay for!!!!) we decided to start towards the exits. Here’s my other pic for the night:

We got back to the resort at 1:20 a.m. All 3 of the guys were dead asleep as soon as they hit the beds. Unfortunately this wasn’t before Brian got all drama-queened out and tried to give us back what was left of his gift card. Sheesh. That’s when I was about at my wit’s end with these moody stinkin’ teenagers.

I needed to do some mom-venting so I did a furious tidying up around the room, picked up the dirty clothes, washed up, etc. I laid in bed a few minutes wondering why Tracey & I try so hard if the kids don’t seem to care anymore. If they cared it made no sense for them to act the way they do sometimes. They get all bent out of shape at the slightest thing then they argue incessantly and it makes me insane. I fell asleep kinda sad & aggravated. My last look at the clock was 1:55 a.m.

I woke up again at 4:30 a.m. feeling very sick. I don’t know what was up with that. I ran to the bathroom certain I was going to :hurl: but I didn't. It was odd. Tracey woke up when I left the bed and came to bathroom door asking what I was doing. I so wanted to say something really snarky like, “Driving a truck, dummy. Whadya think?” A short time later I went back to bed and fell back asleep.

 

[sweetpee_1993]

WDW Day 4 - November 14: The Beatings Shall Continue Until Morale Improves

WDW Day 4 - November 14: The Beatings Shall Continue Until Morale Improves

I’m sure you’re all reading this now and thinking, “I wonder if Chandler ever found his mom’s stash because I don’t see how this trip can rank as one that was magical.” Stick with me. The bottom is near then there’s nowhere left to go but up.

When I started to stir around 8:00 my dearest Sweetness rolled over and hugged me close. He asked me why I was so sad. How’d he know I was sad? I hadn’t said anything. I tried to deny it but he knew. I started to tell him and he hugged me tight. He whispered not to worry, that he’d take make it all better. I have the bestest hubby ever even if I had my doubts as to how he could possibly make things all better. Just that he paid attention and cared and was gonna try.

I’m always first in the shower because I take the longest to get ready. I suppose while I was in the shower Tracey put the boys on the straight & narrow. I didn’t have to say a word. They were up and had Brian’s c0t broken down & stored. They both acted completely normal, no fuss or issue. They took their showers, got dressed, ate some doughnuts from the gift shop, etc. without a peep from me. While I was in the shower Tracey poked his head in the door to informed me he was gonna run out to Starbucks to grab me some instant Via & get the Doom Bgy plate we bought outside the HM put on the front of the car for me. Hot dam! I’m in heaven! I had my Starbucks coffee (even if it was instant) & oatmeal on our way out to the car.

We stopped in to see Riley from 10:30 or so until 11:15 or so. We had a much better visit which was another wonderful feeling for me. The guys took her straight out to the dog walk trail to get her exercised.

We stopped at the doggy water fountain for a sip of water for our thirsty little girl.

Daddy tried to get her to eat while we were outside but she only ate a little. The staff keep notes and write down on a little card whenever the dogs do something. If they tinkle or if they eat or if they don’t, when, how much, etc. Riley hadn’t been eating very good so we started working towards getting her to relax & eat.

It was pretty warm out so we decided to go back to Riley’s villa with her now that she was exercised & had done her business outside. We all sat down but she started getting nervous and worked up again trying to get me to pick her up. Her behavior was very nervous and upset. I don’t know what made me think of it but it hit me that we should try Cesar Milan’s “no touch, no talk, no eye contact” thing to make her settle. I told everyone just the way Cesar does and we all turned away from Riley and started watching the cartoon playing on her flat panel tv in the wall. I bet it didn’t take 30 seconds and she settled right down. She walked over to her water dish and got a drink of water. That was our turning point. Riley did just fine after that. If she started acting all nervous and weird we ignored her and she’d settle down and relax. Here’s some pictures from our morning visit.

We were enjoying ourselves and would’ve stayed longer but one of the staff came to ask if we were going to be longer because it was almost time for Riley’s usual play group. We didn’t want to hold her up from that so we vamoosed it on outta there so she could go play with the other doggies.

Because it was late morning and we knew all the parks were gonna be busy we decided to drive back to POFQ & take the boat to DtD.

A cool momma with her cool kid!

We got there around noon and discovered we were all pretty hungry. We sat down in the shade by the little kiddie train ride outside the pin trader and had a hot dog & chips.

