Trip #1, The 1st of Our Journeys/ AKA SIT DOWN!!

[dakjoskaimiksmom]

To properly experience this TR, you really need to check out my pre-TR's (yes, I assume SOMEONE besides myself may be reading this.)

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?p=38646465#post38646465

-and currently in progress:
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2478132


You may also need a valium.


We've had major setbacks and minor setbacks in the last 2 years of planning this that can only be comprehended by those who know the background. It also clarifies why our family would split up for 2 trips. Let me just say, I would have liked to have all of us together on this trip. I really would. I'm sure it would have been cheaper, if nothing else, but it just wasn't happening.

Anyway, on to the trip report!

Starring 1/2 our current family unit:

Kai 8

Mike 5

-and-

Me 36

Our trip begins January 7th at 5:16 am (not my finest hour), with dh waking me up with an odd request. Well, odd for anyone else. Not us. And he's lucky I didn't bite his head off, as I am not a morning person. He was SUPPOSED to wake me up at 5, no later. Anyway, his request was that I finish registering him for his spring semester classes, while he headed off to build snowplows at work. He's starting school fulltime at the end of the month, on top of having a fulltime job. Fortunately they're all online classes this time, so we'll still get to see him occasionally.

Once I got done with that little favor (sorry about the astronomy class, hon), I made coffee, took the world's fastest shower, and started getting everybody ready for the airport. Everything was packed except my phone and the camera, which were charging.

My mother lives right next door, so it was her job to deliver us to the airport. We called each other back and forth a few times, and at 6:45 we were out loading up the car.

This is where I made my 1st mistake. It was about, oh say 10 degrees out. The kids were bundled up and in the car. I put my coffee on the roof (you see where this is going), and proceeded to load the suitcase and carry on's into the already-warm car. Everyone was happy and excited (well, I was. My mom was a tad jealous that she couldn't go, and worried about EVERYTHING. The kids were still half asleep in the backseat, sucking their thumbs.)

My mom was driving v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y for some reason, and kept messing with the wipers. She was also weaving around the road. I'm surprised we didn't get pulled over.

As I was about to start yelling at her to watch the road, I noticed some kind of frozen, brown, icy trails down the windshield. At the same time I said, "Oh, crap, my coffee!", she said, "What the heck is on my windshield??"

We had a good laugh.

It's only about 2 miles to Mitchell International from our house, so despite the coffee escapade, we still arrived by 7:05.

This was where it got interesting, and to the people behind us at the curb: I apologize.

Like most airports, Mitchell has curbside check in. This area is ONLY for the loading and unloading of cars, but my mother had different ideas. I got the luggage out, then unloaded the kids. They said their good-byes, and...grandma told them to get back in the car. They did.

Huh?? "Um, mom. People are beeping. The kids are coming with me, so... they need to be out here."

So back out they hopped.

"You're using curbside check in, right? Kids, hop back in the car while your mom checks in."

In they hopped.

Me, getting irate: "Ma, they have to carry some of this carry on. I can't just leave it sit here, and I can't carry everything at once!"

The kids got out of the car slowly, looking from my mother to me for further instruction.

I won.

Grandma finally drove away in defeat. To be fair, she only wanted to keep the kids from freezing outside while I checked in the suitcase, which took all of 2 minutes.

Next up:
If you want to sit there, fine! But you're holding a kid!

 

[dakjoskaimiksmom]

Considering how rotten my luck is, this trip went really, really well. We had only a couple minor inconveniences. I would have been terrified if NOTHING bad had happened, simply because something MAJOR bad would have happened later instead. That's how my life works. The following has not been embellished at all, and I did write it all down on our long, long flight for journaling purposes. Now that I reread and relive this, it's actually hilarious. At the time, though, I was fuming.
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Now that we were officially on vacation, all checked in at the airport (via online check in the night before), and had our luggage stowed, we set out to find some grub. We also checked out some of the cool stuff at the airport.

Neither of the kids were keen on breakfast, so we decided on OJ for Mike, bottled water for Kaiya, and more coffee for me. The total came to $8.06.

We sat down, and all took a sip.

Mike: "This juice tastes funny."

Kai: "I shouldn't have gotten Strawberry flavor. It tastes weird."

Me: "Grr."

I pretty much knew I'd just wasted $8.06, because it's not like we could just take it with us on the plane.

We then schlepped our bags over to the book store, where I picked up some reading material, a pack of gum, and a lighter (since I forgot mine). Total: $14.00.

