Food, SQUIRREL, and When We Are Old...A March 2012 TR

[oopsiDAISY]

LOL... You do realize that half of my post count is me talking to myself, right?

D~

Ooohhh~so that is the key to having a wildly popular TR ....hmmm ... note to self: must talk to self more! Duly noted!

Love the movie night theme and pics

Thanks! I can say I do it for the kids....but who am I kidding? I love it as much as they do!

that is how I make my beignets...and I am from the New Orleans area!

Yay~ so I can just call them Beignets instead of "faux" beignets? Woohoo!

That movie night looks like so much fun. I should do that with my girls leading up to our trip.

They are so much fun, not only to have, but also to PLAN! Hey, we are Dis'ers...why? Because we are obsessive about Disney. Just another outlet for our Disney obsession!

You are going to POFQ tomorrow. Move over oopsi, I am sharing your spot in the suitcase.

Okay, just be sure to brush your teeth and put on deodorant...it's gonna be a tight squeeze.

Pfft... You guys can all share her suitcase... I'm just gonna ship myself in a box.

D~

Well, sure...you can do that since you just went to the hardware store to stock up on bubble wrap! We will get there faster on an airplane though...just sayin'!

 

[oopsiDAISY]

So, I was well on my way with a trip update yesterday when the power went out here at work and it all went away. Why does that happen EVERY TIME I start an update that actually has something to do with this trip?

Well, I am over halfway throught the trip in my reporting. With only three days left of the trip to report, I am sad to realize I will not be able to draw this thing out until we book our next trip and I can start a PTR. :-( I guess I will just comfort myself with the fact that we will indeed be going back next year and leave it at that. So without further ado...

DAY 5, MARCH 12TH, 2012

When we last left off, our family had shut down the Magic Kingdom at 3 in the morning. We had headed back to our room and crashed for the night....um morning...well, you know what I mean! This "next" day would be our second day at DHS. We had gotten up early on Day 3 to do the DHS mad-dashes (TSM and JTA). We did this knowing that on THIS day we would want to sleep in after a late night...um early morning...well, you know what I mean!

Soooo, by the time we all got up and ready it was lunch time. We made the decision to have lunch at Riverside Mill before heading out to the park. I do not have food pictures and I do not remember what everyone ate...except the girls...oh yes, I remember quite well what they ordered. You see, by this time Charity had figured out that she could order an adult CS meal with the DDP. So she and Jillian both decided that they wanted to do the "build your own pasta." For any of you who have seen or tried this, you may or may not know how HUGE these orders of pasta are. I would say these end up easily being an entire pound of pasta PLUS whatever meat, veggies and other add-ins one may choose. These girls couldn't possibly get one to share, oh no! They had to each order one! Brian and I were so upset with them...they did not even get close to eating one quarter of the food that was in those containers. We were staying in a room with no microwave, so we ended up having to throw out SO MUCH FOOD~ such a waste! Okay, deep breaths Connie...moving on...

After lunch we loaded onto the bus and headed out to DHS. Since we are a family of Star Wars geeks we made a beeline straight to Star Tours. Brian and the kids were still so impressed and excited about the fact that you get a different story every time you do that attraction. Me? Well, after getting queasy on the last time I had ridden it, it just didn't excite me so much anymore. But, my family LOVES some Star Wars, so I went along for the ride, and I did fine this time.

After leaving ST, here is where the story gets fun! We headed over to the Indiana Jones show. This was on our must do list for two reasons:

• Gabriel had recently become an Indiana Jones fan
• We had missed this show in 2011 due to cheerleading competitions going on

We got there really early, and needed to wait in line for it. We HAD to see the show this time, so the wait was fine with us. We picked up some ice cream to keep us entertained during the wait. I had a frozen banana. We were at the front of the line, so when the rope dropped we got to sit down front, just to the right of the sound booth. After the wait was over and the "casting agent" came to the stage to start her speil I leaned over to Brian and said, "watch this, I am gonna be picked to be in the show." Now, I had never been in the show before, nor had I ever even attempted to be picked. On this day, I was just feeling wild and crazy and decided I wanted to go for it.