Brian ran into Once Upon a Toy to buy yet another toy bolt-action rifle to enhance his war strategy scenarios when he plays with his buddy who lives across the street at home.

I went into Tren-D to browse. They had cute stuff but nothing that I loved enough to buy...well except some of those Disney Dooneys. LOL! They had a canvas bag I hadn’t seen yet (looked like a dark denim with bright pink big lettering on it). It had some kick-butt pockets inside for organizing. Also, the canvas-like fabric is way cheaper than the other more rigid bags. The sales girl was telling me about the new balloon pattern Disney Dooneys which sounded cool. They didn’t have any in stock because they had sold out but were expecting another shipment in a day or two. I decided to keep thinking on the purse and hopefully see this new balloon design. I was thinking maybe I should just get the Pop Princess pattern in the black background. I have it in the white but love it so much maybe I should carry the same print into the cooler months. I so wish they’d do the sketch pattern with the bright colored backgrounds in the bigger bags. Then my bag purchase decision would be a no-brainer. I’d be all over the pink ones! The little pouches they’ve done in the colored backgrounds are way too small for me to do anything with and I already have a tassel bag in the sketch pattern.

**sigh**

So back to the story. We headed back to our resort around 1:15. Tracey had a headache from waiting too long to eat & I was still feeling kinda worn from being up during the night. Maybe I’ll do some laundry again.....

I slept from about 2 to 3:30 or so. I slipped on into the shower (it was hot enough to break a sweat earlier in the day) to refresh myself for the evening. All the guys got up around 4:30. We headed out to the car to drive over to the Polynesian for our much-anticipated Kona Cafe dinner. WooHoo!

Here’s a quick pic walking back thru to the car. I liked the way the sunlight shown thru.

 

[sweetpee_1993]

On the way to the car I had to snap me a pic of my super-cool Doom Bgy! Prior to putting this little plate on front we still sported the plain-jane Acura one that came on the car over a year ago. I thought the new plate added just the right style and mood....

We had been in touch with Aunt Laura during the day and she was meeting up with us for dinner at the Poly. Cool beans! We had some time to kill before it was time to meet up. I thought of Holly & Brett and their little waterfall so I took a pic.

Then we browsed in the BouTiki which is normally one of my favorite shops. It was just so-so tonight. I still love the peekin’ tiki:

BTW, why can I not find anymore of the H2O Aquatics lotion in the shops at the deluxes?! Tracey looooves that lotion. It’s the only lotion he’ll use when his hands get all dried out in the winter. I wanted to buy a couple tubes to put in his stocking for Christmas!!! ~~sniffles~~

Aunt Laura arrived with bells & whistles on. We checked in at the podium at 6 and were seated within 5 minutes.

I had a Kona Fire Rock Pale Ale with my dinner. That was pretty darned tasty!

We had really built up to trying this meal after reading about it in so many other trip reports. Tracey and I both had the teriyaki steak entre. We enjoyed it but agreed it wasn't the best cut of meat ever. Both seemed quite fatty & gristly to us.

I forget what Chandler had. He would’ve snarfed it up before I could get a pic anyway. Brian ordered the Asian noodle dish minus the sauce. When it arrived he wasn’t very impressed with the plain noodles. See?

The waitress came to check on us and we mentioned he wasn’t liking his dinner so well. She said it was most likely because he didn’t get the sauce on it. We had her bring a little bowl of the sauce and had him dip a few noodles in it to give it a shot. He loved it! He dumped the whole dish of sauce into his bowl, stirred it around, and went to work. Dessert was an easy choice for me. I wanted the Kona Cone! It just looked too fun not order it!

When we finished our dinner we knew we’d never have time to get over to the MK for Wishes. We decided to walk out to the beach and watch from there. It was a little chilly but it wasn’t so bad. Chandler used a tripod we got at the Super Target to try and do fireworks shots again because his slanted Illuminations shots from January proved that it was easy to be a bit off-level with just a monopod. Well, he set the tripod up on an uneven surface so he still got the same slightly slanted look. Oh well. It was fun anyway!

 

[Billy6]

Is it normal to be up late reading trip reports as they are being posted? Maybe? But enjoying it none the less....

 

[sweetpee_1993]

On our way up to the monorail platform Brian had to ham it up a little..

