Complete! Our 1st Grand Gathering!! finished 10/19

[kaw1218]

After that we headed to the exit because it was getting close to our ADR’s for Hoop De Doo. We’re going to a party! We’re going to a party! My DH, mom and kids have gone to the HDDR may times in our past trips. It always feels like a really big, party. Or is it only my family that is capable of turning a wedding or birthday into a dinner show? (hey my cousin’s wedding was last night, if you don’t believe me, you should see the video! Doesn’t every mother of the bride get drunk, dizzy and hit on all the guests?)
Anyway......... we took the boat over to Fort Wilderness. That was a nice relaxing journey. Really it was, there was a really nice welcomed breeze, coming through the little windows since I wouldn’t let my kids mess up their hair! After we picked up our tickets and checked in we sat on the porch in some really nice comfy rocking chairs. At 4:45 they had us start lining up on our respective sides.

Now remember we are sporting our beautiful hairstyles from BBB. So when Marc(who ended up being our server) stands up on the porch and points at the ‘little girl with the gorgeous purple hair’, Amanda knew it HAD to be her! (Not many purple haired kids out there, I tell ya) So, Amanda goes to see what she has been picked for. They asked her to ring the dinner bell! Now this is a child who LOVES dinner. So this was like her 15 minutes of fame. We even got a keepsake photo!(which Marc made sure we had before we left)Which I would post for ya’ll to view, except I am wayyyyyy to lazy to pull out my old printer to scan it. Sorry .
But this is one I took,

Marc then brought us to our table, which was dead center of the room! We couldn’t have paid for a better table. Now my DH, kids and mom have been to the show before. Aunt Carol, Uncle Bob, and Steven have not. They had no idea what to expect.

I don’t know if anyone has been to the show before.... but ‘Claire’ picks one guy out of the audience and runs up and hugs them and sits on their lap, telling them how she hasn’t seen them in a while. Well guess who gets picked for that part? DH!!!!! Of course he wasn’t embarrassed at all. He was loving every minute of it! I don’t have pictures of it, but I do have part of it on video, I will have to see if I can pull any pics from the DVD.

After that they sing about all the places people come from. Of course they came started with our table first! (This is not the table to be at if you want to sit back quietly and watch-Of course the hair might have made us stand out a little too, at least that’s what Dh keeps telling us.)

Through the whole dinner all the entertainers came by and told my girls how lovely their hair was and asked all about where it was done and about the whole BBB experience.

Now this was the Disney that we had all known and loved . It was an evening filled with food, fun, and pixie dust .

Once again, we ate too much

. So we wobbled our way back to the ferry to take us to MK. I think the bus ride that night from MK to POP was the looooonnnnngggggeeeessstttt one we ever had. Of course every bump made us remember how much of that cornbread we actually consumed. We were so stuffed that we went to bed as soon as we got back

. Which was only after 8.

 

[kaw1218]

Wednesday.


6am- and do you know where the insomniac is? I am by the pool

.

Well, since I was up, I woke everyone else too. (Doesn’t that sound like a good deal? Oh the joys of parenting!)
I had everyone out the door at the bus stop by 7:30! Definitely a record for this family! And I was able to get us out the door before Aunt Carol could watch the weather

. Whoo Hoo!


As we got through security(oh, tip: clear backpack-makes going through security a breeze!)
Where was I.....oh yeah, right after we walked past security they started to let people in. We really had the park to ourselves! There must have been only a couple hundred people there!
As we walked in I totally forgot about waking Tinkerbell. If I had remembered about a half a second before, I could have ummm.... I mean we ...... {cough} I mean my Daughter could have woken her.
But it didn’t work that way, so off to Dumbo we go. Just as we go to get in line (first I might add—that has NEVER happened before) someone pushes past us. I went to say slow down to this rude person. But that would have been a little difficult, since I am told Stitch doesn’t like to be told to do anything! The rest of us stepped aside so Stitch could get on Dumbo first.

Amanda loved watching Stitch cover his eyes as we all ascended in the air.

and here is our lovely family.....