After throwing away a full-minus-one-sip OJ, and a full-minus-one-sip water, and 2 phone calls to grandma and daddy, we headed over to Concourse C.
Now, everyone who knows me KNOWS I am not a big fan of the TSA. I have to say though, the agents we dealt with at Mitchell were nice and professional. And also funny. One comedian in a blue shirt kept announcing that we were to line up in alphabetical order. A couple of people in line actually tried to.


As fast as the line was moving, it wasn't fast enough. Mike had begun his low-grade whine. It usually starts with "My feeeet huuuurrrrrt." and goes downhill into a fullblown crying/screaming jag. Fortunately, we made it up to the screeners just then, so he was too busy taking off his shoes to whine anymore.
We made it through security just in time to hear, "Final boarding call for Flight 671". Crap! I grabbed our bags, and Kaiya helped Michael hobble to the gate with one shoe one, squealing all the way.

I handed over our boarding passes, and Kai helped Mike get his other shoe on. Then we walked into the chaos that was our plane.

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My plan had been simple enough. Reserving seats ahead of time was $13 a pop, so I reserved an aisle seat and a window seat, thus saving myself the $13 middle seat charge. I figured no one WANTS a middle seat. Some people like window, and some like aisle, but no one deliberately chooses to sit between 2 strangers. This logic was flawless, but I didn't count on a squatter trying to jack our window seat.

We came to row 29, disoriented by the mass of humanity stowing their full-sized luggage carry on's. Mike was back to whining about his feet, and Kaiya was starting to whine about his incessant whining. There, in my prepaid window seat, was a dude. I checked the row again. Yup. It's our row.

"Excuse me", I said. "You're in our seat."

He looked at me like I was green.

"I have aisle seat there", he said in broken European/English, pointing across the aisle.

He didn't move.

OOOOkkkkkk? So....?

"Are you going to sit there?" I asked.

"My seat is there", he said, still not moving.

"I see that", I said. "But you're sitting in MY seat."

"Yes. I sit here", he said.

At this point, Mike is crying that he got stepped on, Kai is whining at full volume that she's claustrophobic (since when?!), and the people around us are starting to snicker.

"Look", I said. "I paid $26 to reserve these seats. If you want to sit here, fine. But you WILL be holding a kid on your lap!!"

He moved.

Next up:

Getting there is 1/2 the battle.

 

[topdog]

I like it already. A little chaos. Hope it gets better.

I have forgotten how many times I left my coffee on top of my car countless time. Mine usually it fly off the car and land on the road. After so many time, even the mug is stainless steel, it was dent so many time beyond recognition.

 

[dakjoskaimiksmom]

I have forgotten how many times I left my coffee on top of my car countless time. Mine usually it fly off the car and land on the road. After so many time, even the mug is stainless steel, it was dent so many time beyond recognition.

This was a paper cup. My mom called me later and said she found it frozen to the top of the car between the luggage rack thingies in a puddle of brown ice.

 

[dakjoskaimiksmom]

Once we were situated, it was ok. Let me point out, though, that the last time I was on a plane was in 2001. During the interim between then and now, I seem to have developed air sickness.

So basically, my flight was 3 hours of entertaining kids, worrying about our car and hotel reservations, and trying not to yak. I won't bore you with the details, but I assure you, it wasn't pretty.

When we finally arrived at MCO, our 1st stop was baggage claim. After a few minutes of watching our suitcase (the BIG one, borrowed from my mom in the dead of night) carousel around over and over, I thought to check the tag. Yup. The navy blue one was ours, and, no, it wasn't black like I thought. My bad.

Then we lugged everything to Alamo to get our car. I was SURE I'd have some problem with my Priceline ressie, but all was well. We picked out a smoke-gray 2011 Malibu, loaded up, and headed out.

Then I realized that I had no navigator. All those fancy, detailed mapquest instructions were useless while driving. Neither kid reads well enough to help, and obviously I couldn't read and drive at the same time.

I also made the fatal error of changing plans at the last minute. In my sheaf of paper, the closest thing I had to a clue was labelled "Hotel to Airport", so I attempted to follow them backwards.

Our wanderings landed us at Cici's Pizza. Some people don't like it, but it's cheap, filling, and every location has the friendliest waitstaff I've ever seen. The manager rang us up, gave us our glasses for drinks, and some small talk (including directions!). I love Cici's.


We left the airport at 1:15, and got to our hotel at 4:30 pm. It was a sad state of affairs, but at least we had a shiny new car to get lost in.

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You meet some strange people in this world sometimes. And the best way to have them notice you is to have an outgoing, inquisitive child at your side.

Standing in line at the registration desk at Celebration Suites, I spent most of my wait yelling at Michael to sit on the couch. For some reason, he decided that vinyl upholstry is perfect for putting one's feet on. In all the hubbub, I failed to notice the guy in front of me. Unfortunately, Kaiya misses nothing.

