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

Hi, I followed you over from Lidan's TR. I was at POFQ the same week, we had to come home the 10th.

Your surprise video was so cute. I tried to surprise my DS our Dec '10 trip, I was going to just see how long it took him to figure out where we were going but he freaked out about getting on the plane so I told him at the airport. He then decided we should just drive. He finally got on the plane and loved it, after he asked the flight attendent to please ask the pilot to fly slow.

I'm sorry to say I had to laugh really hard at the squirrel story. I have known for a while that squirrels are evil, they tease my dog unmercifully. I could also see my DS doing the same thing.

Can't wait to read more.

:welcome: any Disfriend of Lidian is a Disfriend of mine! :thumbsup2

Your story of your DS at the airport had me cracking up! I am sure since he had a great experience with a slow flying airplane, he will make that request every time now! :lmao:

Don't feel bad about getting a chuckle from Gabe's antics...after the shock and horror wore off we used that all vacation long to get a laugh. We have family squirrel jokes to this day about it! :rotfl:
 
DAY 2, MARCH 9, 202 cont.'d

Dinner was scrumptious, but there are must do's that we must do. We have to split up at this point. Jillian, Gabe and Brian have some Soarin' fastpasses burning holes in their pockets. Why aren't Charity and I going? :confused: She is afraid of heights, and cried through the whole wonderful ride last year. :sad2: That's okay, though because she and I have our own must do that we must do. We all left France. While they head to Future World for some California Soarin' we go the opposite direction...to where? We are obviously headed to another country, but to which? Ah lets mosey past Morocco, that's not where our must do is...

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BTW- this picture is totally stolen. Why? Because ALAS, Brian has the camera with him in Furture World! :rolleyes1 Does he take any pictures while they are gone? Of course not! :headache:

Where was I? Oh, we were moseying past Morocco. Our destination is just past Morocco...in Japan! We are headed to Pick a Pearl!!!! :cool1: I already knew exactly what I wanted to spend my wad on, and Charity had her heart set on something specific too. The problem for both of us is that our hearts are bigger than our wallets...but more on that later!

Since Brian had the camera, I have no pictures of the actual experience. I had read about it on the Dis (:lovestruc), and I was so excited to do this. I had even seen a picture of the setting I wanted on the Dis (:lovestruc). I really love the Dis (:lovestruc), can you tell? For those of you who have not had a chance to do this I will explain...

You go up to the counter and they will give you a number. When your number is called, you get to pick an oyster from the tank. So, since I am an avid Dis reader I knew ahead of time that you should pick the UGLIEST oyster in the tank to get the biggest, prettiest pearl. So Charity and I carefully chose our oysters. The ladies at the counter make a great ceremony of opening your pearl and presenting it to you. They have this whole speil they do, that frankly I could not understand much of...but it is done with a great big smile, so you just know they are saying something exciting. :rotfl: Our pearls are opened and....drums are beaten and...an announcement is made to everyone standing around watching and...


I got a white pearl that was 6 3/4 cm's and Charity gets a yellow pearl that was 7 1/2 cm's. :scared1: What?!? Hers was bigger than mine?!? :eek: Ah, she's my baby girl, how could I hold it against her? princess: I was actually excited for her. She just loved the whole experience.

As I stated earlier, our hearts were set on very specific settings, but our wallets just weren't big enough. What to do? :confused3 Why, we call Daddy and ask for more $$$ of course! :lmao: He knew that this was what she and I had been looking forward to all along, so he readily told me to go ahead and put the remaining balance on the debit card. See folks, he is becoming the Disney man of my dreams on this vacation... :cloud9: :love:

We picked out our settings, handed over our pearls, and payed. At this point we were given a return time to pick up our new pearl jewelery in 45 minutes. Brian and the gang were just getting ready to board Soarin', so Charity and I still had some time to spare. :idea:

OH, I totally know where I want to head for while we wait! There is yet another must do that I must do....and this one involves more food!!! :woohoo: We mosey on past The American pavilion...

america.jpg

*another stolen image...

and past Italy...

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*stolen image #3...

and straight to Germany! Was I going for a Brat? A Pretzel? Nope, I had my sweet tooth in mind. So where in Germany do you go for some delectable sweets? Karamel Kouche! You see, I knew before this trip started just what I wanted to snack on while we watched Illuminations, and it could only be had in Karamel Kuche...that delicious, crunchy, sticky and very fresh Caramel Popcorn. YUM! I grabbed a small bag, and Charity drooled all over the glass case trying to figure out what sinful temptation she should fall victim to. After careful deliberation she chose this giant sized chocolate covered caramel. Seriously folks, this thing was like the size of a rice crispy treat. It was just a big old chunk of pure caramel covered in milk chocolate...OUCH! My teeth hurt just thinking about it!