We took the monorail over to the MK for the 2nd night in a row of EMH. Tonight wasn’t going to be as late as last night with the EMH’s only lasting to 11:00. We were all giddy when we got thru the turnstiles!!!

First we stopped in at the Confectionary for some heavenly crispy treat goodness. My fave!!!

Then as we walked towards the Haunted Mansion we stopped by the Sleepy Hollow or whatever the name is place right there when you cross the bridge from the hub where they do the funnel cakes to get some milk to kill the sweet from the crispy treats.

We hit the Haunted Mansion which was walk-on...and a blast as always. After the ride we stopped outside to watch the windows to see the shadows moving past. A lady and her daughter (cute girl looked about Chandler’s age) stopped to see what we were staring at so intently. We showed ‘em. The girl squealed and got the heebie-jeebies. It was cute! They thanked us for showing them that. They had no idea.

We walked over and got FP’s for Peter Pan. Then we continued on over to the teacups. Aunt Laura rode with me. She hadn’t been on the teacups in years and years because she doesn’t like to spin. Neither do I...but I have this technique of countering the motion of the cup so it never moves. Wanna ride the teacups with only a gentle/minimal spin? Ride with me! LOL!

We doubled back to Sow White & the Seven Guys. Then we skipped our way across to Mickey’s Philharmagic.

Remember we’re supposed to hit bottom today? Yeah. It’s been going pretty good, huh? So where’s that bottom? Get ready. It’s coming riiiiiight after I snapped this funny pic of Brian in his opry-glasses. It’s funny because when we were buying school supplies in August he grabbed a pair of reading glasses off a display and demonstrated his sophisticated look. He had 1/4 of the store laughing so I took a pic with my iPhone. Here it is:

We were standing near the theater doors chatting when he tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Look, Mom. It’s my sophisticated opry look!” And this is what I got:

I turned away from Brian and started scrolling thru looking at all the pics I had already from the trip in my iPhone. It was a LOT! I found the video of Chandler doing the Buttermilk Biscuits throwdown which got his attention when he heard it. He started trying to grab my phone saying “Oh my God! You kept that?! Lemme SEE!!” I eventually handed him the phone for him to look thru all the pics. When he got to the video again he said, “I’m sooooo deleting this one out of here...” and made like he was gonna delete it which I was like nooooooooo and I grabbed my phone back. Y’all gotta understand, I horse around with my boys all the time. We pick and play, still roll around pinning each other down and tickling one another. We bump, pretend kick or punch each other, rough-house, etc. They’re boys. I grew up with an older brother, 2 older step-brothers, and all their friends. They made me all-time QB for football because I could throw with accuracy. In college my brother and I would go out to the field on Sunday mornings and play tackle football with our gang of friends. I’ve always been this way with my boys and always been cautious to never hurt them. Ever. Not even accidentally. So I grabbed my phone back & started scrolling thru everything to make sure everything was still there. Which it was. I made some comment to Chandler like, “Boy! I will kick you if you delete my stuff!”, in one of my crazed hillbilly voices. I lifted my foot up and barely grazed the front of his left shin. In the meantime Brian had gotten his attention from behind me and motioned to Chandler to come here. So when I lifted my foot up to mock-kick Chandler’s left shin he stepped forward with his other foot to go to his brother. The left foot was planted and my foot stopped his motion. His knee popped and momentarily shifted into a hyper-extension then popped back out. He immediately sat down holding his knee. It all happened so fast, it was dark in there, he had jeans on so I didn’t actually see the knee pop backwards, then the theater doors opened up so we needed to move from in front of the doors. I helped him up and he limped to his seat ahead of us. He acted like he was mad at me which upset me in a sad, not mad, way because I felt really bad that he got hurt by my foolin’ about with him. Tracey asked what happened when we got seated. I told him. Chandler still wasn’t saying a word. I really thought he was mad at me which upset me more and more the more I thought about it because we were finally having a good, no teen drama night. We were having fun and I felt like I just killed it. After the show Chandler hobbled even slower out of the theater. We talked to him. We noted that it was the same knee he hurt when he was like 8 years old. (We had gone to a cook out at a friend’s house in Louisiana. This guy wasn’t the brightest of fellows and had recently cut a small tree down leaving about a foot or so of stump sticking out of the ground. All the kids were running around chasing each other thru the yard and it was dark out there. Chandler ran full speed into that stump with his knee. At the time it bruised up and had some swelling. The pediatrician told us to keep an eye on him and let him heal up since nothing appeared broken or out of place. He was mighty young to put thru an MRI or a scope if we didn’t have to. He got better but occasionally thru the years had some problems with the knee that generally passed within a couple days.)