When the lady said the magic words about needing audience volunteers I jumped up out of my seat and proceeded to act like a complete idiot. Just imagine ole' oopsiDAISY jumping up and down, waving hands frantically in the air, all while yelling "pick me, pick me" at the top of my lungs. Yep~ that is just what I did, honestly! I am sure my family was quite embarrassed, but I really didn't care. I wanted to be on that stage. I wanted to show the world my acting chops. I wanted to wear those ridiculous robes and hair coverings they give you. I wanted the FREE WATER!!! Yes, I wanted to do this thing...and I was the first one picked!!!
Here are a few not so great pictures as proof:

In this photo, I am on the far right on the end

In this one, I am the one in the lovely orange garb, third from the left

An exciting thing happened while I was on that stage in front of my adoring fans...I mean a theater full of strangers. I was picked to repeatedly "shoot" the guy that was chosen to do the death scene. Yep, I was pulled from the line and given a few minutes to shine, , I mean act like a bigger fool than I already had... Brian tried to get pictures of it, but it just happened so fast he couldn't get a good shot. But somehow, he managed to take a gazillion pictures of the rest of the show. I will spare you the agony of seeing them all, but continue on in the next post where I put few for your viewing enjoyment...

 

[oopsiDAISY]

I am second from the left in the shopping scene

Crowd mingling

Watching Indy and Marion (by this time I had stopped trying to keep that silly head piece on)

And now just some fun shots from the parts of the show I was not in

Overall, it was a very fun experience. I am so glad I chose to be crazy and get up there and do it. It is a memory I will always recall with fondness. In my younger days, I was so much fun and did crazy stuff like that on a daily basis. Life, becoming a responsible adult, and parenthood have tamed me quite a bit and it felt good to just toss off all inhibitions and be silly and stupid again, if only for a few minutes.

 

[DMGeurts]

OMG!!! You got Pixie Dusted Oopsi!!!! That is so awesome!!!! I love that you did "the dance" to get picked!!! Love, love, love!

I kwym about the pasta... There were many things we had to just throw out because we had no way of reheating it. I am such a frugal person that it just killed me.

D~

 

[ljcrochet]

That is great! What a great disney memory you will always have.

 

[Corrine 1973]

I absolutly love that you got picked for the show. I like Crazy Connie. I want to got with Crazy Connie on a all girls trip to WDW. How much fun would we have. (I would even be willing to stay at POR for you.)

I also hate wasting food. At Six Flags I bought an add on to my season pass that allows us to get a coupon for lunch and dinner for that day. I only got the add on for my pass and Liam's pass since I figure the kids and I could split the meals. But than of couse everybody is arguing about who is ordering what and who is sharing. I had some hand me 4 coupons because they were leaving so I was able to get everyone there own meal, nobody finished there meals.

Another great update Connie, I am sad to even think that it might have to come to an end.

 

[oopsiDAISY]

OMG!!! You got Pixie Dusted Oopsi!!!! That is so awesome!!!! I love that you did "the dance" to get picked!!! Love, love, love!

I kwym about the pasta... There were many things we had to just throw out because we had no way of reheating it. I am such a frugal person that it just killed me.

D~

Yeah, I guess I just decided to grab Tink's bag and toss the pixie dust on myself at that show! It was so fun!

Yeah, we do NOT throw out food, we eat leftovers a lot. It bugged me to no end to throw out THAT MUCH...what they had left could have fed our whole family a meal.

That is great! What a great disney memory you will always have.

For sure!

I absolutly love that you got picked for the show. I like Crazy Connie. I want to got with Crazy Connie on a all girls trip to WDW. How much fun would we have. (I would even be willing to stay at POR for you.)

I also hate wasting food. At Six Flags I bought an add on to my season pass that allows us to get a coupon for lunch and dinner for that day. I only got the add on for my pass and Liam's pass since I figure the kids and I could split the meals. But than of couse everybody is arguing about who is ordering what and who is sharing. I had some hand me 4 coupons because they were leaving so I was able to get everyone there own meal, nobody finished there meals.