"Mom.", she whispered loudly, "Why does that man have fingernails?"

"Michael, SIT DOWN!", I yelled. "Everyone has nails, honey. SIT!!"

"But he has a bird, and grandma nails.", she said louder.

Now I didn't know what man she was talking about--until I noticed the guy in front of us had a basket with paper towel in it, and the paper towel is COVERED with bird poo.

Then I see this giant cockatoo climbing up the guy's arm. He reaches out to help the bird up and, oh mylanta, he has fingernails to die for. Bright pink, long, perfectly filed nails that do not match his graying, balding head, or his cargo shorts/t shirt/sneakers ensemble.

Oh dear.

I'm sure he heard Kai's befuddled questions, but he ignored it like a pro. In fact, he probably hears it all the time. Anyway he had bigger problems, because the hotel wasn't happy about the pooing, squawking, giant bird staying in his room without a "pet fee".

I got waited on then, so I didn't stick around to see the outcome of the "Fingernail/Bird Guy" as we refer to him.

The ressies went without a hitch, and we were directed to building J, room 2324.

And the murphy bed:

The only question now is, what do we do for the rest of the day?

 

[dakjoskaimiksmom]

I decided we should rest a bit before heading out. We'd all been up unusually early, Michael hadn't taken a nap, and I was bushed.

Our rest lasted about 20 minutes, during which I actually sat down for about a minute.

Oh well.

I took a vote, and we went with our original plan, which was visiting Downtown Disney. Once again, we got lost. Well not so much "lost" as turned around. We DID get there, by way of China, but by then the kids had fallen asleep.

So back to the hotel we headed, passing a Publix on the way. Oh, good. We needed breakfast and lunch stuff anyway.

I woke up the kids, stuffed them into a cart, and rolled into the store. 5 minutes later, Mike was whining (which I expected), Kai was walking, and our cart was getting full.

We got bananas, mixed fresh fruit, 1/2 gallons of OJ, skim milk, and 1%, 2 frozen pizzas, Lunchables, tv dinners, soda, and miscellaneous junk. Our total came to $77. A little high for what we got, but still under budget.

On the way back to the hotel, we stopped at 7-11 for Icees, doughnuts, individual cereal bowls, and a mood ring for Kai.

We went back to the room, and put the food away. The kids each had a Lunchable, and I discovered a problem: we had no oven to make the pizzas in.

I refused to worry about it that night.

After getting the kids cleaned up, pajama'd, and tucked into bed, I called dh for a wake-up call at 6:30 am.

Up next: Flexible is my middle name.

 

[dakjoskaimiksmom]

I'm not sure what time dh called to wake us up. All I know is that I fell back asleep, and didn't actually get out of bed until 7:40.

Between getting myself ready, packing our day bag, and trying to wake the kids, there was no way we were going to make rope drop at MK.

Some of us weren't as excited as others.

I finally got fed up with waiting for them to get dressed and took matters into my own hands. After some tickling, they were both up and ready to take on the day. We grabbed our bag, juice, and jackets, and headed out.

I should mention here that while waiting for the kids to brush their teeth and go potty, I'd taken another look at those mapquest directions. It turns out I'd been going the wrong way down 192, which explains why I couldn't find International Drive. No wonder it took so long to get to Downtown Disney last night!

The drive this morning took less than 10 minutes to get here:

Now we were ALL excited!

I handed Kai our parking money to hold onto, and we followed the signs to the MK lots.

We parked in Sleepy.

We walked 10 million miles to the TTC (according to the kids), and headed into the 1st shop we saw. Kaiya needed a lanyard for her pins, which we got, and Mike fell in love with a plush day-glo Mickey Mouse. Total Spent: $17.

From there we went to the actual transportation section. Teaming masses of people were milling around the MK boats AND the MK monorail.

I thought quick, noticed NO ONE going to Epcot , and asked the kids if it really mattered if we went to MK tomorrow instead. Not knowing any better, they went along with the new plan.

We hiked up to the monorail ALONE and were the first on board of 6 people.

On arrival, there was a brief argument over who should insert our tickets (which I won).

We passed the Legacy area to "the big golf ball"...

...and decided to try Spaceship Earth 1st.

It said 10 minute wait, but it was really only about 5. Naturally, Mike started whining about his feet.

It was a fun 5 minutes.

Once we got on, everyone was happy. I sat behind the kids...

...so I spent the whole ride reaching over to hold Michael's hand through the dark parts. They both LOVED it. Mike was especially enamoured with Michelangelo painting the Sistine Chapel.

