Wait the Blizzard wasn't in my plans! A January 2016 TR. Updated 4/20 Day 4 Animal Kingdom

[tabrizia]

Day 3: Magic Kingdom, Part 5: Closing out the park
January 14, 2016

So after we split up, me and the youngers heading to the room, attriel and minion 1 stuck around in Fantasyland for a bit. First minion 1 ate the chicken nuggets from lunch since he was hungry. They were apparently good cool as well as fresh. Then they headed over to the Barnstormer. Apparently the line was short enough that they rode it. Minion 1 enjoyed it though he did declare it a bit short apparently.

After that they rode the train all the way around the park and then getting back off in Fantasyland headed over to Dumbo for another ride. Attriel got the child some cotton candy since why not? It's Disney and then they headed over to Tomorrowland. They waited in line and did the Buzz ride and then headed over and met with him again.

Minion 1 then danced some at the dance party. Attriel was never able to get a great picture of him dancing with the characters, but he did take a few pictures.

After that it was almost time for wishes and they got on Astrospin. While they were up there the fireworks started. Both of them said it was really cool, but they had to go back down after their ride, so they only got to see a few minutes of the fireworks from the rocket and top of the ride.

They then headed out after the fireworks ended, getting a few pictures and stopping to shop. Minion 1 chose a watch as one of the things he bought with his spending money. He has yet to wear it, but he has it.

You can see his ear protection in the picture, actually I think these are minion 2's, but either way. Great idea for sensory kids who have issues with loud noises like fireworks.

Attriel got one final picture of minion 1 at the train station before they headed towards the bus. He was trying to get one with no one else in the picture, but the random kid on the left wandered in as he was taking the picture, oh well.

They then headed to the bus and caught one that was getting ready to head out. They got back to the room around 9:15 and minion 1 was in bed and asleep by 9:30. He had a great night with just him and attriel.

I believe attriel went to bed by 10 or so, and I think I read till 11 or so. The plan for the morning did not include rope drop, and I had checked the weather and it called for rain, so I was a bit iffy about our plan for Animal Kingdom anyways.

 

[NJlauren]

So nice to be able to get 1 on 1 time in and enjoy the park just he two of them!

 

[tabrizia]

So nice to be able to get 1 on 1 time in and enjoy the park just he two of them!

They really enjoyed it. I really hope next time we go we end up on property the whole time so we can let those that want to stay later stay, while those who are done can leave. It is a much harder thing to pull when you have to drive to the parks.

 

[tabrizia]

I'm still alive I promise. Between my parents visit and minion 1's theatre performance, getting ready for minion 2's birthday and NYC trip this weekend and just general craziness with homeschooling minions 1 and 2 I haven't had time to do much. I will try to get something up next week. It likely won't happen this week though, since we leave Friday afternoon for NYC, and tomorrow is my out of the house all day, day.

 

[ariane37]

we leave Friday afternoon for NYC

Enjoy the city! What are you guys going to do while there?

 

[tabrizia]

Enjoy the city! What are you guys going to do while there?

We're going to have tea, visit the American Girl Doll store, visit the plaza so minion 2 can say "I am Eloise, I am 6!" in the lobby before she turns 7. We have tickets for Matilda on Saturday evening. We aren't sure what we'll do on Sunday before we head out, but I'm sure it will be fun and probably involve some sort of shopping.

Attriel will be at home with minions 1 and 3, they'll enjoy a birthday party at the local inflatable place and laser tag.

 

[Gracefulskinny]

We're going to have tea, visit the American Girl Doll store, visit the plaza so minion 2 can say "I am Eloise, I am 6!" in the lobby before she turns 7. We have tickets for Matilda on Saturday evening. We aren't sure what we'll do on Sunday before we head out, but I'm sure it will be fun and probably involve some sort of shopping.

Fun!

 

[amberdc1987]

I just found your report. I'm loving this. I can't wait to read more. I have 2 daughters that are about the same ages as your Minion 2 & 3, so it's great to read a report with the same age kids. Keep it coming.

 

[tabrizia]

Fun!