We jumped on Pooh next. I love the woozles! Humfpalumps, too!(I know I spelled it wrong.....)

We were going to take advantage of the nonexistent crowds! We really had the park to ourselves, we were watching some of the video that I took, you hardly even see other people in the background!
As we walked over to The Mad Tea Party, Alice and the Mad Hatter were playing Hop Scotch. Alyssa and Amanda joined.




The Mad Hatter then walked the girls to the teacups.
It was then that I realized that Fantasyland was full of characters(besides the ones in our party)
They were playing all kinds of games with the little ones. Mother May I, Red Light Green Light, Hopscotch, etc. It took me that long to figure out that it was part of the ‘little ones magical hours’. (read the tag—no other explanation is necessary )
So we wove our way through mother may I and jumped on Peter Pan, followed by an encore of Its a Small World. (we even got Uncle Bob on this time!!!)
Watch check : 8:45 am. Wow all that was done before 9!!!

We waited for the rope to drop by Adventure land. We got on BTMRR and rode twice without having to leave our seats. And this picture is just proof that I CAN trick Aunt Carol into riding almost anything(still haven’t gotten her on TOT yet though!)

From there we visited Mr. Jack Sparrow { ~~~sigh~~~~ a moment of silence here please}



My kids convinced me to walk through Swiss Family Tree House, just to say ‘ what is the point?’
Well, duh, why do you think we normally walk right by?

Up next..... breakfast at Crystal Palace.

 

[kaw1218]

We had 10:25 ADR’s for Crystal Palace, so we headed over. I checked us in at 10:19 and we were seated by 10:23!!! I am really loving this no wait thing!
Breakfast was filled with laughter and fun.
We got quite a few great pictures.

Half of us missed Tigger as he came by. He waited until we were all seated and then came up behind us and banging on the ledge where the plants sit. I nearly jumped out of my skin by the way.

When piglet came to the table he noticed the FULL plate of bacon that Steven had sitting in front of him.

He shook his head and Steven told him not to worry, it was TURKEY bacon! Piglet didn’t believe it.

Every chance he got, he stopped by to show Steven his ‘disappointment’.

He finally came back so Steven could get a picture.

Who knew Uncle Bob was waiting for Eeoyore?

Then the kids joined in the parade/party that happens every 1/2 hour.

By the time we were finished visiting Pooh and his pals, we were getting a little tired. I guess that happens when you wake everyone up and have them out the door by 7:30 in the morning. I can’t imagine it having anything to do with all the food we have consumed. If I could find a smilie that is round and wobbling it definately belongs here!

Back to POP we went. We decided to check out the Hippy Dippy Pool. We had fun trying to get different pictures under the water.( Love my digital camera!)

Mom and Aunt Carol were chilling in lounge chairs.

Note how crowded the pool was?

Steven and Uncle Bob were at the arcade, trying to win a nice Lava Lamp. (Yeah, we could buy one at Spencers for about $20....but then it wouldn’t be the same now would it?


After our dip in the pool, Alyssa and I walked around the 50s looking for any sign of a fellow limey. Zip, Zilch, Zero.

I guess I really am the only Diser staying at POP. So now everyone took a nap. Except the insomniac. I read about 100 pages in my book. One day I vow to sleep like a normal person!

 

[kaw1218]

I woke everyone up at 3:45 and told them to get moving. Something that is Definitely easier said than done. by 4:30 I was going to ring someone’s neck. I finally got the kids out the door and to the bus stop. We had ADR’s at Chef mickey’s at 5. Well most of us did, the 3 ‘adults’ were headed to Concourse Steakhouse. I really didn’t think we were going to make it.


As we were waiting for the bus, Utahmama came up to us. A fellow Limey!!!!! At last. Unfortunately, I had about 30 seconds to talk to her before my lovely Amanda decided to start whining(which is really not the norm- now if it were Alyssa...I would not have worried). And then the line started to move, so I had to get my butt on the bus. The bus was totally packed. So I want to apologize Utahmama. Please excuse my rudeness...... I was rushed, worried that my DD was going to have a breakdown and some guy kept pushing me with his elbow. Not a very good excuse I know. I really wish I had time to talk to her after we got off the bus, but we had all of 10 minutes to jump on the monorail and get over to Chef Mickey’s before we were late.

