Hey y'all!!! Okay...back to posting...hopefully on a regular schedule...b/c y'all are so patient with me...and my mother shamed me...
Hope you enjoy this latest installment...can y'all believe this is only Day TWO?!
my my my...I am a wordy bird!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
When last we met, the Campbellscot's were climbing aboard the "Apricot" bus!! Sally was still slightly annoyed about the rule breaking smokers, which rendered her a little too rumpled to sit next to strangers. So she prissed her way to the very back of the bus and plopped down. There was no one around her that may be possible rule breakers. Just a long stretch of seats.
I was trying to decide if we needed to have the "Let's not let other's bad choices ruin our day" talk with Sally when a look of delight erased the scowl.
"MissCammie! The seats are warm!!! Feel them, come sit down!!! They're all warm!!"
Now if Sally knows one thing, it's that MissCammie is ALWAYS cold. In 70 degree weather I've got goose bumps. Cold cold cold...all the the time. And the air conditioning was CRANKING on that Epcot bus. And I was pert near froze...as granddad would put it...
My cute little sundress was NOT keeping me warm, so I sat next to Sally in the hopes that she was not merely hallucinating!
She wasn't...those seats were warm!!! Ahhhhhhh...blessed heat. Sally hugged my arm and said,
"Isn't your heiney warm now MissCammie?"
"It sure is Sal...warm as warm can be!!!
Jay and Teddy were sitting in the seats just in front of the forward facing back row. Their backsides were NOT benefiting from the warmth of the back row. Which was fine with Jay. He is as warm blooded as I am cold...as is Teddy...the human furnace.
So Sally and I rode to Epcot, snuggled together on our heiney warming seats, happy as two buns in an oven!! (no pregnancy reference intended!)
As we pulled in to the parking lot, Teddy exclaimed over the giant Golfball! I'm sure most children do this upon first glimpse of the geodesic sphere...(I love saying that...geodesic sphere...it just rolls off the tongue in such a superior way...try it...you'll feel right smart!)
We hopped off the bus into the sweltering heat and headed for the gates.
The lines weren't too bad actually. We got through at pretty quick clip!
Jay took off towards the Kid Transporter area and the kids and I followed behind. Teddy was fascinated by the giant Golf Ball. I was a little bummed that Spaceship Earth was closed for refurbishment while we were at Disney. Teddy would have LOVED that ride. He loves "history"...and he is fascinated by "how things USED to be"...and why they changed and how they changed. He is a pretty amazing kid all around.
I refrained from telling him that one can usually go INSIDE the giant golf ball. I didn't want to bum the kiddo out this early in the morning!
Sally's attention was somewhere else entirely. We were walking past the "Leave a Legacy" momument...thingies...and she said very quietly,
"MissCammie...are these for people who DIED at Disneyworld?!"
uh-oh.
*warning...things are about to get a teensy morbid for explanation's sake!*
Normally I would have laughed a bit at that question...but Sally had had a very traumatic few weeks after being taken to a funeral...for a woman she had never met...she was sort of friends with the little girl whose grandmother it was...I'm not sure I quite understand the reasoning for exposing a child as sensitive as Sally to a funeral for a woman she has never met...but we'll just stay away from THAT one...
*ahem*
anyhow...the deceased woman was interred in a "vault"...to Sally it was "Then they put the box with the lady inside it into a WALL!" Apparently the woman’s family was screaming and crying, and someone collapsed. It was extremely distressing for Sally to see her little friend so upset. It appeared to Sally that the world was crashing down around her. Adults were screaming and crying and falling on the ground. She was horrified, not to mention terribly traumatized.
Seriously...nightmares for WEEKS. Counseling...and an abiding fear of cemeteries.
It just never occurred to me that the Leave a Legacy garden would send Sally back to that time...cuz I'm a big dummy.
I felt wretched. I should have at least warned her...but I wasn't thinking about "bad things"...I was thinking about Epcot stuff…Soarin and Test Track and the World Showcase.
It just so happened…at that very moment…I thought I saw Micky Mouse and Pluto right up ahead…but they were walking quickly in the other direction…so we had to run to see if we could catch them!
*ahem*
THAT is called “Distractionary parenting”…
It is.
I swear.
*ahem*
Unfortunately, Mickey and Pluto skedaddled out of the vicinity at such quick clip that we didn’t catch them…oddly enough…
Oh well…better luck next time…
AND I also needed a diet coke…badly…and whoever found me one first got five bucks…but I think only Sally heard me…
*ahem*
(THAT is called Fiscal Parenting…it’s related to Distractionary Parenting…but it works better…)
Sally Rally the Eagle eye spotted a Diet Coke cart chock full of ice cold Diet Coke!
I handed over a fiver...And oddly enough Sally had forgotten about the grave yard. She put her newly earned cash into her little Minnie purse and seemed to be back in the Disney bubble! YAY!!
I patted myself on the back...after berating myself for allowing a SallyCloud to form in the first place!!!
TOO MANY VOICES!!!!!!
just kidding...
or am I?
Jay finally pulled up with the kid transporter. I wiped it down with the Clorox wipes and the kiddos climbed in.
Now it was time to get down to bidness!!!
SOARIN FASTPASSES!!!
Jay pointed the kid transporter towards the Land and away we went!!!
And even though the park had JUST opened, there were roughly 84,000 kid transporters already parked! So we politely found room for OUR ride and we headed inside!
I’m not over impressed with the Land building. It’s sort of DMV-ish…just a bit. My lack of “wow” was validated by Sally asking where all the Disney went?
I assured her it was here...
Teddy was THRILLED with the escalators! That boy loves him some escalators...even though they scare the peawaddin clean out of me when Teddy is on them. He is the child who will get his
crocs eaten by the stairs with his toes not far behind...or some other sort of escalator calamity. He's getting a little bit big for me to pick him up on them anymore...
so I make Jay do it!