When we got out, we went to the Information Center to get the kids' 1st Visit buttons. Then into Innoventions (I think) to get our Kim Possible Mission.

At this point, we were getting hungry, so we went to the Electric Umbrella and sat outside to eat.

See that bottle of water? It will re-enter the story in 2 days.

We dumped our trash (Kaiya threw out both kids' grapes, unopened.) and started walking again.

The kids were blown away by this:

Then we found Club Cool.

Kaiya found a flavor she liked:

Then she tasted the Beverly:

We both agree that it tasted like vinegar. Mike liked it for some reason, which I found hilarious.

After our drinks,we passed this guy:

What happened next? Stay tuned to find out!

 

[topdog]

Then I realized that I had no navigator. All those fancy, detailed mapquest instructions were useless while driving. Neither kid reads well enough to help, and obviously I couldn't read and drive at the same time.

It's time to invest a GPS.

I also made the fatal error of changing plans at the last minute. In my sheaf of paper, the closest thing I had to a clue was labelled "Hotel to Airport", so I attempted to follow them backwards.

Not a bad idea.

We left the airport at 1:15, and got to our hotel at 4:30 pm. It was a sad state of affairs, but at least we had a shiny new car to get lost in.

A three hours tour...a three hours tour...which should've been about 30 minutes.

I got waited on then, so I didn't stick around to see the outcome of the "Fingernail/Bird Guy" as we refer to him.

Not sure I want to know either.

 

[dakjoskaimiksmom]

Not sure I want to know either.

I try to keep an open mind, but somehow those nails just struck me as ludicrous. I bite mine, so maybe I'm just jealous.

 

[dakjoskaimiksmom]

Our next stop was a trip down memory lane.

I have a picture of my 15 yr old, Kota, in this same spot, doing the same thing when he was 7. It's funny how time flies.

Our next stop was the boat to Germany to pick up some candy for my husband. He was an army brat, so he spent part of his childhood in Germany. He claims that they have the best candy on earth, so I was hoping they'd have something he'd like.

Conveniently, there was a smoking area right across the way, so I took advantage.

I swore I wouldn't be one of those parents who drags their kids around hunting down smoking areas, and I kept that promise for the most part. But if we happened to stumble upon one, it was fair game. I'm buying one of those E-cigarettes next month, so I'm hoping to have quit by Trip #2.

A few minutes later, we saw our boat coming.

It stopped in Moracco, then Germany. First we went here:

It was ALL Werther's candy. It's good stuff, but I knew dh would rather have some kind of chocolate. So we went down this street...

...Where we found St. George slaying his dragon...

...Outside a shop that sold all kinds of German trinkets, as well as chocolate. I picked out a Hachez bitter chocolate bar for dh, and Mike fell in love with a HUGE Gummi Bear. I'm sure his dentist will thank me.

Then the kids spent about 45 minutes at the Kidcot Station.

I'm not sure who thought arming kids with permanent markers would be a good idea, but they came away relatively unmarked.

When I was able to drag them away, we headed toward Norway. Conveniently enough, someone placed another smoking area in our path, so we visited it and entertained the other smokers with an impromptu puppet show:

Soon we saw Norway. The kids were itching for another ride, and I knew they'd like Maelstrom.

It was a walk-on, we loved it, and we all wanted to ride again. When we came out, though, there was a 20 minute wait. So we hit The Puffin's Nest for a lanyard for Mike and a charm bracelet and 2 charms for Kai, then kept walking until we neared Mexico. Kaiya wanted her Mouse Ears:

...And I spent $9 on a Strawberry Margarita. It was quite excellent, but the kids took WAY too much notice of it. First they thought it was an Icee, and that I would share. THEN they asked a million questions about what was in it, and would kids die if they drank it?

After Kaiya said it smelled like Grandpa's Listerine, I changed the subject, but somehow that ONE little margarita would stay in Kai's head for the rest of the day (as I found out later. )

At some point near here, Kai also hit me up for some cute, dangly pink earrings made from paper by Ugandan women. They were only $7, but they are CUTE! I kinda wish I'd gotten myself some.

As we strolled through Mexico, Kaiya asked a funny question.

"Was I born in Mexico?", she asked.

"Noooo", I answered, baffled. "You were born in Milwaukee."

"Oh.", she said. "Cuz my teacher said I'm Mexican".

Say what?

Kai goes to a private school, and apparently her PUERTO RICAN features confused her teacher. They were talking about foreign countries that border America, and her teacher assumed that Miss Kaiya was from our southern neighbor. I made a mental note to straighten her out when we got back.

Michael, of course, had to outdo her with a loud, "I WAS BORN IN INDIANA!!"