Another great update Connie, I am sad to even think that it might have to come to an end.

CRAZY Connie shows up every now and then. Brian just rolls his eyes... If we had an all girls weekend I would totally come on over to POFQ. We only stay at POR for the trundle to bed down all our little critters, I mean children. Shew...a girl's trip would have to be done at POFQ so we could get our Mardi Gras on! You know CRAZY Connie would be all about that stuff, right there!

Wasting food stinks so badly. I get groceries every week on a shoestring budget ($100 a week, that is three meals a day for 5 people). So it drives me bonkers when we are able to go out to a nice dinner occasionally and the girls feel like they need to order the biggest, most expensive thing on the menu...only to eat a small part of it. That is why we like the DDP~ it ends up saving us $$$ when we don't have to fuss with the girls about what they choose to order.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So what is everyone's weekend plans? We have only two weekends of summer left. Our kids start school on July 30th. Yeah, where did the summer go?!?

Tomorrow is Gabe's 6th birthday. We are taking a day trip up to Bowling Green, KY to Beech Bend Park. It is an amusement park and water park. I am ready for some FUN!

We have had a rough week this week, emotionally. Brian and I lead an addiction recovery program at our church, and one of "our guys" that had just gotten his 18 month clean and sober coin relapsed. We have grown close to him and invested so much of our lives into helping him personally, and it is just discouraging.

We need a small escape from reality, so we are really looking forward to BB tomorrow. Sunday night will be a family birthday dinner for Gabe. He has requested Tacos and Burritos for his special dinner. Wow, life is so much simpler and less expensive when they are little! He is my baby, and it breaks Mommy's heart that he is growing up so fast.

Hope all of you have a great weekend!

 

[wakica]

Looked like lots of fun participating in the Indiana Jones show!!! Way to go acting all crazy and getting picked! LOL

This weekend I will do a bit of work, help dd with some flyers and watch Hunger Games with a friend YAY!!! Looking forward to finally seeing it. Oh also hoping to squeeze in an installation in my trip report bc I`ve been lacking again.

Have fun at the amusement - water park

 

[petals]

Loev that you got picked for the show.

I think as well I need to start doing solo movie nights.

 

[ADisneyQueen]

We got those pasta bowls at AOA and we also ended up throwing away about half of ours. The portions are just so big and we didn't expect them to be that way. It's hard to share when everyone wants something different in their bowls. I hated to throw ours away, too, b/c they were so good but we were so full. Do you all think I would look stupid bringing in some storage containers next time? I could use the food court microwave to heat them up! Ha ha!

 

[Corrine 1973]

Happy Birthday Gabe!

Hope you are all havingin a wonderful time at the Park!!!

 

[oopsiDAISY]

Looked like lots of fun participating in the Indiana Jones show!!! Way to go acting all crazy and getting picked! LOL

This weekend I will do a bit of work, help dd with some flyers and watch Hunger Games with a friend YAY!!! Looking forward to finally seeing it. Oh also hoping to squeeze in an installation in my trip report bc I`ve been lacking again.

Have fun at the amusement - water park

It really was fun being in the show!

We had a great weekend...but boy was it BUSY! We had to return to work to get some rest!

Loev that you got picked for the show.

I think as well I need to start doing solo movie nights.

Movie nights are soooo fun!!! Speaking of that, I have GOT to get busy on my planning for the next one. We are going to be out of town this weekend, and our next movie night is the following Saturday! I have done nothing to prepare so far...

We got those pasta bowls at AOA and we also ended up throwing away about half of ours. The portions are just so big and we didn't expect them to be that way. It's hard to share when everyone wants something different in their bowls. I hated to throw ours away, too, b/c they were so good but we were so full. Do you all think I would look stupid bringing in some storage containers next time? I could use the food court microwave to heat them up! Ha ha!

Love that idea...would we be the first ones to take tupperware into Disney restaurants? "Oh, excuse me kind server...I have no need for a doggie bag, here just put my leftovers in THIS!" And let's not forget the divided tupperware plate since we have food touching issues...