It is right here that I want to pause and tell a little story.
I think I have found the perfect candidate for mother of the year.
As the bus stopped at MK, a woman sitting across from Amanda, stood up. Which under normal circumstances, would not have been a big deal. Except she had a small child(about 1 year old) sitting on her lap. She proceeded to stand up, the baby fell backwards right off her lap directly on the floor of the bus, landing on his head first. At this point, she STEPPED OVER the crying child and asked the driver how to go to the Luau. The baby’s grandpa picked him up and comforted him. After the shock wore off (and the realization that we now had one less minute to get to dinner, I headed off the bus). After I got our group together(how do you always manage to lose one person?) we started to head towards the monorail. The Mom walked past us, she was holding the crying baby now. She was then talking to another person in her group, as she tried to shove the baby in the stroller. I say shove because that is what she was doing. She held the baby under one arm, and was trying to stick his leg in the stroller. Now that might have worked. If she had the baby turned the right way. She was jamming his left leg in the right hole. Kinda like the square peg in the round hole thing. At this point we were past them. My Amanda stopped me to say “mommy, that other mommy was evil. she shouldn’t have a baby. I am glad you are my mommy and not her”
(it still brings a tear to my eye)
OK, my horrible mommy story is over. I just had to share it since I am still shocked that she treated the baby that way. Although, I do keep asking my DH a few questions. If she stood up and the baby fell right off her lap, that means she forgot she was holding the baby, right? And wouldn’t you have at least tried to catch the baby..... but then was she even holding the baby as the bus was moving? {shudder} some people scare me. This moment still gets brought up by everyone.

Back to our regularly scheduled program.....................


Amazingly we made it with one minute to spare. We were seated in the corner of CM’s. Right by where they have seating for Concourse Steakhouse. So what does a loving(ahem-annoying) daughter/niece do? I asked the CM if it was possible to seat the adults at that table. Unfortunately they had already been seated. But the nice CM was going to seat them there! That would have been a very interesting dinner. Hey I feel I was tortured as a child( don’t we all?). I think I at least deserved that!


We were one of the first tables to be seated. Each character came by us about 3-4 times( there were only about 3-4 other families in our area)

(see the green plant next to Mickey? right behind that plant was the table we were trying to 'reserve' for the grownups!)

After we chowed down on the wonderful Parmesan mashed potatoes, and the awesome dessert bar, we headed back to the monorail. We managed to sit up front with the driver. Since you are only allowed 4 passengers, I sat up there with Alyssa, Amanda, and Steven. All four of us(yup me too!!) received our Pilots licence. (I read somewhere that they don’t give them out anymore, but we got them. I guess it depends on the driver)

When we got back to POP I decided to do some laundry . (Hopefully I have made you proud Teresa!!) Joe and Uncle Bob had cigars and drinks by the pool. My girls went swimming, and I put my mom in charge.




I think this was the night that MickNPluto stopped Uncle Bob to ask if he was a Dismember. So I just wanted to say HI MickNPluto !


By the time I was halfway done my laundry, it was late and I was bored. So I called Joe from the laundry room. Kinda neat that they have a phone in there. Although I don’t think Joe thought it was so neat. He was watching ESPN or something like that.
By the time I got to bed it was after midnight.

 

[pumba]

these are such awesome pictures and also a great report too.......thanks so much for taking the time to remember and post it all.....

 

[mommyintn]

Marc then brought us to our table, which was dead center of the room! We couldn’t have paid for a better table. Now my DH, kids and mom have been to the show before. Aunt Carol, Uncle Bob, and Steven have not. They had no idea what to expect.