Up Next: Lt. Dan sends Piglet to Mars.

 

[dakjoskaimiksmom]

I have a weird habit: I give my kids nicknames. Not just one nickname each, but many. Kota, for example, has spent his life being called Stu, Lou, Stuey-Lou, and Smalls (before he got taller than me!).

Josh is Fingers Negron (his Mafia name ) and Mr. Joshenheimer.

Kaiya is Stinky Pete, Pete, and Orkai when she's naughty (a variation of the Orcqui from Lord of the Rings).

Michael answers to Mike, Bubba, Bub, and Bubbyham. In fact, there's a whole back story to the Bubbyham one, which is where the "weird" part comes in.

Before he was even born, we called him Bubby. As in, "Bubby is making mommy's lap go away." and "Get out of Bubby's crib. He hasn't even used it yet." So when he was porky at birth, and a healthy eater to boot, I started calling him Bubbyham. When Kai and Josh (2 and 3) asked where their new brother came from, I jokingly told them "the pig farm". It's been a running joke ever since.

Even more fitting, the child squeals. He squeals when he's happy. He squeals when he's mad. His squeals are quite deafening, actually. I thought he'd have outgrown the squealing by now, but no such luck. Maybe when he hits puberty, the squeals will end.

------------------------------

So, now we were on our way to Mission Space. I took a few pictures outside while finishing my ONE margarita.

This was also a walk-on, so we were happy. We went with the green team, and established that Kai was Navigator, Mike was Commander, and I was Pilot (I think those are the titles??). We went Engineer-less.

Once we stood through Lt. Dan's spiel (he'll always be Lt. Dan to me!), we got seated in our "ship". I held Michael's hand as best I could, and we all pressed the flashing buttons as directed.

Somewhere around the time we passed the moon, I heard a squeal building up next to me. By the time we landed our poor ship, Mike was in a full being-led-to-slaughter state. I practically had to carry him out of the pod, swooning as he was. I got a few sympathetic glances from other people with even smaller kids, and a few "what kind of mother are you?" glares from others. Then, as expected, the squealing stopped and Michael asked me in his cutest voice, "Can we do that again?"
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Edited to add: I forgot a few minor details. In the gift shop, we picked up a Mickey/Tron pin for Mike, and one of those 6 inch sugar-in-a-test-tube jobbers each for Kai, Mike and Josh. They also spent quite a while in the play area while I rested my aching feet. Not an important detail, but a detail nonetheless.
Up Next: Everything Here is FAKE!

 

[dakjoskaimiksmom]

While exiting Mission Space, I noticed this little number:

Wouldn't Mickey consider that genocide?

Then we ambled off, looking for The Seas. I knew the kids would love it, so I was excited to see them experience it.

On our way, we passed Ellen's Universe of Energy:

Which was apparently closed.

Then I got shanghai'd into stopping here:

Where I dropped another $25 on a birthstone pin for Kai, and a Minnie Mouse pin for Mike.

About this time, Kaiya decided that she'd had enough and wanted to go back to the hotel. It was only about 3 pm. I hadn't planned on staying late or anything, but seriously? 3 pm?

I told her we'd do Nemo and The Land, and then we could leave.

We finally got here:

And Michael and I were stoked. Kai, not so much. We boarded our shell and followed Nemo, Marlin, and Dory through the sea.

Kaiya SEEMED like she enjoyed it, but once we were out she started whining. Hmmm. Maybe I SHOULD have gotten that stroller this morning.

I promised we'd leave as soon as we got done with The Land. We hustled over, passing Mickey, Donald, and Goofy on the way.

"Do you want to stop?", I asked.

"NO!", squealed Mike, and grabbed my hand.

"No!", said Kai. "They're FAKE. Everything here is FAKE."



Alrighty, then.

Onto The Land. I was a bit smug (immature, I know) as I pointed out the REAL fish, REAL plants, and REAL alligators.

"Yeah, but everything else is FAKE.", she countered.

Whatever.

As soon as we got off The Land, Kai decided to punish me by running ahead and hiding behind the escalator. This is when I lost it. "Sit DOWN!", I roared (I'm not a roarer by nature, but I was provoked. )

Girlfriend got a timeout right there in the middle of Epcot.

When her 8 minutes were up (8 minutes of Michael hugging me and saying, "I'm good, right Mommy?" ), we started heading for the monorail back to the TTC.


We took this little number back to the trams:

Up next: It was only ONE Margarita!!