We had a blast. The tea was awesome. She found a headband that said birthday girl that she wore all weekend long. We visited the Plaza, she got to say, "I am Eloise. I am 6. I am in the Plaza Hotel." Which was awesome. We did tons of shopping, my Mom bought her a new American Girl doll. She loved Matilda. Our only issue was it wasn't quite enough time. Hoping for a longer visit next time.

I just found your report. I'm loving this. I can't wait to read more. I have 2 daughters that are about the same ages as your Minion 2 & 3, so it's great to read a report with the same age kids. Keep it coming.

Thanks. I hope to have something up later this week .

 

[ariane37]

We had a blast. The tea was awesome. She found a headband that said birthday girl that she wore all weekend long. We visited the Plaza, she got to say, "I am Eloise. I am 6. I am in the Plaza Hotel." Which was awesome. We did tons of shopping, my Mom bought her a new American Girl doll. She loved Matilda. Our only issue was it wasn't quite enough time. Hoping for a longer visit next time.

Glad you guys enjoyed the city! It was a beautiful weekend here and it's usually a few degrees warmer in the city since it's a little farther south than I am. You must have had nice weather

 

[princessemsmom]

We're going to have tea, visit the American Girl Doll store, visit the plaza so minion 2 can say "I am Eloise, I am 6!" in the lobby before she turns 7. We have tickets for Matilda on Saturday evening. We aren't sure what we'll do on Sunday before we head out, but I'm sure it will be fun and probably involve some sort of shopping.

Attriel will be at home with minions 1 and 3, they'll enjoy a birthday party at the local inflatable place and laser tag.

We live in the city and your trip w/Minion 2 sounds like my life lol. Our DD is obsessed with Eloise and that is where she is having her bday party this year (she will be turning 6 of course). She also loves her American Girl dolls - we took her cousin for her first visit Sat. So glad you had a great visit.

Really enjoying your trip report!!! Will check out your dining report as well!

 

[tabrizia]

Glad you guys enjoyed the city! It was a beautiful weekend here and it's usually a few degrees warmer in the city since it's a little farther south than I am. You must have had nice weather

It was awesome weather. I was quite happy since March can be so unpredictable, especially early March.

We live in the city and your trip w/Minion 2 sounds like my life lol. Our DD is obsessed with Eloise and that is where she is having her bday party this year (she will be turning 6 of course). She also loves her American Girl dolls - we took her cousin for her first visit Sat. So glad you had a great visit.

Really enjoying your trip report!!! Will check out your dining report as well!

We had to do the Plaza and Eloise store, since she was Eloise and she was 6! Now she is 7, but it won't have had the same impact to say, I am Eloise and I am 7. We had a blast. I'm about to mini trip report it in a few.

 

[princessemsmom]

It was awesome weather. I was quite happy since March can be so unpredictable, especially early March.



We had to do the Plaza and Eloise store, since she was Eloise and she was 6! Now she is 7, but it won't have had the same impact to say, I am Eloise and I am 7. We had a blast. I'm about to mini trip report it in a few.

I will have to read that and share it with my DD!!

 

[tabrizia]

Mini Trip Report: New York City with Eloise who was 6!
March 11 - 13, 2016

Now for a small trip report for minion 2's birthday. First minion 2's name is Eloise and she was turning 7 on pi day. We really wanted to go to NYC before she turned 7 so she could go to the Plaza and say, "I am Eloise. I am 6!". We decided to make it a girl's trip. My Mom and I planned it after we got home from Disney. Now the rules were it had to be before her birthday and we wanted a chance at decent weather. Since her birthday was on a Monday this year we decided to go the weekend before her birthday, so March 11 - 13th. DH agreed to stay home with the boys even though he wanted to go to. He'll get to go for the day with minion 1 in May.

My Mom had flown up to Delaware the night before for a meeting for work. She then drove down to Baltimore. The boys spent about an hour with her before we headed to the car rental return. We picked her up and the boys dropped my Mom, minion 2 and me off at the train station. We were about an hour early, which meant quite a bit of waiting but it wasn't a huge deal.