I don’t know if anyone has been to the show before.... but ‘Claire’ picks one guy out of the audience and runs up and hugs them and sits on their lap, telling them how she hasn’t seen them in a while. Well guess who gets picked for that part? DH!!!!! Of course he wasn’t embarrassed at all. He was loving every minute of it! I don’t have pictures of it, but I do have part of it on video, I will have to see if I can pull any pics from the DVD.

After that they sing about all the places people come from. Of course they came started with our table first! (This is not the table to be at if you want to sit back quietly and watch-Of course the hair might have made us stand out a little too, at least that’s what Dh keeps telling us.)

Kelly we had this same table (I believe it was table 54)! I remember thinking it seemed like we were just there in the middle on one side no table next to you and my dh was the one who had his lap sat on (he was bright red). Both of my boys wanted to be in the lime light and loved it! HDDR is something we'll do again next March we really enjoyed it.

 

[Lauralee131]

I need MORE!!

Great TR...wish you'd posted a picture of "Mother of The Year" so we could all throw darts at her if we were to see her in the future...

Funny how you need a license to drive, hunt and fish, but any idiot can have a child!

 

[kaw1218]

these are such awesome pictures and also a great report too.......thanks so much for taking the time to remember and post it all.....

Thank you.... I brought my laptop this time. So I was able to take tons and tons of pictures(before I was limited to my 200 pic memory card). I just downloaded them every night. and the mornings that I sat by the pool, I did very detailed notes(while watching my ducks in the pool )

 

[kaw1218]

Kelly we had this same table (I believe it was table 54)! I remember thinking it seemed like we were just there in the middle on one side no table next to you and my dh was the one who had his lap sat on (he was bright red). Both of my boys wanted to be in the lime light and loved it! HDDR is something we'll do again next March we really enjoyed it.

It was great wasn't it??? I think that is the 5th time we have done HDDR.
My uncle is already making plans for next year.(shhh! my DH and I are going alone...we just haven't told him yet)

 

[kaw1218]

I need MORE!!

Great TR...wish you'd posted a picture of "Mother of The Year" so we could all throw darts at her if we were to see her in the future...

Funny how you need a license to drive, hunt and fish, but any idiot can have a child!

It was almost unreal..... it was like that slow motion thing..... and then we she stepped over him !!!!! I am still appalled!!

 

[kaw1218]

Thursday lunch at LeCellier


Wow. I am really amazed. Everyone was up by 8 am . And I didn’t even have to throw anything at anyone(what?!?!? is that wrong?). The one day everyone is up and ready, and we don’t have to be anywhere until 11:30. Go Figure.

We took our time leaving the room. Well, Aunt Carol did. Once again we had to drag her away from the weather channel (what is it with the obsession!)


By the time we got to Epcot, we only needed to kill an hour. It started to rain the second we walked through the turnstiles.
Aunt Carol really has to stop watching the weather channel

. It rains every time she does!
We stopped by club cool and tasted the various soda flavors. My kids like Germany. I don’t think anyone like Italy. I wish I had taken pictures of the faces they made.

We headed over to Canada to browse the shops.
Here is a picture of Aunt Carol....and I swear, she didn’t drink all week!!!

After we left the shops we headed toward LeCellier.
As I walked by, I heard someone say “I have one of those too” I turned around and saw a small beacon of light, shining on the beautiful little LGMH attached to a stroller. Now I spent about 15 minutes talking to this woman and her DH. They were from Ohio, they have an adorable son. They were staying at the Wilderness Lodge. We even moved over to LeCellier together since we both had ADR’S. Do you think I would have remembered to ask her name? I guess I really don’t have to answer that. So my mystery lime green friend, if by chance you recognize us at all..... Hi!!



Since we had early ADR’s at LeCellier, it only took about 10 minutes for us to get seated. Now, when I made all of our ADR’s, the CM I spoke with told us we were booked at separate tables. So far, we have been seated all at one table.
I don’t really remember exactly what everyone got to eat. I do know between the 8 of us, everyone got something different and there was a lot forks passing around.
Although it is kinda funny to ask someone to pass the butter balls!