 

[dakjoskaimiksmom]

After finding our car with surprising ease, I made an executive decision that lesser parents may have shied away from: instead of going directly back to the hotel, we'd go out to dinner. The former Western Sizzlin', now Sizzlin' Grill, was right across the street from the hotel. I knew all-you-can-eat crab legs would put Kai in a better mood, so off we went.

5 minutes into our 15 minute drive, Michael started whining. Worse, it was his "I have to pee and I can't hold it" whine. I drove as fast as I could get away with, but no sooner did we pull into the Sizzlin' Grill lot, then he started to cry, "I'm peeing and I can't stop it!"

Now that the child is housebroken, he HATES having accidents. I felt horrible.

What kind of mother doesn't take her kids to the bathroom before they get in the car? Well, the kind that has sore feet and an angry 8 yr old daughter, apparently.

We walked into Sizzlin' Grill with poor Michael hiding his wet pants under his jacket, which I tied around his waist. I paid for the buffet, placed our drink order, and hustled both kids into the bathroom.

Fortunately, this particular restroom was equipped with the industrial-strength hand dryer. I parked Mike in a stall, wrapped his Toy Story underwear in paper towel and threw them in my purse, and held his pants up to the dryer until they were mostly dry again.

Once that was over, we went to the buffet. All told, Kai had 3 plates of crab legs and 1/2 plate of crawdads. Mike had veggies, popcorn shrimp, and peel and eat shrimp. I had a big, fat steak and the best buttered peas I've ever tasted. We left happy.

Now that Kai was in a MUCH better mood, we headed back to Downtown Disney after a pitstop at the hotel to change Mike's pants. Not only were the kids still awake on arrival, we also got a GREAT parking space: 1st slot behind World of Disney.

I had only one goal in mind: Potato Head parts. For Christmas, I got Mike the Potato Head suitcase with a zillion parts for the express purpose of being able to buy more at Downtown Disney. Fortunately this was his absolute favorite gift, so it was well worth the trouble.

Once inside, we assembled our box and got to collecting parts. He ended up with 2 grippy arms, 2 mouse ear balloons, a Stormtrooper helmet, Cruella's hair, a princess hat, a pirate hat and eyes with eyepatch, a Goofy hat with ears, and miscellaneous eyes, noses, and mouths. Mission accomplished.

Then Kai picked out 2 more charms for her bracelet. I was trying to spend the same amount on each kid, so she also got a stuffed Baby Marie from The Aristocats.

Our shopping done, we headed outside and looked around a bit.

We stopped at Goofy's Candy Co., but it was a mob scene, so we left.

We almost went to Ghiradelli's for ice cream, but the prices were SCARY. Especially when we were still full from dinner, and I knew no one would eat a whole ice cream.

Then Mike spotted a popcorn wagon. Remember my ONE margarita? This is where it came back to bite me in the butt.

We walked up to the friendly cm, who was probably all of 18 yrs old, and I ordered a small popcorn. Nothing else. Kai, with all the innocence of an 8 yr old, and TOTALLY excited for my luck, yelled "Look, Mom! They have margaritas! You can get another margarita!"

As if I'd been drinking them all day long, and was whining for another one.

The cm burst out laughing, as did the people behind us.

"Kai", I said quietly, "I don't want a margarita right now. But thank you for asking."

"Oh, yeah.", she yelled. "You can't drink and drive here."

I wanted to crawl into a hole.

Of course the cm went on and on about how adorable Kaiya was. Meanwhile, I felt like the town drunk.


The kids munched on popcorn, and we headed back to the car.

We parked the car at the hotel and walked across the parking lot to Old Town, where I dropped $25 on ride tickets. We also stopped at Magic Max's to get Kota a souvenir. After prying whoopie cushions and fake poo out of the kids' hands, I settled on a trick soda can that blasts caps when you pick it up. I'm sure my parents will be his unwitting victims.

Walking back to the rides, Mike started doing a weird, shuffly dance down the sidewalk to the music coming from a live band performing there. It was the funniest thing I've ever seen.

It was uber-cold out by now, so Kai rode on the swings...

...and all 3 of us braved the Ferris Wheel, then we headed back to the hotel for hot baths and some sleep.

Up next: No more trains!

 

[dakjoskaimiksmom]

The next morning I was up at 6:30, hell-bent on making ropedrop.

Of course, I'd also been up at 11 pm, 1:30 am, and 4:30 am, due to our room's alarm clock being a little wonky.

I got dressed, started the coffee maker, and took myself out on the balcony to smoke, call dh, and visit my palm tree.

When I came back in, I found the coffeemaker was also a little wonky. Instead of dripping my coffee into the little glass pot, it went directly from filter to overflowing onto the counter to running onto the floor in a big leaky mess.
I was annoyed but, hey, we're going to Magic Kingdom, right? Nothing's a big deal.

