Morning! I was up late last night trying to power edit through some pictures. Here we goooooooooooo!
Last I left off it had started raining again. And it rained, and rained, and rained - HARD! Not some irritating sprinkle, full on showers. The girls had saved Germany and we were off towards the International Gateway to find out our 3rd country to save on another KPM.
We stopped outside Japan because the candy lady was putting on a show. The area around her was packed - I sat on a windowsill and the girls climbed up on some stairs so they could see:
My feet were aching, so was my back. I was wearing a backpack on my back that had typical odds & ends for the day. I was wearing my camera bag (which isn't light folks) around my neck hanging down in the front. I think I looked like a giant egg
. It was all "hidden" under my poncho.
Got up and trudged past all of the other countries. Was quite sad because I couldn't photograph any of it. Was really looking forward to getting creative around on the UK/Canada side of things.
Made it to the I.G. and got our new country....NORWAY. The absolute first country we started our day at. Started walking. By now Angelina is HUNGRY! Not hungry, STARVING! Plus, her toe was throbbing. Stopped in at a shop to buy her some Advil, Ibuprofin, whatever they had to help ease her pain. Was looking for bandaides when the CM working there suggested we go to the medical building and have them patch it up. I thought maybe that they could cut a finger off of some rubber gloves and wrap it over the toe in an attempt to keep it dry.
Off to the medical building where a very nice CM took off (slid off) the bandage that she had on her toe - gave me some better butterfly type bandaids. Put some new ones on her toe and we were finished.
Got to Norway. Angelina was hungry so I decided to grab us a snack while Gabriella did the KPM on her own. Got a yummy cinnamon bun with caramel frosting:
Gabriella was dashing all around, checking in after she did something (raised a flag, started a chimney smoking, etc.) to tell us all about it. Angelina perked up and wanted me to take her picture:
Then wanted to take one of me:
Previously we had gotten FP's for TT. The rain had actually come to a stop while we were taking cover in Norway. There was a sliver of orange at the horizon, which was leading me to believe we may have come to the end of our wetness!!!!!
Went to TT and rode it again - Angeling screaming "THIS IS AWESOME" the whole way. On our way out the girls wanted to look at the cars in the 'showroom'. Angelina hopped in this one:
What you can't see (purposefully) in that she has her mister fan on and hidden blowing her hair like she is driving the car and catching the breeze in her hair
.
Rains were indeed finished so took a few pictures while walking BACK towards the WS so we could eat dinner in China.
My lone monorail picture. I had so many high hopes with photos of the monorail this trip. At least I got one.
With the track in the background:
Put the camera back in the bag and started hiking towards China. We ate at the Lotus Blossom Cafe. Earlier in the day we had Mexican, which is Gabriella's favorite. For dinner we settled on Chinese - Angelina's favorite. I saved an adult credit on the
DDP so that Angelina could get a full sized meal.
Gabriella had the beef noodle soup bowl which was HUGE, and a side of egg rolls that I paid OOP for.
Angelina and I each got the orange chicken with steamed rice (which was VERY yummy):
For dessert we all three got the carmal ginger ice cream:
Neither one of the girls liked the ice cream, we were able to switch them out for strawberry for them. I liked the flavor of it the texture was strange though. There were chunks of ginger in it, which I wasn't expecting. It was tasty nonetheless.
Once we were all fat, dumb & happy we decided to steak out a spot for Illuminations. We were so early that I was able to spread out our ponchos (making them work double duty) right up against the fence between China and Norway. The spot was absolutely perfect. The girls played out front of China at one of the kiosks where they have different toys for sale, and put out toys for the kids to play with to decide if they want to buy them. They played and played and played. Angelina ended up spending $15 for three sticks. It was the sticks that you hold two and bounce the 3rd one between them throwing it up into the air and catching it, etc. She did a pretty good job with them.
Ended up having a beautiful sunset after the storm. Daytime turned to dusk. I called the girls to come to our little area because the crowd was building behind us. The torches were lit around the waters where Illuminations was going to go off. Suspense was building........
Torches go off - music started - I grabbed the camera and started snapping. We weren't in the path of the smoke, but there was a lot of it. Since I didn't have my tripod with me I gave it a pretty pathetic shot at handheld photos:
You can REALLY see the smoke in this one:
The show ended and we decided to camp out for a bit and let the crowds to their mass exodous. The girls went back to the kiosk in China and started playing with the toys again and I gave nighttime shots another try:
Crowds were much lighter so we decided to take a leisurely walk towards FW working our way out. Tonight was EMH's so we were going to give TT another shot - maybe even Sorin.
Took one real quick picture in Mexico:
Wove our way around to TT - the wait was 120 minutes
! I don't think so - not since we've already ridden it 2x's today. Went to the center of FW and looked at the wait times. Of course TT and Soarin' had the longest waits pretty much both tied at 120 minutes. Kicked around the idea of going back to the Illuminations pavillion and decided on going to:
Up next - my last attempt at 50mm photos in SE and we say good bye to EP, taking pictures the whole way out.
Not a fan of Mexico though nor their food. Something about the beans doesn't quite agree with my stomach. 
(she surprised me in MouseGears after she bought it) and I have 1 other Tinkerbell pin from a friend in New Jersey (isn't that in your neck of the woods?) that are on my strap. I'll hang on to those just for sentimental reasons.
If my girls ever get into pin-trading it sounds like the only trading with CMs rule is a good one.
! Fantasmic is my #2 favorite, after Wishes. It's a very cool few minutes to spend sitting down!
. Decided to do one last ride on SE. The girls really like the interactive parts of it. I switched to the 50mm and tried to get some good dark ride photos:
. Tomorrow is it. Made one gigantic trip carrying stuff to the van, leaving the rest for when we leave in the morning.