Everything was so good. Our server was great too! ( I never remember to get their names)
Finally we get to order dessert. Now last year we ordered off the kids menu, because it looked like fun. Well, it was good too. So half of us adults ordered off the kids menu again.

Out comes dessert.~it is at this point that I have to remind people that some of us are born blonde and some are born to BE blonde~
‘Oh look at the duck’ says Aunt Carol. We all look around the room. ‘No’ she says. ‘The duck’.
And then proceeds to point at my chocolate MOOSE!!!! Ok if you turn it upside down, rearrange the M&Ms and turn the tongue around,.... it does look like a duck. (But not until after those few minor changes)

We still laugh at Aunt Carol’s duck!!!(of course back home, I did tell everyone at work! Hey she told all the guys I work with my old childhood nickname!!)

The rest of our desserts

After lunch, again-we ate too much-we took some pictures outside of LeCellier. It really is pretty.
Now I took this picture

and Uncle Bob took this one

After our ‘photoshoot’ the boys went to see the Canada film. Us girls went shopping, where Alyssa bought a small stuffed husky dog, and Amanda bought a ‘fatty beaver’(I swear that is what the receipt says!!)

Then we just sat on a bench and waited for the boys. Amanda spied a lizard on the roof of the one shop.

Of course she then spied one on the side of the building too. We laughed as she desperately tried to catch it.(have no fear, she is definitely NOT fast enough to even come close! )

I am not sure who took this picture, or why. But since it shows my LGMH so nicely, I thought I would add it to the TR.

When the boys finally came out, all three said the film was boring and too educational for vacation.(duh! Why do you think us girls opted to sit out?)


We toured the rest of Canada, United Kingdom and France. Now we had officially toured all of World Showcase. We hopped on the Friendship Ferry to cross back to Future World. As soon as we got off the ferry, it started to rain. ( I am banning the weather channel on all future visits!)
We ducked into a gift shop right by the ferry launch-I don’t remember the name. But I am sure all you diehard disney fans know which one it is. When it looked like the rain was not going to let up, we donned our ponchos, (except DH and Uncle Bob-they are too cool for ponchos!)

and set out for the park entrance. By the time we got to the turnstiles, we decided to go to Animal Kingdom. After all it is Thursday, and we have yet to step foot in the park!

 

[kaw1218]

I will be updating within the next few days.....darn that job! It is always getting in my way!

 

[RHONDALEE]

Kelly

I don't often read trip reports (except my Sister Jaime's of course) but I'm loving it.

When you went to the Hippy Dippy Pool and were looking around for any sign of a fellow limey and you said "Zip, Zilch, Zero" - well that's not quite true because you signed my lime green poster board on my door. I was in the 60's building on the second floor - middle of the building, facing the pool. When you said you were in the 90's building, I wondered how you saw my poster - now I know - from the pool. The lime green poster board did sort of stand out on the orange door.

Thank you for signing it and for the Mickey you left in the key slot.


Rhonda aka rhondalee

 

[kaw1218]

Kelly

I don't often read trip reports (except my Sister Jaime's of course) but I'm loving it.

When you went to the Hippy Dippy Pool and were looking around for any sign of a fellow limey and you said "Zip, Zilch, Zero" - well that's not quite true because you signed my lime green poster board on my door. I was in the 60's building on the second floor - middle of the building, facing the pool. When you said you were in the 90's building, I wondered how you saw my poster - now I know - from the pool. The lime green poster board did sort of stand out on the orange door.

Thank you for signing it and for the Mickey you left in the key slot.


Rhonda aka rhondalee

Hi rhonda!!!!

You are in my TR..... I found you thursday night....... I just haven't gotten that far yet

 

[RHONDALEE]

WOW I'm going to be in someone's trip report. I'll be famous.
WOO HOO

 

[stinkerbelle's mom]

Great job Kelly. Wow, you have a lot of details going on. Thank goodness you brought the laptop to download all the pictures & take great notes!