But just at the bottom and just enough to get him over the bottom part...where the accidents happen...
THAT is called Paranoid Parenting...
and gladly Teddy still has all his toes and his crocs remained intact...due to said parenting...
*ahem*
We got our Soarin fastpasses, all the while talking about how fun it was and how amazing it was and how much everyone was going to LOVE it!!!
Cuz Sally worries about rides she has not encountered...and as we already established that everybody rides everything at least once, I figured she was getting her worry wart on.
We stopped over at Sunshine Seasons and got some breakfast-y sorts of things. We chitty chatted about Soarin and Test Track. Teddy was excited to see the "Sea Creatures".
Epcot day was fixin to be a GOOD day!!!
Since we had time to kill before Soarin, we decided to ride Living with the Land. I've never ridden this before. It was closed while I was there last summer, so I was sort of excited to see what it was all about.
Sally had her camera out and was pretty excited to "donate" her pictures of Living with the Land to this trip report!!!
So here they are!!!
This would-be Mickey shaped pumpkin just thrilled Teddy to his toes! He squealed and bounced in his seat at starting his day with a freaks of nature!!!
Here's another one!!!
no dirt required!!!
more dirtless stuff!!!
these pictures freaked me out a bit...a little demonic...in a Disney sort of way...
overall we liked Living with the Land. Sally wanted to ride it again actually! Teddy liked the freakish garden and both kids wanted to eat at the restaurant they could "see from the ride"!!!
Which is good b/c I had an ADR for the Garden Grill for later in the week!
After our ride it was time to FASTPASS our way to Soarin!!!
We were excited...we were ready to Soar!
well Jay and Teddy and I were...Sally was biting her nails.
But I'm sure she was doing a happy dance on the inside!
As we moved along fairly quickly in a slow sort of way towards our turn, Teddy amused himself by singing a collection of his favorite songs.
"Come on Feel the Noise" (the pg spelling of the title of course) is a particular favorite...followed by "We're not Gonna Take it" and "I wanna Rock"...
now I don't know if y'all have ever heard a five year old quietly singing Twisted Sister songs to himself the way most children his age would sing the ABC's...but it is the cutest dang thing I've ever been witness to!
Now some of you may be a little shocked...a little appalled...a little judgemental...but seriously...He doesn't know what the lyrics mean, he just likes the way the music sounds. It speaks to his soul...he wants to ROCK! I wasn't allowed to listen to music like that when I was little...or ever really. Which was funny considering some of the dances that were choreographed for our cheerleading squad...which is neither here nor there...but seriously parents...be CONSISTENT!!!
where was I?
OH YES...we were preparing to Soar!!!
We finally got into the "it's just about our turn" line...the holding area...the so close you can almost feel your feet lifting off the ground...line! We watched the cheesy video...felt the Disney Magic enter our souls...
and IT WAS TIME!!!
Of course the Disney powers that be saw to it that the Campbellscot's got to sit up front and center!!!
Sally was slightly horrified when I took my flips off and set them on the floor in front of me.
the conversation went like this:
"MissCammie...you took your shoes off..."
"Yes I did Sally."
"But MissCammie...you took your shoes off...is that against the rules?"
"Nope."
"But MissCammie...what if you lose them?! What if they get STOLEN?!"
"They won't Sal...people aren't allowed to steal at Disney. Mickey doesn't allow it."
*ahem*
"But MissCammie...what if your bare foot touches the ground...and you don't have your SHOES on...because that would be gross because what if someone else had DIRTY shoes on and they walked right where your feet would go?"
"I'm not too worried about it Sal...Disney cleans the floors after every single flight...we could EAT off these floors if we wanted to they are so clean!"
Sally made a most horrified face at the idea of eating off the floor...which is mostly why I said it...b/c it's SUCH a funny face!!! I am her wicked step mother after all!!!
"MissCammie...that would be unsanitary."
"Yes Sally. It would..."
And with that I buckled her safely into her seat. She gave one last look at my rule breaking shoes...The lights went down and off we went!
Oh my soul, the squeal of delight that came from Teddy was gorgeous. He baby laughed his way into the air and kicked his little feet and announced in the most awed of voices "It's REAL!!!!!"
Sally held my hand and swung her feet ever so slightly. She wasn't so sure. Not just yet...
The part when we flew over the Orange grove elicited another delighted laugh from Teddy.
Sally gave a discerning sniff...
"MissCammie...can we really smell that?"
"Yes babygirl...we can smell it!"
She was satisfied with that. I heard her gasp a bit when our feet nearly skimmed the ocean...and she lifted her legs as we whizzed over the Mountain top...the magic was getting to her. She was believing...she was feeling it.
When we whizzed into the fireworks over
Disneyland (I'm pretty sure it's Land and not World as my first ride on Soarin was at Disney's Cali Adventure...but I could be wrong...I imagine it's supposed to appear to be the World...as we that is where we are located...but I'm just saying...)
Anyhow...whizzing into the fireworks over Disney...Teddy was just alight with the joy of being up close and personal with his Pinkerbelle!!!
Soarin was a hit. In a big way. I know this because once we landed and Sally saw that my flips magically appeared at my feet, and I avoided touching the ground with my bare skin...she announced that Soarin was not only "fun"...it was the "BEST ride she has ever rode in her whole entire life since she was BORN!!"
Period.
after a little grammar lesson...*ahem*...I pulled her in for a hug...b/c it's hard for Sally Rally to let go and really feel the Magic.
my oh MY we were all growing in leaps and bounds!!!
The magic of Disney will do that to ya!
Up next: The Living Seas!!!