About 10 minutes before the train was due we headed out to the platform. The train was a few minutes late but we got on without issue and then started looking for seats. Someone nicely moved so that the girl child could sit with one of us and I sat behind them.

We ended up stopped in Baltimore for about 40 minutes while they did a minor repair so we didn't arrive in the city until 35 minutes or so after we were suppose to. It was around 8 at that point. We checked on the phone and walked toward the hotel which was about 5 blocks from the train station. We got to the hotel, my Mom had already checked in so they gave us our room key and we headed to our room. Minion 2 was very impressed with the fact that the hotel had 32 floors. She had remarked on all the huge building on our way to the hotel. There are some skyscrapers in Baltimore, none really in DC, but the huge number of them in NYC was amazing to her. She was shocked there were only 6 rooms on each floor of the hotel as well. She said it would be better with 6 floors of 32 rooms, rather then 32 floors of 6 rooms.

We got into the room and she declared it tiny. It actually had 2 beds which was great, but she said, there is no room to walk in here. We had to tell her that people in NYC sometimes had apartments smaller then our hotel room. She was amazed. After getting settled and figuring out where to put our stuff, I rearranged my backpack and we headed out to find some dinner. We walked toward broadway/times square. Our hotel was again about 4 or 5 blocks from it. We asked the girl what she wanted to eat. She finally decided on pizza, but we didn't see a good place to stop and eat pizza. We found a small food court type place called city market and stopped there instead. They had chicken tacos which she was happy to order. I got Shwarma and my Mom got fries and a salad. It was all great.

After eating we walked up to Times Square and looked around for a few. Since the Toy's R Us is no longer there we just wandered a bit and then headed back to the room because it was late. We stopped on our way back at a small bakery and got dessert. Once back in the room we had dessert, got ready for bed, played a quick game of timeline and went to sleep. Well my Mom and the girl child did, I stayed up and read. Around midnight or 1 I went to bed. It was a bit of a fitful sleep since my Mom snores and I forgot to bring ear plugs.

I was up around 8/8:30 and the other two were up by about 9:30/10ish. We got ready for the day. This is when I noticed it was cold out and I only brought one pair of long leggings for the girl child. She decided to wear a short sleeve dress with shorts under it. I decided to go with it. We were downstairs by 10:45 or so and waiting for Uber for our first stop of the day, tea at Alice's Tea Cup Chapter 2. We got to the restaurant and the wait was 45 minutes. We decided that was reasonable so we left my Mom's phone number so they could call when it was time and went wandering. I loved that system made life easy. We headed in what we thought was the direction of Central Park, but the girl child was cold so we headed back towards the street where the restaurant was and some shops. We visited a few shops and found a cute hair stuff shop, where the girl got a dozen new hair things. One of these was an awesome silver and fake diamond headband that said Birthday Girl. She put it on immediately. We finished and headed back to the restaurant as we got there we got the call that our table was ready, perfect timing.

We went in, the girl child got fairy wings and sprinkled with magic dust (sounds very Disney doesn't it?) and then we were lead to our table.

We looked at our options and decided to go with various thinks. My Mom got the brunch tea, I got the crepes with gouda and asparagus (yum), the girl got french toast with berries, and we got a second pot of tea with 2 more scones so we could all have a scone. The only negative we had was the tea that little miss birthday wanted they were out of. She was unwilling to get any other tea. I chose a tea pointed it out the waiter and called it the Fairy Tea, which the girl wanted. He nodded and that is what we got. She liked the Fairy Tea that wasn't the official tea so it worked out. I actually liked it better then the tea my Mom and I had decided on as well, we ended up with 2 6 cup pots, which was nice. My Mom and I both had 3 cups of tea and the birthday girl had one. She also saw the hot chocolate when the little girl next to us got it, so she got that too. The hot chocolate was great as well, super chocolaty. The girl also got a birthday cupcake. It was a great tea and the food was awesome, we plan to go back next time we visit the city.