 

[kaw1218]

Aunt Carol, Uncle Bob, and Steven decided to go back to the room (which still confuses me, since they were the ones asking when we would be going to AK)
Anyway....we hopped on the monorail to the TTC where we caught a bus for AK. I know there is a bus for AK...but the monorail was there and it was still pouring and thundering and lightening and did I mention pouring?

As we were walking into AK... hordes of people were walking out. It was about 3:15. (Point for TGM!!) We headed straight for Everest. It said a 20 minute wait. Yeah right.....we walked right on! And by that I mean we practically power walked through the entire queue line and walk right into seats. Lap restraints down, and off we went in search of the elusive yeti

Now this was the first for all of us. My uncle Mike(who went in July) said it was awesome, my cousin (who went in August)said it was lame. So after hearing these conflicting reviews, I definitely had to try it myself. I loved it! This trip was the first one where Amanda was tall enough to go on anything other than BTMRR. So I was a little worried about her reaction. I don’t know why I was worried. She was ready to get right back on!

But since it was getting close to 4 we wanted to see if we could accomplish anything else before park closing at 5. We were able to walk right on Primevil Whirl and Dinosaur. I love no lines!!!!
This is the one lonely picture

I took at AK

Now don’t all the tourguides tell you to let the smallest child set the pace? I have about a dozen pictures like this.....with DD7 in FRONT the DH and then the rest of us. Apparently know of the tourguide creators have been to WDW with my DD.


By now it was really close to 5 so we headed out of the park to the buses.
Back at POP, I went to the food court and got dinner with my Mom. Everyone else choose to go back to the rooms. After we were done, the kids went swimming. I stayed in the room and worked on my TR. DH took the kids to the food court around 8 for something to eat.
After they got back DH and I went for a walk to search for LGMH( I started to feel like a stalker!)

This time though it paid off!!!
We found Rhondalee’s room( Rhonda), and left a LGMH with my name on it. (We found a second room, but I cannot find where I wrote their name down- Sorry whoever you are. If you read my TR identify yourself and I will add your name-everyone needs to be famous for all of 2 seconds!)

My cousin April called me on my cell as we were walking around. Her wedding was fast approaching and she was telling me about her sister(my

cousin). Those tales will make a novel one day, so I will not bore you with the details twice~just buy the book!

April also informed me that she registered on the Disboards. WhooHoo! Another limey!
And also that she is hooked. Her DF was about to lock the computer on her. She told me that it is an obsession!(like I need her to tell me that?)

Back at the room, I tried to connect to the internet. They charged me....and then the server was down. But, I called the front desk to ask if they could restart my 24 hrs when the server came back up.... and they took the charge away and told me to feel free to use the remaining time on them!! I know it was only 10 bucks, but it was still a nice treat!

I went to bed shortly after that, so I don’t know what else happened that night. I do know DH was up till after midnight.

 

[kaw1218]

Friday

We pretty much just hung around the rooms in the morning. Uncle Bob took the kids to the food court for a small breakfast. I wish they took a camera. Apparently Amanda wanted pancakes, and Uncle Bob told her she could have them as long as she diddn’t get any syrup on her. Well, she told him that is wasn’t possible. So what does any good uncle do? He covered her in napkins!!! She told me he used 8 napkins to make sure she didn’t get any on her clothes!
When the got back we headed for the buses. We were going to go to AK for a little while and then head over to MGM for dinner. But the line for AK was at least 2 buses long.

This is my one and only meltdown this trip(pretty good I think- even though I definately needed

)

When I planned this trip, it was understood that they only things that we HAD to do together was HDDR, BBB, and the grand gathering dinner. Anything else could be changed at last minute. So I told everyone that this is my trip, I have everything planned that I want to do. They are all welcome to come along, or go their own ways. I didn’t mind either way. I offered to make separate Adr’s and itineraries (I sounded really selfish there for a moment...... ummmm....It really wasn’t that way. Everyone DID have an input....no one choose to have one until Friday)