We got a text from Brian as we were headed out of the shop that they were on their way and would be there in a minute. We just sort of strolled around for a few minutes scoping out a good spot to watch Illuminations from. We all joined up in Germany and decided on the next game plan. Jillian wanted a snack at this point. Charity and I both were ready to share our treats with the whole family, but alas Jillian has braces and cannot eat caramel, poor kid! :sad1: She decided she wanted a funnel cake. So the game plan was that she and Gabe and Brian would head over to the funnel cake stand in the American pavilion while Charity and I trek back over to Japan to pick up our baubles. After much ado, here are the treasures we chose:

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Charity chose a starling silver ring with a heart setting for her big, beautiful pearl. She LOVES this, and will always cherish it.

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I chose a setting with a pure Disney theme for my white pearl...Cinderella's carriage. I wear it ALL the time and truly do love it, too. PS~try to ignore the wrinkled, age-spotted "background"! :rotfl2:

We still have a few hours left. What will we do? Did we get a good spot to watch Illuminations? Is Jillian able to get that funnel cake her taste buds are tingling for? Oh, and there are still must do's that must be done! Do stay tuned....
 
Love the carriage necklace! I really want to do this for my cousin while we are there. Her birthday is June (so is mine), so pearl is our birthstone. I just think it would be a neat experience for her to remember. Love the ring too. Wow, that's a big pearl :)
 
OMG!!! I love that carriage necklace too!! I never saw that one there!

You are making me hungry for Disney food all over again.... NUM... Just as I am planning to post pictures of our scrumptious Napoleon in my TR... We could have snack wars Oopsi??? :P

D~
 

Love the carriage necklace! I really want to do this for my cousin while we are there. Her birthday is June (so is mine), so pearl is our birthstone. I just think it would be a neat experience for her to remember. Love the ring too. Wow, that's a big pearl :)

It is such a fun experience. You should definitely do it...and take pictures of the whole experience to share! (unlike I did...)

OMG!!! I love that carriage necklace too!! I never saw that one there!

You are making me hungry for Disney food all over again.... NUM... Just as I am planning to post pictures of our scrumptious Napoleon in my TR... We could have snack wars Oopsi??? :P

D~

I am quite sure you would smoke me for real in the snack wars since you actually have PICTURES of your snacks. :thumbsup2 I mean, for all you all know I could totally be making all this stuff up since I have no pictures to prove any of it...:rolleyes1
 
Can you tell me how much was the carriage pendant and did you get the chain there too? I really want one now!
 
Can you tell me how much was the carriage pendant and did you get the chain there too? I really want one now!

I had the chain already, but they do have chains there if you want to purchase one from them. The pendant was $49.95 plus tax. The pearl is $15. It is so worth it!!!
 
/
I went back and forth on doing the pick a pearl. I wanted to but didn't want to I love your DD's ring so pretty. I wish now I had waited. We were at Epcot for the second time the same night as you. That was our last night and by that time we were so tired and I was cranky and ready to go back to POFQ.
 
I went back and forth on doing the pick a pearl. I wanted to but didn't want to I love your DD's ring so pretty. I wish now I had waited. We were at Epcot for the second time the same night as you. That was our last night and by that time we were so tired and I was cranky and ready to go back to POFQ.

Pick a Pearl was a great experience. I hope you will try it next time! :thumbsup2

A little personal note: My wonderful Brian sent me a text message yesterday with just a few words, but they were words that melted my heart...

"I am ready to go back to DISNEY!"

He used to be one of the eye-rolling, dollar sign-seeing Disney grouches...now he comes home with the latest Disney news and talks about Disney all the time. :cloud9: Apparently yesterday he heard the song "Good Life" on the radio and it gave him a bit of the Disney blues. This curmudgeon has been officially Disneyfied!!! :love:
 
That is one of the few songs I don't mind that they overplay on the radio. It takes me back every single time! Hopefully someday my hubby will jump on the bandwagon too. I'll work on him :)
 
Pick a Pearl was a great experience. I hope you will try it next time! :thumbsup2

A little personal note: My wonderful Brian sent me a text message yesterday with just a few words, but they were words that melted my heart...

"I am ready to go back to DISNEY!"

