After the Fishing FUNdamentals excursion, I decided to stop into the gift shop in the Inn, the Island Grove Packing Company, to take some pictures for you DISers who like to have this kind of info.
Here are some hats.
And some jackets.
The lineup of snacks.
Some refrigerated items.
And even more refrigerated items.
Unfortunately, I didn't get a broader picture of the store in general because at this point I was taking a lot of flak from James. He was embarrassed that his dad was taking pictures of store refrigerators, apparently. But other than what you can see here, they have a small selection of Disney character t-shirts, sweatshirts, jackets, bags, and of course other items like trading pin starter kits and magnets and such. It's a pretty small store, but they keep it about as full as their space will allow.
Back out on the sidewalk, we ran into the girls on their way to the refill station to get some drinks before lunch. I accompanied them to the refill station and got another picture, since it was closed up when I took the pictures on my early-morning stroll.
From there, we went back to our suite to have lunch. Sorry, again no pictures! But it wasn't too exciting -- just sandwiches of lunch meat, cheese, and lettuce. Lauren was mad because we hadn't thought to buy any mustard or mayo. We did have some Ranch dressing though, and we told her to try that. She said, "Hey, this is pretty good!" And I said, "We're expanding your horizons one sandwich at a time", to which I got a
.
After lunch, we all went over to the Community Hall for the Sharktooth Necklace activity. While we were waiting for it to start, I got a text from one of my sisters who told me that Mom (ie. Gram) had bought a new bathing suit for the trip, and now they were tagging their luggage and trying to find some shorts in the attic. One text said Dad will have white legs. (Sometimes his grandkids call him "Whitey" for that reason...he almost never wears shorts. I wouldn't be surprised if one day I saw "Poppy's Legs" as the name of an off-white paint chip sample at Home Depot.)
I walked into the hallway next to the Community Hall and saw this picture:
I texted it to my sister and said, "Just found Grams suit ;-)".
Forget the suit. Look at those shoes...they look like what a boxer would wear! I could see Charlie Chaplin showing off a little fancy footwork in those.
Anyway, our instructor for the activity came in and it was none other than Maryann. She said "Hi James!". It's always nice to know the teacher.
Other kids were arriving, and one parent brought a girl who hadn't registered ahead of time, to see if they could squeeze her in. Maryann said that they were full by the number who registered, but they could hang around to see if anyone didn't show up. Eventually everyone showed up and they had to turn her away. I felt a little bad since my kids were older and didn't really need to do this activity, but hey, we signed up and they offer it pretty much every day, so she could catch it another time.
Once everyone was seated at the tables, they had the kids take turns going past the table in the front to pick out their yarn, beads, and shark tooth. Then Maryann showed them how to string some beads, tape their yarn to the table, and make some basic knots and braids.
Lauren was thrilled when she got back to the table and discovered that she had chosen a similar color palette as both her brother
and sister.
Back a couple of years ago, Lauren had a hobby of making hemp wrist-bands and anklets and things. (In fact, in my 2010 trip report you can see that I'm wearing one at the beginning of the trip, but lost it by the end.
) Consequently, she knew lots of neat ways to braid and twist their yarn and helped James and Marlene with theirs. A little girl across from her also needed a little help.
James definitely needed some help for his ambitious attempts.
Judy took a cellphone picture of me with the kids to prove that I was there.
Most of the younger kids I think, just tied some knots, threw on some beads, tied more knots and called it "done", which is fine of course. My kids worked hard...braiding, knotting, twisting, starting over...braiding, knotting, twisting. And they were the last to leave, but they made some nice necklaces, in
my biased opinion.
At $10 each, it was probably a little pricey for some yarn, beads, and a necklace-ready shark tooth. But hey, you're on vacation, and you get an activity
and a souvenir all at the same time. And maybe when you look at it like that, it's not too bad.
Up next: Turtle Walk
and walk and walk
Link to next chapter
That looked like a nice fishing journey! I'd be worried about accidentally catching the turtle!
It made for a fun time though. The CM was great with them.
for engineering!