Ok, back to where I was...... oh yeah. After looking at the loooonnnnngggggg line for AK. I remembered reading various things on UG and TGM. Alot of people don’t hop, and since that night was EMH at AK, it would probably be packed most of the day.
I then informed everyone that I was going to MGM. They were welcome to head over to AK and join me later, but I didn’t relish having to go with hordes of people. Now Steven decided to get everyone in an uproar about the change of plans. I won’t go into all the details...but I did tell him to get his pass and go to AK. He didn’t have to go with me. But he had better find an adult to go with him. (I know, I wasn’t very nice....I didn’t yell or raise my voice or anything. But according to my kids, I am more scary when I say it calmly-I guess they just don’t know what to expect then)

Ok, bad mommy/aunt Kelly- moment over.

Well, since we were going to MGM instead. I thought of changing our 4pm Adr’s at Sci-Fi, to earlier. I asked Uncle Bob if he thought that would be a good idea, and he was up for the change. I called Disney Dining while standing by the front gates of MGM. They were able to give me a big range of times. We chose 1:25pm. This way we could head over to AK after.
Uncle Bob, Joe, Alyssa, and Amanda wanted to go on TOT again. So we headed that way to see what the wait time was. (Note: I don’t know if I mentioned it before, but Steven had heart surgery when he was a few months old....so rides like TOT and RnRc are out for him)
The wait time said 10 minutes. So off they went. The rest of us pulled up a bench to wait. I don’t think it was 10 minutes later that they came back. Once again....no line!

From there we went to the Great Movie Ride-a Favorite for most of us-DH just tolerates it.

We walked around to wear the raining umbrella was. Unfortunately it wasn’t raining(obviously Aunt Carol didn’t watch the weather channel) , but Uncle Bob sang anyway

We also saw Herbie, but being the VW buff that he is, DH said something was different and he wasn’t the same. (He told me what was different.....but you know on Charlie Brown

, when the teacher speaks, how it sounds like’wawawawaawwaaa’.........that is what DH sounds like when he starts talking about cars)


Since we had about 45-55 minutes to kill, we took the kids to Pizza Planet to spend some quarters.
After we pulled Uncle Bob from the video games

, we headed to Sci-Fi. I checked us in and cancelled our 4pm Adr’s(I didn’t want to cancel them earlier because I was afraid of something getting mixed up and us not having any)

This was the only restuarant where we were seated at 2 tables. We were able to sit in side by side cars. The atmosphere is great. The food wasn’t that bad either. We ordered appetizers from both the adult and kids menus. And we got burgers, and ribs. The ribs were pretty good. DH said the burger wasn’t bad either.

As we left the Sci Fi, we debated on what we wanted to do. Steven announced he wanted to go on Star Tours. Fine by me....as long as I don’t have to go on too. So I took picture f the girls outside of Star Tours, Aunt Carol went inside the shop on spent money. She got Steven, a poster, blanket and 5x7 with his picture.

Ok, I know some people will flame me for this.... but I have to ask anyway. As you can see by our pictures, we are not skinny people, well the kids are, but anyway. If you were the size of Uncle Bob, lets say ‘pooh sized’ would you (I am talking about a woman here) were short black spandex shorts, paired with a black sports bra? I am sorry, but that was one of the most embarrassing things I saw all week. Her kids looked absolutely mortified, they were trying to stand away from her(she was sitting on a bench smoking) but she kept calling them over to her. Her belly was so large you could barely see that she was wearing shorts. I am not making fun of this woman. Like I said, I am not skinny, but I hope my DH or mom, or any friend or family member would never let me go out it public like that. I still feel sorry for her kids. Like I said, I may get flamed for saying that, but I feel no one should wear spandex that short and a sports bra that small to an amusement park. No matter what your size.
Anyway.... sorry a little off topic there.....

We decided that we had seen all that we cared to see. Now I know we missed alot of things in MGM, but it gives us a reason to go back next year. Besides, this was our ‘try to do different stuff’ trip. Of course Who Wants to be a Millionaire was on our ‘to do list’ but someone had to go and close it.