We tried to leave Chandler alone and let him walk off the knee thing. We figured it’d be like every other time when he would have some difficulty and he’d walk it off. I still thought he was mad at me, tho, because when he’s hurt he usually comes to me right away and stays close. When he’s mad, he won’t.

It was time to use our FP’s for Peter Pan so we made our way around to that. I rode with Brian. Chandler rode with his dad. Aunt Laura insisted on not splitting any of us up. She’s too sweet.

I was so upset & worried about Chandler being mad at me. I didn’t enjoy the ride so much. When we got off Tracey said he was more concerned because of what Chandler told him was going on with the knee.

Brian was whining and getting y again wanting to go back to PotC to ride and shop. It was aggravating to hear him start his crap at a time like this. We didn’t really want to go back over there again but realizing Aunt Laura hadn’t done it yet figured we’d push on over that way. There wasn’t much time left before the park was going to close. Chandler didn’t have a prayer of keeping up. I tried to help him but he was too upset to let me. Tracey and I still weren’t 100% sure he wasn’t milking the knee thing because he’d been carrying on the previous night even complaining that his knees hurt when he was just tired and ready to go.

We made it to Pirates for a last voyage.

We even made it back out to the shop in time for Brian to buy a pistol & plastic knife (more fodder for the battles of Dominion Court).

We took it slow heading back out the gates. There weren’t many people left. It was nice. We took the monorail around to the Polynesian to retrieve our car from the self-park. Yes, we committed one of those unforgivable Disney sins. Shoot us. The lot wasn’t even thinkin’ about being full when we parked and pretty empty when we returned.

All in all it was a fun night that ended kinda on a sad note. Chandler finally talked to me on the way back to POFQ. He was mad, yes, because he wasn’t paying attention and thought I kicked him which I assured him I did not. I've never hurt him before. After discussing it further we realized what happened and it was all an accident. Yes, he really was hurting bad. No, he wasn’t tired and milking it like the night before. I was worried. We looked at his knee carefully front & back once we got to our room. We had him lay down with his legs together so we could compare the two. There wasn’t any swelling yet and didn’t appear to be any bruising. I was still very worried when I fell asleep at about 1:00 a.m.

 

[sweetpee_1993]

Is it normal to be up late reading trip reports as they are being posted? Maybe? But enjoying it none the less....

I do that so maybe the answer to the question would be "no" just because I don't consider myself normal at all. LOL! Glad you're up late with me. Both the kids are finally in bed, the hubby's been long gone, the dog has been snoozing since I propped up in bed, and even my brother & mother crashed. Yeah, we win the night owl award tonight!

 

[obrienIII]

I'm enjoying the report little Sis, but like others I'm up too late, have to work tomorrow.......guess the lack of sleep, spending too much on Christmas, and the fact I missed all of this fun with you at WDW, my customers will once again pay dearly tomorrow! LOL:lol:

 

[Billy6]

Yep...daughter fast asleep and my GF just got home from her salon after putting in some long hours this week for the holiday rush..Getting in a WDW fix by reading your TR. Not going again til June, which is kind of a bummer as we usually head down around Christmas...

 

[sweetpee_1993]

Day 5 - November 15th: The Day of the Pirate...and Amber Crabbie gets his wheels...

Day 5 - November 15th: The Day of the Pirate...and Amber Crabbie gets his wheels...

The late nights had taken their toll. We were tired so we slept in a little...until 8:20. I had to wash my hair which was good for an additional hour of work this morning. Tracey took the opportunity to wash up the little bit of laundry we had. The boys hung around at the resort. I think they might’ve gone for breakfast. Aunt Laura called to tell us she was over at the MK and they could take walk-ups at the Pirates League. (We’d been trying for 2 days to score an appointment for 2 with no luck.) I could tell from all her talking about it and asking Brian and us about it that she really wanted to do the Pirates League but didn’t feel comfortable doing it alone without a kid. I think it’s freakin’ awesome that there’s enough kid left in her that she would want to do a pirate makeover. Heck, if I had a little girl to go with I’d do Bibbity Bobbity Boutique! Brian did the Pirate’s League back in January and looooved it so he was totally game to do it again.