I cleaned up the coffee, emptied the Buzz backpack (our day bag), got the camera battery off the charger, and grabbed our troublesome bowl of mixed fruit fom the fridge for the kids to eat in the car (the troublesome part is coming up ).

The kids got up with no problems and got dressed. My feet were still at a low roar of pain from yesterday, so I took some Tylenol and sat down while they got ready.

As we were heading out the door, I grabbed our bag, and knocked over the fruit. Of course, the lid popped right off, so I had to pause and rinse it off. Fortunately, our maid was a thorough vaccuumer.

Finally we headed out to the car. I handed Kai the bowl of fruit as she got in, threw our bag in the trunk, and helped Mike into the back seat-- where he accidentally knocked the bowl of fruit out of Kai's hand. The lid stayed on this time, but pineapple juice drips were EVERYWHERE. The floor, the seat, Kaiya, everywhere. I busted out the Handiwipes, and cleaned up as best I could, and as quickly as I could.

It was now quarter to 9. No rope drop AGAIN.

We made it to the MK lots in record time, though. This time we parked in Grumpy.

I lugged the kids to the monorail (it had lost it's charm for Mike), and had to listen to, "NO MORE TRAINS!" all the way.

Luck was with HIM, because the monorail was down. Instead we were herded with 4 million other people to the boats, where about 10 cm's were waiting to order us into formation. Once we had moved forward and "filled every space we saw", we were close enough to our neighbors to tell what kind of deoderant they used.

Michael started whining about his feet. Then he started crying. Then he started squealing. I began pointing out the babies around us, NONE of whom were crying, in a vain attempt to shame him into acting like a big boy.

When that didn't work, I ignored him.

A boat came, but alas, we didn't get on it. There were just too many people. But now the crowd was a little less overwhelming, so we could move around a little.

Kai was amazed by this thing:

She kept bugging me for change to toss at it, but I told her Disney was getting enough of our money without us throwing it at an unidentifiable thing in a lake.

Finally, at 9:45, we got on a boat. Sweet relief for my feet, I tell you. My dogs were already barking, and we weren't even in the park yet.

The kids weren't thrilled about the boat, but at least they were sitting and quiet.

The second we got off, we went to the turnstiles. I handed the kids their tickets, and we all went in.

My plan of action had us hitting the train to Frontierland 1st. The kids followed me willingly enough, until the saw a cart that sold mouse ears. $30 later, we arrived at the train station.

Our view:

Mike was NOT happy at having to ride the train. Apparently the thrill was gone after a million monorail rides, so I did what no parent should ever do: I bribed him. He would get to choose the 1st ride.

After a 15 minute wait, we boarded our train. Kai decided to comfort Mike (little mama that she is), so she let him sit on her lap:

That last is one of my favorite pictures ever.

As we de-trained in Frontierland, I tried to get a picture of our train:

What would be Mike's 1st ride choice? Stay tuned!

 

[dakjoskaimiksmom]

Posts 2 and 7 each have an extra picture. They're off my phone, so obviously not the best pics on earth.

Actually, I had "new camera" problems all the way around. It wasn't until the last day that I finally figured out how to focus after zooming. And of course it's hard to see how blurry something is on the tiny little camera screen.

I also should have have the pixel setting higher. I will have that remedied by the next trip.

 

[dakjoskaimiksmom]

After all the griping about train rides, all the whining Kai and I endured from Michael, what ride did he want to go on first? This one:

It was only a 10 minute wait, which includes walking through 9 minutes of maze to get to the front of the empty line. We all got to sit together, which was perfect. I put my arms around both kids and off we went.

Michael squealed like a stuck pig.

In his defense, the lap bar didn't go down all the way. Even I was lifted off the seat on some of the drops. What scares me is that if he was 2 inches taller, he could technically have ridden alone. Not that I would have let him...but what if?

Once we were off, he spent a good 45 minutes telling me, in no uncertain terms, that he hated it, and I was mean for "tricking" him into riding the scary train.

By the end of the day, short term memory loss set in, and he wanted to ride again. In fact, he still claims that Big Thunder Mountain Railroad was his FAVORITE thing at MK.

Once the trauma wore off, I had to yell a bit. Are my kids the only ones who HAVE to climb on everything they see?

--------------------------------------------------

Toy Story 3 is Mike's current favorite movie, so when we spotted these 2:

I thought he might want to go see them. Nope. Giant, walking Woody scares the bejeezus out of Michael apparently.