Happy Birthday Gabe!

Hope you are all havingin a wonderful time at the Park!!!

Thanks, Corri!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We had a great time Saturday. Brian and I had never been to Beech Bend, but the kids had. The park was...not what we expected. It turned out to be many carnival rides with one roller coaster and a water park thrown in for good measure. We had BOGO coupons for the tickets, and let's just say we are glad we didn't pay full price...we would have definitely felt robbed. That being said~ the kids LOVED it, so Brian and I had a great time just seeing them happy. It took us back to our childhood when little things like that just brought so much excitement and joy.

I also realized something else while I was there....Brian and I are officially complete Disney snobs! We found ourselves noticing and commenting on things like the chipped paint on the rides, the terrible ride cues, and the lack of good food and snack selections. Yep, we're goners!

Gabe's birthday dinner was a success. I will try to post a few pictures later this week. We just had a family dinner with Brian's parents, but I still decorated the dining room, and we got him a themed cake. He mentioned out of the blue a few weeks ago that he wanted a Pirates of the Caribbean cake for his birthday, so we indulged the little guy and did just that. He was such a happy kid.

After our super busy weekend, we are now exhausted! I hope we get to go to bed early tonight...

 

[oopsiDAISY]

Today is my Friday!!!! We leave tomorrow morning to go to a family reunion...on a lake...with cabins...and a swimming pool... This is our last "hurrah" before the kids go back to school Monday. It's been an amazing summer, hate to see it end. On to happier subjects...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

DAY 5, MARCH 12, 2012 cont.'d

When we last left off I had wowed the World with my glorious stage presence in the Indiana Jones show...

We left Indy and headed straight on over to another great show...the Muppets! It had been a while since we had seen this. The kids loved it, and when we got home we had to follow up with watching the new Muppets movie.

This was definitely the day for shows rather than rides, because we headed on over to Disney Jr. after the Muppets. Handy Manny was out in his meet and greet area, so Gabe and I stood in line for that while Brian and the girls jumped in line for the Disney Jr. show. As soon as we got to the front of the meet and greet line....Manny needed to go fix something! We abandoned ship so as not to miss the Disney Jr. show. I grabbed the camera for one snap shot of Gabe watching the show (it turned out dark since I am a TERRIBLE photographer):

Then Brian took over camera duty and proceeded to take a gazillion shots of the show...want to see all gazillion of them? No? Well, how about just a few?

Gabe loved this show. It was so sweet just watching him jump, dance and have a good time. He proceeded to fill his pocket with gold dublooms~only the shiny ones. Well apparently, he REALLY wanted to save them, because said shiny gold dublooms made a later appearance in our washing machine at home.

After our marathon of shows there were big rumblies in our tumblies, it was dinner time!!! Dinner on this night would be at 50's Primetime Cafe! I had heard great things about this place, and was very excited. I had told Brian all about the "schtick" but not the kids. Upon signing us in I requested a fun server. I was told this would be no problem. Uhhhh~not so much...

Our waiter was quite the opposite. He made it quite apparent the we would get only basic service, no more, no less. The only part of the "schtick" that he did was having Charity set the table. This only served to confuse the kids. I ended up having to explain to them what was SUPPOSED to happen. We were all very disappointed, and will not return. The food was good, but since we live in the south, dining establishments that serve "homestyle" food are on every corner. So for any of you who read my PTR, in 2011 we had a bad experience at the Sci-Fi Dine In and this time we had a bad experience at 50's PT. I am thinking when we go back next year, we wil probably eat our TS meal at a resort close by on DHS day.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I hope all of you have a wonderful weekend! I promise to post pictures from Gabe's birthday as well as pictures from the lake next week!

 

[DMGeurts]

I am super glad you all had fun at the shows... LOL about Gabe washing his gold dabloons.

In my experience, and the experience of others in the same situation, I've come to the conclusion that I will NEVER, EVER request a "fun server" at 50's I will go in there with a crappy attitude, and if we get a "great" server, awesome - if we don't... I will make my girls set the table myself, and put them in a corner myself and do whatever I deem necessary myself... And if that ever happens to us again - it will be the FIRST thing I write to Disney about when I get home.