The boys and I set out for the bus to the MK to meet Aunt Laura and get Brian & her into the Pirates League. Tracey stayed behind to finish the laundry and go visit Riley. While waiting for the MK bus I received a pic of Riley via email that the Best Friends crew took. I had to choke back my tears. I missed my baby girl. I was starting to feel like maybe I just wanted to go home.

Chandler worked hard to keep up as we hurried over to Adventureland. I could tell he was really hurting. They didn’t have any ibuprofen in the gift shop that morning so he took some Aleve.

While waiting outside the Pirates League we sat out of the way. A funny pirate sneaked up behind Chandler and waited until I noticed to make a motion like he was gonna slide Chandler’s brand new fancy-pants sunglasses off their perch on top of his head. I tried not to smile. He almost go ‘em but Chandler turned to see who was there so he pretended like he wasn’t doing anything. When Chandler turned forward again the pirate did it again. This time he touched them right as Chandler whipped around. “I caught you! You tryin‘ to steal my sunglasses, man?” The kid was laughing so I was relieved he was gonna take the joking well vs. the teen angst response. The pirate smiled and replied, “Noooooo...not meeeee....” Still joking Chandler laughed as he said, “Dude, you lie.” The pirate gave him this complete duh-look and came back with, “Hellooooo??? Pirate.” as he pointed at himself with this silly sarcastic impression. Had to take pics of Chan’s newest friend!

Chandler was actually in a pretty good mood. He was looking around at all the details in this area and enjoying it. He took a pic of the entrance.

It was time for Brian & Aunt Laura to get their pirate names so Chandler & I tried to stay close but not be in the way. That place was waaaaaay busier than it was in January! Brian was named Henry Bridgewash and Aunt Laura was Esmerelda Deadfoote. That’s Deadfoote with an ‘e’.

We moved to the next room and waited for our pirate trainers to be ready for our trainees. Chandler and Aunt Laura were really taken with the decorations and props and such. There really is a lot to see in here.

We tried to do a picture of Brian, Aunt Laura, and me giving our meanest most intimidating pirate faces before the make-over. Aunt Laura couldn’t stop laughing.

We had a lot of fun waiting.

 

[sweetpee_1993]

I'm enjoying the report little Sis, but like others I'm up too late, have to work tomorrow.......guess the lack of sleep, spending too much on Christmas, and the fact I missed all of this fun with you at WDW, my customers will once again pay dearly tomorrow! LOL:lol:

I thought you were going to sleep?! This is so weird. We're posting to each other from rooms that are right next to each other.

You better not be too mean to your customers tomorrow. Remember, Santa knows who's good & who's bad. You don't wanna end up with a lump of coal. :xmas:

Yep...daughter fast asleep and my GF just got home from her salon after putting in some long hours this week for the holiday rush..Getting in a WDW fix by reading your TR. Not going again til June, which is kind of a bummer as we usually head down around Christmas...

I feel ya. Not sure when our next adventure will work out so I'll be living thru other's reports soon enough. This may be the last day I do for tonight, tho. Thanks for hangin' in with my brother (obrienIII) & me!

 

[sweetpee_1993]

Soon Esmerelda and Henry were seated in their respective chairs. It was so funny watching everything unfold. The pirate that had Brian was particularly amusing. He interacted with all of us including Aunt Laura and her pirate. It was like a big party.

Chandler wore an Abercrombie Athletics shirt today. Much to Brian’s pleasure his pirate teased his big brother relentlessly. He asked Chandler: “Is your name Amber?”
“Amber?”
“Yeah, Amber. It says it on your shirt: Amber Crabbie. That’s your name, right?”
“No. That’s just the shirt.”
“No?!” The pirate was confused.
“No.”
“Well it also says there on your shirt that you’re athletic. Are you athletic?”, asks the now curious pirate.
“Not really, no.”
“So you’re a liar?” asks the pirate.
“Well, I guess so. Yeah”, laughed Chandler.

So then Brian’s pirate is announcing to every pirate that passes by that this is Amber Crabbie and he’s not athletic like his shirt says so he’s a liar.

“Helllooooooo??? Pirate”, says Chandler pointing to himself in a very matter-of-fact way. Priceless! LOL!

So then I was laughing and said something about Chandler’s new pirate name being Amber Crappie and Brian’s pirate gasps. “My goodness! Mom’s got a potty mouth!”