So we headed into Adventureland. The one thing I HAD to do was ride Pirates. We all had fun finding Captain Jack, and the ride must have made an impression on Mike. Once we got into the gift shop, he picked out a pirate sword and started yelling, "Aaargh!" and "Ahoy!" to anyone who'd listen. The cm who rang it up was really into the salty seadog role, so it was cute to watch them talk pirate to each other.

Then we passed the Captain Jack show, so I had to take a few pics for my sis-in-law. She's a HUGE Johnny Depp fan, but even an imposter will do sometimes.

 

[dakjoskaimiksmom]

At some point in here, Kaiya talked me into buying her more jewelry. This time it was a Tink necklace with a little tube of Pixie Dust. Oh, well. You only live once.

Now it was time for a Jungle Cruise.

Once again, the kids started acting up. Michael was sick of boats too (what is his problem? ) and Kaiya was annoyed that everything was FAKE. Where did I hear that before?

I was tempted to hand them over to this guy:

Well at least I got to rest my feet for a while.

You're probably thinking my kids are brats by now. Well they are, but they're MY brats. After one final brawl, (which ended up being minor) with Mike (I swear) the rest of the day went really well.

First I lured him here:

...and led him to believe it was a ride. Stupid of me, but it was the ONE attraction I didn't look up before we went to it.

The whining began when we got in and saw benches. Non-moving benches.

30 seconds later, he and Kai were absolutely entranced, and nary a whine was heard for the rest of the show. Yay for the tiki tiki tiki tiki tiki room!


Next we had to get this obligatory picture:

-----------------------------------------------

Up next: Kai becomes obsessed with Fastpasses, and we gnosh some grindage!

 

[IheartDDuck]

I just found your TR and I'm enjoying it immensely.

I love the running joke about the margarita. Isn't it just like a kid that reminds you constantly of the one thing that you just don't want to be reminded of?

 

[dakjoskaimiksmom]

I just found your TR and I'm enjoying it immensely.

I love the running joke about the margarita. Isn't it just like a kid that reminds you constantly of the one thing that you just don't want to be reminded of?

Thank you!

Yes, my kids have perfected the art of embarrassing me. I'll get my payback when they're teenagers. lol

 

[dakjoskaimiksmom]

Moving right along....

We now found ourselves approaching the Haunted Mansion. This was Kaiya's one MUST DO attraction. By now we were spoiled by all the walk on's we'd done so far, so we both freaked a little when we saw the h-u-g-e line. It was crazy.

Just as I was trying to persuade her to come back to it later, a couple cm's announced that HM was down until further notice. That came in mighty handy, as we were getting hungry by then.

We made a beeline for Peter Pan, where I showed Kai how you get Fastpasses. After that, she wanted to Fastpass EVERYTHING, whether there was a wait or not.

Walking back out, she spotted It's a Small World:

...And the pair of us dragged Mike to, yes, more boats. He didn't complain at all, which was surprising.

I don't think I realized before how long that ride was. Or maybe it just seemed long because my stomach thought my throat was cut. Or maybe, just maybe, it's because Kaiya sang "It's a Small World" the ENTIRE time we were floating along.

Our next stop was Pinocchio's Village Haus. I had intended to go back to the hotel for lunch, but I didn't have the mental fortitude to travel that far without eating. So Pinocchio's it was.

We are a family of pizza connoiseurs, so we were happy.

We did have issues here with Mike's pirate sword. In the time it took me to cut his pizza, he spilt his chocolate milk with it and accidentally whacked some passerby a good one. I apologized profusely.

We ate fairly quickly after that, since Kai was excited about using our Peter Pan Fastpasses. In fact, she was in such a hurry that she forgot her faux leopard fur vest, which is actually the lining of her jean jacket. Naturally, I didn't notice it was missing till hours later.

We skipped into Peter Pan's Flight. Both kids liked it, but they weren't THAT impressed. Weird kids.

Next Kai wanted to hit the teacups. She also hinted that she wanted to leave soon (this was at 1:30!), so I pulled both kids aside and started bargaining, "Look. If I get you a stroller, we're going to stay here a lot longer. I don't want any complaining or begging to go back to the hotel." They both agreed, so we started hiking towards the front of the park to the stroller rental.

Along the way, we got to see the castle up close.

Kai was very happy.

Then we saw Rupunzel from a distance.

Kai actually wanted to go see her (because Rupunzel isn't FAKE ), but Mike had a bird. Apparently the face characters are every bit as scary as the giant, walking Woody we'd seen earlier.

So we looked at the castle some more:

The show was going on:

..but the kids were too eager for a stroller by now, so we only stopped for a minute.

We got to the train station, and picked up our wheels. While the kids hopped in, I filled out our name card. Then we were off!