D~ <---- Gettin' so tired of no one having a good time at 50's, those servers are there to make it fun - I think Disney forgot to give them that memo! Grrr... (sorry for the rant Oopsi)

 

[Corrine 1973]

Another great update oopsi. I am so sorry that you didn't have a good time at 50's Primetime. It is on the list of restaurants to try next year but I have been kind of iffy about it. I only want to do it because of the interaction with the servers. I don't know, maybe I will just do Mama Melrose again. I have liked there service and the food is good. I didn't like the taste of the black olives in the risoto last time but I don't blame them for it, I just didn't like that part of the dish.

I think it is so funny that you made the comment about being Disney snobs, but I think I can be added to that list. We are very lucky to have Six Flags Great America within 20 minutes of our house (I even worked there for 5 years when I was a teen), but latley I am constinalty making comments to my kids about how things look there. Things need to be painted, back stage areas are obvious to the guests, ugly looking roofs are visable from attractions high up, and they really need to work on the look of the grounds (weeds everywhere. Broken tree branches still in area from over a week ago.) I can't help but think that Disney would never let that happen. I even have my eldest saying it. Just the other day he told me that they are not the cleanest theme park (a saying they are constintly saying) but Disney is.

 

[solana131]

I just may have to sneak into your luggage.

You are going to POFQ tomorrow. Move over oopsi, I am sharing your spot in the suitcase.

Well its a good thing this didn't happen....when my suitcase got up on their scale it was 47.9 lbs The limit is 50 lbs. Now, I know you girls are really skinny.....but I think you would've probably nudged the scales over the magic 50 mark

Pfft... You guys can all share her suitcase... I'm just gonna ship myself in a box.

Now this....this would have worked.

 

[oopsiDAISY]

I am super glad you all had fun at the shows... LOL about Gabe washing his gold dabloons.

In my experience, and the experience of others in the same situation, I've come to the conclusion that I will NEVER, EVER request a "fun server" at 50's I will go in there with a crappy attitude, and if we get a "great" server, awesome - if we don't... I will make my girls set the table myself, and put them in a corner myself and do whatever I deem necessary myself... And if that ever happens to us again - it will be the FIRST thing I write to Disney about when I get home.

D~ <---- Gettin' so tired of no one having a good time at 50's, those servers are there to make it fun - I think Disney forgot to give them that memo! Grrr... (sorry for the rant Oopsi)

You are quite welcome to rant as much as you want...you know I welcome threadjackers! It seems we all had the same frustrating stories from 50's PT this time. Just despicable if you ask me!

Another great update oopsi. I am so sorry that you didn't have a good time at 50's Primetime. It is on the list of restaurants to try next year but I have been kind of iffy about it. I only want to do it because of the interaction with the servers. I don't know, maybe I will just do Mama Melrose again. I have liked there service and the food is good. I didn't like the taste of the black olives in the risoto last time but I don't blame them for it, I just didn't like that part of the dish.

I think it is so funny that you made the comment about being Disney snobs, but I think I can be added to that list. We are very lucky to have Six Flags Great America within 20 minutes of our house (I even worked there for 5 years when I was a teen), but latley I am constinalty making comments to my kids about how things look there. Things need to be painted, back stage areas are obvious to the guests, ugly looking roofs are visable from attractions high up, and they really need to work on the look of the grounds (weeds everywhere. Broken tree branches still in area from over a week ago.) I can't help but think that Disney would never let that happen. I even have my eldest saying it. Just the other day he told me that they are not the cleanest theme park (a saying they are constintly saying) but Disney is.

Yes, Disney has spoiled us all to the finer things in life! Brian and I are surprising Jillian for her 13th birthday in September. We are taking her and her BFF to a waterpark resort in Gatlinburg for the weekend of her birthday...I am interested to see how they will stack up.