“Hellooooooo??? Pirate”, I said pointing to myself in that matter-of-fact way. More laughter ensues.

Now the pirate is telling everyone about Chandler’s name being Amber Crabbie who’s not athletic even tho it says it on his shirt which makes him a liar and a different sort of pirate....aaaaand....Mom over here is a potty-mouth.....to which Brian brilliantly adds, “If you think she’s a potty mouth, you should hear my DAD!” And the whole place went nuts with gut-wrenching laughter. It was so fun!

Here’s our pirates in various stages of their makeovers. Pardon the terrible pics. I can't operate my camera well in low-light. LOL!

Brian:

And Aunt Laura:

Then we proceeded to the secret pirate room for the official pirate picture (which is no longer included and costs an additional $14.99) which we totally bought.

As we made our exit Tracey arrived. He had finished up the laundry and made a quick run over to see Riley and give her a walk. He was sorta sad he missed all the excitement after we told him about it. We’ll have to let Brian do it again next trip so Tracey can go enjoy. A few more pics out front by the cannon:

We were pretty hungry now. We had been so impressed with Pecos Bill’s a few days before that was a total no-brainer choice. We found a virtually empty seating area up and set away from the rest of the dining rooms which were packed. Tracey and I grabbed the food while the boys took a load off. We ate another great meal and chit-chatted. Part of the conversation turned to Chandler and his increasingly bad limp and slower pace. Should we just do a wheelchair for a few days???

After we ate I wanted to see if Pooh had opened back up post-refurb. I sooooo wanted to see it scrim-free. We made our way over there. It was open but the scrims were still enclosing the new queue area. Well that stunk. We skipped it. I was disappointed.

Brian started up again wanting to go back to Pirates to go to the shop. Of course when we all didn’t just spin around and run over there he got the y-britches again. Tracey and I were done with hearing his carrying on about shopping there day-in and day-out. We had already spent more time in the area of pirates than anywhere else this whole stinkin’ trip. We didn’t want to go there and he was gonna have to deal with it or die of it.

Aunt Laura, God Bless her, wanted to squash the tension so she grabbed Brian and hauled him over to PotC one more time. We leaned against a rail in the hub & watched the stage show while we waited for the pirate duo to come back across. By now it was certain that Chandler couldn’t keep pushing on that knee. Of course I felt worse about it than ever. Then he was trying to make me feel better by telling me over and over it was just a stupid accident. Tracey was tight-lipped because he was just plain aggravated at everything with the kids and pretty much fighting the urge to hop a flight back home. I think he was sorta irked at me, too, for horsing around with Chandler the night before to begin with or maybe he was just irked at the whole dumb situation. I dunno. I called Walker Mobility, the company Aunt Laura rents her ECVs from. I explained the situation and our need for a wheelchair for 3 days to see if Chandler got better. They said the wheelchair would be delivered within 15 minutes. Wow! That’s fast! Here’s a Main Street pic Tracey took on the way out. Score 1 for Disney with their killer Christmas decorations that can distract a man from his aggravation.

 

[Billy6]

My pleasure and again, enjoying it so far....Our last trip this past June was a trip to forget, as my Dad had a major medical emergency while we were there...Most of our trip was back and forth to the hospital, so its kinda bitter-sweet to read everyone's TR's. Going back to WDW,vicariously through all of them....Good stuff tonight and can't wait to read tomorrow....

Nite!!!:wave:

 

[sweetpee_1993]

We took the bus back to the resort. We helped Chandler get off the bus which by now had become quite difficult for him. We walked straight over to bell services and picked up the wheelchair. Chandler sat down. And that’s the official bottom from which we had nowhere to go but up.

There’s no better reality-check in life than something wrong with one of your children. Now the little aggravations around you don’t matter so much because your kid is hurt. Nothing trumps that. We decided we would NOT take him to the hospital or emergency clinic nearby because they’d just tell us to get him off the knee, ice it, take ibuprofen, and go see the orthopedic when we get home. We can handle that without the extra time & money spent.

We wheeled the kiddo inside. It was our first time telling Brian, “Push the button”, to open the door. That soon would be followed by, “Yeah! Push the button, Lee!”, like the line from Rush Hour. We went straight to the front desk to ask to be moved to the ground floor now that it was much more a necessity than before. They were so good to us. We were reassigned to building 5 ground floor on the back side of the building. No prob. Now we just had to move everything. And we had a LOT of stuff to move.