 

[kaw1218]

Now we headed over to the bus stop for Animal Kingdom.
When we got to AK, they were just setting up the locations for EMH wristbands. So we hopped in line to get ours for the night.
After that we strolled through the front trails and took a quick glimpse of the animals. Over the bridge, we decided to see It’s Tough to be a Bug. There was no wait, so it was a good choice. Anything that you can walk right into is a good choice! Well except that bench....that hurt

.

After that, we headed over to Asia, to do Kali River Rapids. It is such a long queue area.....you don’t really notice it until, there is no line and you are walking briskly through. By the time we got to the end, we were able to walk right on a raft. Hmmmmm...this ride seems so short. But by the end, we were definately drenched....except DH. So as we were walking through the exit, a CM was standing there telling us that we could just cut right through and go back on again. Decisions, decisions.....well of, course we went again. And got even more wet....except DH. Ohhhhh!!! I will so get even. Now at the end of it this time. Amanda(DD7) makes an announcement that has us all laughing our butts off...... ready for this?

She proudly announces that since she got more drenched then anyone else, she won the wet t-shirt contest! I almost fell off the raft

, I was laughing so hard. And you should have seen DH face

!!!! He told me that she had better not tell him that again!!



Here are a few before and after shots....

Now I know our raft was full.....but I don’t remember who was sitting in these seats... probably Aunt Carol!

From there we went to the rest rooms to ring out some of our clothes(I told you we were wet!)
And then headed to Everest. Uncle Bob was going to ride this time. Bummer!!! Everest was closed! Gotta hate those technical difficulties!
So over to Dinosaur we went. I sat out with Aunt Carol

as the rest of the group went to bring back a prehistoric friend

After the gang came out of dinosaur, we had a small discussion about what to do next. We were all wet and tired, so we chose to just go back to POP to get changed and have dinner. On the way to dinner at the food court, I threw in some laundry

. When we were done, my mom took the kids in the pool while I finished the clothes.

After I was done my domestic chores, DH and I went for another walk around POP. Hey, with all this food I have to keep moving. I always have my cell phone on me, especially when I am not with my kids. So I was able to answer the text message I got from my Aunt Maryann

.
I guess I better give a little background information here. When ever my Aunt Maryann goes away, I always take care of her 3 cats

and dog . Well, when they went to Disney in July, halfway through their cat ‘Katie’ didn’t come home one night. Well....I searched and called for her. I had visions of The Incredible Journey running through my mind. The following night she finally showed up. After I firmly told her that she was grounded(yeah, like the cat cared!)I sent my aunt a text message that said something like this
‘ummmm. What is the longest katie has stayed out b4?
Well, my mom asked if that was all I wrote( she is no fun) I said yup. My mom was like, she’s going to worry, you have to tell her that the cat came home. Nope, I said, she will be calling....and I started to dance to Sean Paul’s Temperature(doesn’t everyone have that as their ringtone?). Yup she’s calling! Yeah I told her that her precious furbaby was home. I couldn’t be THAT mean!

Ok..back to my text message from Aunt Maryann.....

‘What is the longest your dad has stayed out?’

I laughed for about 5 minutes before I was able to answer back. Gotta love when family tries to play with your mind(or is it only mine that does stuff like that?)

On our way back to the room, Joe and I found a tree frog

sitting on the door of a room in the 80's building. So if you heard 2 lunatics laughing like crazy at the antics of a psycho tree frog

, sorry if we woke you!

We brought the frog

back to the room for the kids to see. Amanda went to touch it and it jumped on Steven. I really, REALLY wish I had the camcorder out. All three kids jumped about 10 feet in the air!! We still laugh about that.
After all the excitement, we were able to settle down and get some sleep.

 

[kaw1218]

Great job Kelly. Wow, you have a lot of details going on. Thank goodness you brought the laptop to download all the pictures & take great notes!

Thank you! I kept a small notebook with me at all times, great diversion while waiting BTW ....I kept asking the kids what we had done. and when in doubt...we went back to the pictures since they are all dated with the time!!!