After tea was over we decided to head to Central Park and the Plaza. We quickly realized we had headed the wrong way when we went walking earlier. It had warmed up some so minion 2 wasn't as cold as she had been which was nice. We started our walk and made it Central Park and the Plaza without any issue. We didn't really go into Central Park because we decided to visit the Plaza first. Eloise was finally at the Plaza and she was 6! I got a video of her saying she was Eloise, and 6 and at the Plaza hotel. We were a bit sad, only those who were staying there could go to the lobby. There was still a lot to see and there was the Eloise store as well! At the store we bought her two Eloise shirts, a couple of small trinkets, and a new jacket. Their jackets were 50% off and it was a very nice coat for the price, which should fit her next winter as well. She decided against an Eloise doll, because they were $80 and Nonnie told her she could get an Eloise doll or an American Girl Doll, but not both. She decided she'd rather have the American Girl Doll. The workers at the Eloise shop loved that Eloise was shopping there.

I love the bag that you get from the shop and the tissue paper says Eloise on it, which is awesome. After heading out we decided we didn't really have enough time to visit Central Park if we wanted to go to the American Girl Doll store, back to the room, and have dinner before our play that evening. We headed toward the American Girl Store. On our walk there we saw the Gap. Since the girl had complained about the cold we stopped to get her some leggings and a pair of jeans to wear her new Eloise shirt with. They were having a 40% off sale, so we bought her quite a bit. She had grown so she needed new summer clothes. She got 4 new dresses, new pink jeans, a few pair of leggings and a pair of cat shoes she adored.

After we were done shopping for clothes for her we headed towards the American Girl Store for real.



I'll continue this in the next post.

I'll continue in the next post with the rest of the trip.

 

[tabrizia]

Mini Trip Report: New York City with Eloise who was 6! Part 2
March 11 - 13, 2016

We finally made it to the American Girl Shop. The girl was in love. She knew what she wanted as soon as she stepped in the store. The new girl of the year Lea Clark, or how she would soon be named Anna Hope. We convinced her to look around a bit first. We started on the first floor and found they had a bunch of things on sale. We asked if she wanted a doll tutu, she told us no she wanted her doll. We told her she could get the tutu and her doll as well. She then said yes. We also picked about another outfit since it was on sale with a purchase of more then $50 which we knew we would make. We saw their girl dresses and found an adorable peach colored one so we got it for both her and Anna Hope as well. We then headed upstairs. She looked around and we found a cute backpack carrier which we grabbed as well and some doll hair stuff. We then finally got her Lea Clark and her accessories. She was thrilled. We went to pay for her haul. I had gotten a 30% off coupon in the mail for her birthday which was quite useful, since it meant between that and the sales on most of the doll clothes the cost was not horrible. She was thrilled with her new doll.

After paying we looked around for a few more minutes and then got ready to walk back to the hotel. The girl rebelled within the first block and insisted on a taxi. Fortunately we easily found one and we were quickly back at the hotel. It was about 4 by then, our show was at 8 and we needed to pick up our tickets, so our plan was to leave the hotel around 5:30, get the tickets and have dinner before our broadway show. After a rest and small snack everyone got dressed and we were ready to go just about on time. The birthday girl wore her new American Girl dress, Lea Clark did as well, though she stayed in the room.

We headed out, she did put back on her birthday headband before we left and picked up our tickets. We asked for dinner suggestions, and the box office people gave us a few suggestions, the first place had a 2 hour wait, since our play was in 2 hours that wasn't going to work. We headed to the second choice Daniela Trattoria. They had room and we were quickly seated. The birthday girl was a bit grumpy, we think because she was hungry, also because she wanted to go to the little food court we had eaten at the night before but we wanted to eat at a real sit down place. She settled after getting a sprite and some bread and olives. My Mom ordered the Tomato and Mozzarella salad for a starter which we shared. Eloise ordered spaghetti and meatballs, I got a black linguine with lobsters and mussels and my Mom got a chicken dish. They were all great. Minion 2 was not a fan of the meatballs, and after tying one I could see that she won't like them, but she ate a bunch of spaghetti and was much happier after that. We then headed out and went to look for gifts for the boys since we had about 40 minutes until our show.