We raced up to our 3rd floor room and started throwing stuff together. We all worked together like a well-oiled machine and had everything packed & ready to go within 10 minutes. The front desk sent us a hand from bell services with a cart. Wonderful! He had that cart loaded top to bottom one side to the other. I don’t think he could’ve gotten another item strapped on if he wanted to. We set some stuff in Chandler’s lap, all grabbed a last arm full, then headed out. Tracey did a quick recheck of the room to make sure we got everything which we did. While we packed up a manager stopped by to make sure we were okay. It was so nice!

So we hauled all our crap down to the new room. We were back in motion unpacking again. We agreed on the time it took and were thoroughly impressed that all this controlled chaos only took a total of about 30 minutes to complete beginning to end. Awesome!

That was our first major step towards improved morale. That perspective stick sure can whip ya into shape!

Unfortunately, now we had no time for napping before our early dinner at Les Chefs de France. I offered to skip it if the guys wanted to just relax but they wouldn’t hear any of that. We were so impressed with it on our last trip this was what everyone had been looking forward to!

We arrived at Epcot via bus around 3:20. We opted for the bus because Tracey wasn’t so sure the wheelchair would fit in the back of the car when folded. We didn’t really have time to waste trying in case it didn’t fit.

Aunt Laura wasn’t into Les Chefs so we were on our own for dinner. No prob! We were seated at 4:20 for our 4:50 ADR.

Not long after we were seated we saw Belle & Beast walking backstage. Someday I will get my picture with them together!

I ordered Kronenbourg 1664 beer. It was yuuuuuummy! The 1st one the waiter was being nice and carefully poured it into a glass for me. When he brought the 2nd I knew to catch him before he started pouring but I think I caught him a little off-guard because he asked me a couple times to be sure I wanted him to just hand me the bottle. I can’t stand wine. I’m a beer girl. If it doesn’t come out of a tap I’d prefer to drink from the bottle.

Our waiter, Peter, was so much fun. As usual I ordered first (ladies first, I guess). I took a year of French in high school a looooooong time ago so I was sorta interested to see if what I thought was how to pronounce things was even close to correct. I didn’t want to come across as a complete idiot so I stated what I wanted in English then asked Peter how to say the name in French. He said it then helped me say it correctly. It was fun! The guys were all entertained with this exchange. Tracey was next to order and the fun really ensued when Peter made him say his selections ‘en francais’ as well. Brian thought he’d be smarter than his dad was so when he was next up he just smiled and said, “Same” and motioned towards his dad. He wasn’t off the hook that easy. He was required to say ‘meme’ which is same in French. Chandler was last and managed his French quite well. I could tell we were mildly entertaining to Peter so I’m glad we could give him a bit of a laugh.

I ordered from the price fix selections so I could get an appetizer without paying additional. I had the lobster bisque which was smack-yo-mama killer:

...and the short rib entree which was also freakin’ awesome....

...and the chocolate cake for dessert which I don’t have a pic of but it also knocked my socks off.

Tracey had the same entree as me but he had the french onion soup which both he & Brian both thoroughly enjoyed.

Brian was goofin' around making faces during dinner. I know. Sophistication, huh? Oh well.... ((My brother will totally "get" this face! :lol)

After dinner we decided we’d start making our way over to DHS for EMH. We took the boat, of course. It was insane packed by the time we got to DHS. Chandler was pretty aggravated at a lady who rolled her smallish double stroller onto the boat, parked it at the back of the boat, then had the one kid who was sitting in it get up to go sit on a bench with her. She didn’t fold the stroller (which had no gear stored in it & looked like it would’ve been easy to do). There were people in wheelchairs who couldn’t get on the boat because there was no room when there clearly could’ve been.
When we got into DHS we gave Aunt Laura a call. We met up with her near Muppets. We went ahead and queued up for the show. I hadn’t seen it since the refurb so it was really great to see it so clean and crisp. No more grainy picture! I love love love the Muppets and the movie is always something I really enjoy.

After the show we browsed the Muppet’s shop. I love all the merch but didn’t feel the need to spend any money. Yay for me! As we strolled along I took a few horrible pics of stuff I don’t remember seeing previously. More pay dirt for remembering to look up. LOL!