Well its a good thing this didn't happen....when my suitcase got up on their scale it was 47.9 lbs The limit is 50 lbs. Now, I know you girls are really skinny.....but I think you would've probably nudged the scales over the magic 50 mark

Yeah, I tried to sneak in, but there was no room!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

DAY 5, MARCH 12, 2012 cont.'d

Hmmmm...we last left off at the Disney Jr. show, right? I seem to be getting more and more remiss with keeping up with this thing. I need to stay on it to keep the very few readers I have left. To the faithful few~ THANK YOU!

Upon leaving Disney Jr. it was time to get our thrill rides on again. If you will recall, on our first DHS day I rode R&R with Jillian and Brian rode ToT with her. On this day we would switch. Brian went on R&R with her and I rode the ToT with her. I realized what an adrenaline junkie my Jillybean is after riding ToT with her that day. She lets all that psychological stuff get to her. She was FREAKING OUT on it. She screamed the whole time. When we got off I could see and hear her little heart pounding so hard ...and she looked at me and said "I just love that ride!"

After getting our thrill rides done it was time to line up for Fantasmic. We had only seen this one time. We had gotten in at the last minute and had been stuck in the standing room only crowd. We couldn't really see over heads, people were moving around, vying for a better position. It just wasn't ideal. So I was determined to stand in the long line in order to get a good seat and actually SEE the show this time.

Before hopping in the line that was already spilling out onto Hollywood Blvd. we had one very important thing to tend to... We were planning to stay for the midnight EMH's, so we needed our survival kit...

MORE CANDY!!! Well, candy for the kids and something from my must-do list for me....

Carrot Cake Cookie...MMMMMMMM!!!! Sooo, we got all loaded down with our sugar intake for the night and headed to stand (or sit) in line for Fantasmic. Gabriel immediately made friends with a little boy behind us in line and they proceeded to "cop a squat" on the sidewalk and play with souveniers:

Charity and I posed for a sweet Mommy/Daughter picture:

Jillian? Well, she was enjoying her sugar choice of the night:

Well, it looks like she actually chose popcorn... Anywho, we finally got stampeded into the amphitheater and it was finally time...to wait some more. So we then proceeded to entertain ourselves doing what we do best...ENJOY!

Now weren't those just the loveliest pictures you have ever seen? We are soooo attractive, just what you call "the beautiful people"...

I am going to open myself up to get flamed here, but we just do not enjoy F! The crowds are INSANE, and quite frankly, the show frightens 2 out of 3 of our children. This is probably going on the list of attractions we will not do again. Sorry!

I think we ended up sort of wandering around for a while after the show. We got our picture taken by some photopass photographers. We talked about what we should do next....and we decided to just head back to the room. We felt like we had done everything there was to do at DHS for this trip. We went "home" to crash for the night.

 

[ADisneyQueen]

We used to not like F! that much, until this year. We went to the second showing and it was not crowded at all. We had excellent seats front and center and our kids were now old enough not to be afraid. We hadn't seen the show in 4 years ( and at that time we were way in the back and could hardly see) and the show just seemed great this time. I think where you sit makes a big difference. I would give it a chance when your younger ones are a little older.

For our family, we don't like illuminations. But the beauty of Disney is that from trip to trip you get new favorites and new dislikes!

 

[DMGeurts]

Great update Oopsi!

We have only seen F! once, We didn't get a chance to see it this last trip, and the trip we did get to see it, my camera batteries died - so we had no pictures. I think it might make it to our "must do" list next trip.

All of your snacks look wonderful - what I wouldn't do for Disney snacks right now...

D~

 

[Corrine 1973]

Wait a minute, you did an update and I didn't get a text?

I am glad you got to see F! again even though you didn't enjoy it. I happen to love F! but I know everyone has there own tastes so will not get mad at someone just because they don't happen to have the same views as me. I really dislike Space Mountain in which many people would be shocked about. But my only experiance on the ride was not a good on. It's your Disney trip so do what you want to do and don't let anyone make you feel bad about it. (actually my last F! wasn't the best. It was chilly and windy so every time the water picked up I was getting wet. Not very comfortable.)

Can't wait for your next update.