We first went into the Theatre showing Les Miserables. I was hoping they might have youth shirts because Minion 1 adores Les Mis, it is his favorite musical ever. Unfortunately they did not. We headed back stopped in one of the I Love NYC stores but didn't see a great option for him so we went over to the Theatre store, which also didn't have many kid shirts and no Les Mis for kids. At that point it was time to head across the street to Matilda anyways. We waited a few for them to open the doors and then headed in. We found our seats and I headed to the bathroom, which was a good plan. The women's room had 2 stalls on that floor and lots of people who needed to go. I got back told my Mom she probably wanted to go. Camel girl decided she was fine. My Mom got back a few minutes before the show started and we all got settled into our seats.

She loved it. It was an awesome show. She was quite tired by the end at 10:30 or so. She decided she did want a shirt so I got her the youth shirt that says, My Mummy says I'm a miracle and we headed out. She was not a fan of walking but we stopped at the same bakery as the night before and picked up some more chocolate strawberries for her which made her happy. We made it back to the room by 11 and she got changed and had her dessert.

Everyone settled in for bed. We all slept in the next morning which was fine. We were all up by 10, which was really 9, thanks time change! We headed out of the hotel at 11, which was check out time. We had made plans to meet up with friends who lived in the city around noon. Since we had some time we went back up to Times Square to get gifts for the boys. The girl wanted a stuffed bear as well. We found shirts for the boys. No Les Mis one for the elder, but they were cute and the girl got her bear. We then grabbed a taxi to the park we were meeting our friend at. Once we got there we realized we were doing lunch with them, oops I misread a text and we had some chocolate donuts my Mom had in her bag. We ended up waiting an hour at the park, because our friend was late due to parking and her 18 month old's schedule being off due to time change.

If we had realized how long it would take we would have either eaten somewhere or just cancelled, but it was great to see our friend, her husband had a migraine so didn't come and meet the baby. We had a nice 20 minute or so visit before we caught a taxi back to the train. Once at the train station we got lunch and waited for the train home. The train was super full about 400 people boarded with us and there were already people on it. After a lot of looking we finally found 3 seats near each other. The girl sat across the aisle from me and my Mom sat behind me. It was fine, but we really figured that one of the two teenage boys who were friends and sitting one in the seat next to my Mom and the other in the seat next to the girl might offer to sit next to each other so the girl could sit with one of us. Then again, no biggie.

We got home and it was raining, the boys were waiting for us and we all headed to the car. We dropped my Mom off at the airport and our quick fun trip to NYC was over.

The next day, or yesterday was the girl's official birthday and Pi day! She is now 7. She had a great day and loved all her gifts. She is a bit upset today though that her birthday is now over.

Her new, new American Girl Doll Cinderella Hope, that attriel and I had gotten her for her birthday. She also got a board game, 2 lego sets, an Elsa doll, a lego dimensions set, a Belle dress for her AGD and another AGD outfit.

Her birthday tart. She wanted a strawberry pie, we didn't have time to make one, so we bought her a fruit tart instead.

She woke up this morning quite upset that it was no longer her birthday. She did have an awesome weekend and birthday.

I will try to get the next Disney update up sometime this week.

 

[DisneyJo]

Wow what a fabulous Birthday she had, she's a very lucky girl

 

[princessemsmom]

What a great birthday!!! Your trip to the city looked like it was perfect! Don't you just love Alice's Tea Cup!


Thank you for sharing.

 

[tabrizia]

Wow what a fabulous Birthday she had, she's a very lucky girl

She did have an awesome birthday. Thanks.

What a great birthday!!! Your trip to the city looked like it was perfect! Don't you just love Alice's Tea Cup!


Thank you for sharing.

We love Alice's tea cup. It was great. She had an awesome birthday.

 

[tabrizia]

I'm still alive. I haven't had time to do much, but I'm still about. I am going to try to edit some pictures today, but no promises since it is my birthday. I am hoping to get at least the next day up sometime this week, but we'll have to see.

 

[princessemsmom]

Happy Birthday!! We are off to Alice's in a bit!! Have not been in awhile so looking forward to it.