 

[sweetpee_1993]

My pleasure and again, enjoying it so far....Our last trip this past June was a trip to forget, as my Dad had a major medical emergency while we were there...Most of our trip was back and forth to the hospital, so its kinda bitter-sweet to read everyone's TR's. Going back to WDW,vicariously through all of them....Good stuff tonight and can't wait to read tomorrow....

Nite!!!:wave:

Oh man! Sorry to hear about your dad's emergency and the last trip being a bust. I suppose your next adventure is bound to be better ((knocking on some wood for ya)).

Yep, gonna finish up this trip day and I'm off to visit Mr. Sandman myself.

Nighty-night!
:wave:



:snore:

 

[sweetpee_1993]

Next we strolled thru Tattoine Traders. More cool stuff. Chandler was sorta bummed at Star Tours being closed. Even in it’s cheese-ball, out of date version there was a bit of nostalgia for him. We’re all looking forward to what the next incarnation has to offer, tho. Definitely a double-edged sword for the kiddos.

Tracey started whining about needing a pretzel so we moved back towards the BaH to get him one.

Since we were right there anyway we decided to check out the Great Movie Ride. We were in the back row of the vehicle which was a different perspective to have. It was nice. Honestly, I could skip the whole ride-thru portion and just watch the showcase film at the end of the ride 4 times. That’s my favorite part!

After GMR we decided it was time to head back towards the Osborne lights. Tracey had never seen it before. When we were at WDW in early December ’07 he didn’t get to see it with the boys & me. We had dinner at LeCellier that night. We were so dazzled with that first dinner at LeCellier that when we left to go over to DHS to see the lights we ((correction: TRACEY)) forgot our brand new video camera at the table. We were walking up to the turnstiles at DHS before we realized it. Tracey ran back to the restaurant while the boys and I went on in to see the lights. When we met back up the park was closing so he didn’t get to see it. Needless to say, the Osborne lights didn’t disappoint. The whole thing is just freakin’ mind-blowing. With it being EMH the streets weren’t mobbed so it was very laid back. We walked back & forth looking for all the Mickeys, enjoying the fun details, listening to the music (& singing along), and just basking in the awesomeness. Here’s a few pics for ya but be warned: they aren’t so great.

The Lights, Motors, Action! sign looked pretty nifty all lit up at night, too! I had never seen it like that before.

When we finally peeled ourselves away we just started meandering up towards Pixar Place to see (& laugh at) the standby time for TSMM. I love that ride and the standby queue is one of the best I’ve ever seen but I have a rule about hour + lines. No way.

I was surprised to see One Man’s Dream open during EMH because I thought it wasn’t included in the offerings. It was open so we went on inside to see what had changed. The biggest thing that stood out was all the decorated walls up where there used to be cool displays. It kinda stunk...which brings me to the fresh paint/new carpet smell. You could really tell just from the smell that everything in there was fresh & new. We enjoyed the many models displayed outside the theater. Of course we stayed for the movie which I never, ever get tired of seeing.

After One Man’s Dream we were all pretty pooped so we decided to call it a night. We headed to our respective bus depots. We got back to our resort at about 11:00.

The night wasn’t over yet, tho. I had to get that pirate make-up off of Brian’s face. I had a heck of a time getting the stuff off right around his eyes. I guess boys aren’t so used to having someone work in that area because he kept squinting when I touched him. I was so afraid I’d get soap in his eyes. But then I remembered I had a bottle of baby shampoo in one of my bags to be able to bathe Riley before & after her stay at Best Friends. The baby shampoo worked pretty good. I didn’t get all the makeup off 100% but I got pretty close.

We were all showered and off to bed at midnight. What a day!

 

[Ariel484]

Yay! You're here, too! Wow! Everyone is along for the ride. I love it! The more the merrier in my book! I should have a bunch more tonight for y'all. Awwww...and Riley Belle (who's currently snuggled up next to my legs in bed) loves you, too. She loves everyone. Thanks for the compliments on my tote. I'm totally addicted to Disney Dooney's! You'll see my Christmas present on our last day when I picked it out AND got the Disney Visa discount.

Yep, add me to the list of people who were waiting for you to post your report!

I totally know how you feel with missing your pup during your trip...we have a dog and he's like our child (since we have no human children yet). I would've been upset too with the whole not eating thing...isn't it a horrible feeling knowing that they're upset?

And, EXCUSE ME...Disney Visa discount for the Dooneys? Whaaaa?

--Shannon