He used to be one of the eye-rolling, dollar sign-seeing Disney grouches...now he comes home with the latest Disney news and talks about Disney all the time. :cloud9: Apparently yesterday he heard the song "Good Life" on the radio and it gave him a bit of the Disney blues. This curmudgeon has been officially Disneyfied!!! :love:

OMG I bet you wanted to marry him all over again :love:
Isnt it great when you know you've finally converted them to disney;)
Loving your trip report-just dont often have time to comment:goodvibes
 
That is one of the few songs I don't mind that they overplay on the radio. It takes me back every single time! Hopefully someday my hubby will jump on the bandwagon too. I'll work on him :)

I honestly never thought my husband would ever really LOVE Disney. I knew he enjoyed it and would do it "for the kids", but something clicked inside him on this trip that gave him his own passion for Disney. I couldn't be happier! :cloud9:

OMG I bet you wanted to marry him all over again :love:
Isnt it great when you know you've finally converted them to disney;)
Loving your trip report-just dont often have time to comment:goodvibes

Brian and I have always been so different. We have always had different likes, dislikes and hobbies. It absolutely melts my heart that we share this passion for Disney now. :lovestruc
 
Good morning, just checking in to see how you are doing? :yay:Everytime, I see your name on my list of subscribed threads, I smile. Being a natural born klutz, I think I should have had your screen name.

Have a great day! pixiedust:
 
I honestly never thought my husband would ever really LOVE Disney. I knew he enjoyed it and would do it "for the kids", but something clicked inside him on this trip that gave him his own passion for Disney. I couldn't be happier! :cloud9:

Brian and I have always been so different. We have always had different likes, dislikes and hobbies. It absolutely melts my heart that we share this passion for Disney now. :lovestruc

I can sort of relate ... something hit my DH over the head and he actually had a great time this year. However, he's okay with never going back ... but at least while he's there he isn't whining as much as he has in years past. :lmao:
 
Let's have an update, shall we? When we last left our band of misfits, Charity and I had gone to get our jewels and the rest of the gang were in hot pursuit of a funnel cake...

After my precious princess Charity and I had picked up our pearly prizes (has anyone seen Mr. Popper's Penguins? That was my best Pippy impression :rotfl:) Ahem anyhow, after we had gotten our jewelry we headed towards the funnel cake stand to meet up with the rest of the family. We met up with them halfway there, but there was no funnel cake in sight. :confused: Apparently the funnel cake stand does not take the Disney Dining Plan...what's up with that? :confused3 So, our poor Jillybean was still without a snack. :worried: What to do?

:idea: OH, Churros would be a great snack for her! So we all headed in that direction. It was decided that Brian, Charity and Gabe would hang out at our chosen spot for Illuminations while Jillian and I went to get some churros for her. We headed out, and were past Germany and Norway when I realized something....Illuminations starts in about 15 minutes and Mexico is pretty far away from Germany where we planned to watch it. :( Jillian decided that she was okay for now and would just wait until Illuminations was over to get a snack. Sweet girl! :cutie: We trekked BACK to Germany just in time for Illuminations to start.

We watched the show with Snow White and the 7 Dwarves...really we did! The topiaries, that is! :lmao: Illuminations was a first for us. Last year we had tried to do Epcot commando style and after meltdowns insued, we headed out of the park right as Illuminations was getting ready to start. :rolleyes1 It was a great show. We all really enjoyed it, and will definitely do it again. We didn't try to take pictures. We have just a simple point and shoot camera, so the pictures would not have turned out well. Brian did, however get a somewhat blurry shot of Spaceship Earth from our spot in Germany:

DSCN2329.jpg


So, is it time to head back to the room now? NO WAY- we're staying 'til midnight!!! :cool1: There was another must do nearby that I wanted to try...actually two must dos that are in the same country.

But first we still had a bit of unfinished business to take care of...a snack for Jillian. We left Germany and made the hike over to Mexico. (Only at Disney, folks! :thumbsup2) When we got there, there was a group of "single ladies" in front of us in line ordering margueritas. Yes, I was a bit jealous...of them being single? Nope, of the margueritas! ::yes:: Oh well, Jillian got her churros. We had never actually tried churros before, but I had read about them on the Dis and on the Disney Food Blog, so I knew she would be able to eat them. They were so good!! They were warm and crispy, and had a wonderful caramel dipping sauce. This made her extra happy, she got to have some caramel too!

Oaky- time to tackle some must do's! We left Mexico and headed BACK toward Germany. But it not Germany we were headed to. We were going to Norway. Maelstrom was another first for us. I wasn't expecting it to be great, but I just wanted to do it since I never had. Since I wasn't expecting anything great, I wasn't disappointed. It is not a great ride. Brian and Gabe rode together, and the girls and I rode together. Right before it was over, the girls and I decided we were going to get off the ride and rave about how awesome it was to the boys, just to be silly. We just smiled from ear to ear and went on and on about how much we loved it and would definitely have to do it every time we came now...they didn't buy it. Not even Gabe! :rotfl: Oh well, it felt good to just be silly and have a little fun. :goodvibes We stopped at the troll to take the fun picture that everyone takes:

DSCN2331.jpg


While we may never go on Maelstrom again, I will probably make my kids do this picture every year to steal D~'s now and then photo idea. :thumbsup2 Now it was time for the other must do in Norway...and it involves MORE FOOD. So, if you are keeping track, since we returned to the park we have had a three course dinner, caramel popcorn, a big chocolate covered caramel and churros. That wasn't going to stop ME! :rotfl2: In all fairness, we only ate about 1/3 of the popcorn and Charity had only taken a few bites of the the choco-caramel. Jillian did eat all of her churros...with a little help of course. :rolleyes1 Honestly, this must do was being purchased with the plan to save it for breakfast the next day. So we headed into the Kringla bakery for some of this:

schoolbread.jpg


I ordered two schoolbreads to go, please. They looked good, and I was looking forward to all of us trying them for breakfast the next morning with a hot cup of coffee! :cloud9: Well, coffee for Brian and I, not the kids! :thumbsup2

It was getting late at this point, so we headed towards Future World. As we were getting closer to leaving the park for the night Brian noticed that the wait at Character Spot was only 10 minutes, so we decided to duck in there to get some photo ops for the kids. We didn't need autographs since we got those at Chef Mickey's during our March 2011 trip. The characters seemed to be rushing everyone through. There wasn't a whole lot of interaction. We just chose to let the photopass photographers take pics for us. I have none for this update....but wait!!! We got our PP cd in the mail over the weekend, so for my next update I will post our Epcot day PP pics! :woohoo:

As we were getting ready to leave Brian took one last picture of beauty:

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Stay tuned for photopass pictures...
 
Good morning, just checking in to see how you are doing? :yay:Everytime, I see your name on my list of subscribed threads, I smile. Being a natural born klutz, I think I should have had your screen name.

Have a great day! pixiedust:

Thanks for checking in just to say hi... that makes me smile so big! :goodvibes Yes, I was very proud of myself for coming up with that username. I too am a natural born klutz...and not usually so witty! :rotfl2:

I can sort of relate ... something hit my DH over the head and he actually had a great time this year. However, he's okay with never going back ... but at least while he's there he isn't whining as much as he has in years past. :lmao:

I have a feeling it is only a matter of time before your DH gets knocked over the head with a wand and drowned in Pixie Dust too :wizard:...or maybe you could sneak something into his dole whip next time you go. :stir: :lmao:

So, I have been reading through the movie night thread...the very long movie night thread... :surfweb: and I have decided I am going to start having some great movie nights for my family once a month or every other month to help pass the between WDW trips time. We will have our first one this Saturday night. One of my BFF's has her hubby and son going on a Scout camping trip this weekend, so it will be just her and her DD. I have invited them to join us. I gave her a list of three options to choose from...I will be back later to tell you what we pick and what we plan to do. I will take pictures of movie night and post them on here too! I thought that would be a great way to beef up the TR and make it last longer too! :rolleyes1
 
I can't wait to try the churros! I've had churros before, but I'm sure they taste much much better at Disney ;) So, did you like the schoolbread? I wasn't too blown away by it. But I know lots of people love it. Oh wait, you had it for breakfast, so that will probably be in the next update.
 
Great update! I'm sorry that you didn't love Maelstrom. It's actually a "must" for us. :confused3 It's not an amazing ride, by any means, but we like it. It's indoors, you're off your feet. What can be better? :lmao::rotfl2:

Can't wait to see your PP pictures!

Thanks for checking in just to say hi... that makes me smile so big! :goodvibes Yes, I was very proud of myself for coming up with that username. I too am a natural born klutz...and not usually so witty! :rotfl2:

I have a feeling it is only a matter of time before your DH gets knocked over the head with a wand and drowned in Pixie Dust too :wizard:...or maybe you could sneak something into his dole whip next time you go. :stir: :lmao:

So, I have been reading through the movie night thread...the very long movie night thread... :surfweb: and I have decided I am going to start having some great movie nights for my family once a month or every other month to help pass the between WDW trips time. We will have our first one this Saturday night. One of my BFF's has her hubby and son going on a Scout camping trip this weekend, so it will be just her and her DD. I have invited them to join us. I gave her a list of three options to choose from...I will be back later to tell you what we pick and what we plan to do. I will take pictures of movie night and post them on here too! I thought that would be a great way to beef up the TR and make it last longer too! :rolleyes1

I'd love to do movie nights! However, I'm a horrible cook, and DH won't really be interested. .... Stupid missing smilies.... Anyway, I'd REALLY love to do this with DN (who will get her first trip next year), only she doesn't live very close (it's not far either -- but factoring in gas and stuff, yeah...).

If you do movie nights, be sure to take pictures and post them in your PTR! :love:
 
Great update! I can't wait to see the PP pics!
 
Excellent update! I can't believe I missed it!

Yah - Maelstrom was a "must do" for us this trip too - and when we got off, we wondered why in the world we waited in line for 45 minutes? LOL And school bread was on our must try list, as well, but we never tried it. Oh well, next time.

I love the pics of the kids in Norway - that is a great spot for a Now n' then!

D~
 














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