UPDATE HERE!!!
Still Friday, Nov. 23rd ~ EPCOT!
We arrived at Epcot at 3:00 pm. I had initially wanted to get there a lot earlier but I was okay with the time. In case you forgot, when we were originally planning this trip we were going to drive to Orlando from NC on this day. We bought 5 day tickets instead of 4 day because well, why wouldnt you?

It was only another 10 bucks total for all of us to add a day ~ no brainer! I was crazy enough to think that we might use that extra day on the tix the night we got in! That thought is so hysterically funny right now!

Im so glad we changed our plans! So this day was extra. Gravy. Icing on the cake. BONUS!

So big deal
its 3:00.
Anyway
we got to see the golf ball up close for the first time ever! It was so cool for us. We were really bummed that it was closed. Every time we walked by it Owen would say, We get to go in there next time, right? Isnt it so nice to know there will be a next time
every time? Once you adopt that mindset it takes away so much of the have to fit it all in stress. So here is a pic of the kids in front of SSE.
As we headed farther in we stopped in the gift/camera shop right under SSE (to the right) to buy the boys some autograph books. Abby wanted to use hers from the last trip. From there we went to Innoventions (whichever one is on that side). We roamed around in there for a bit. We watched the segway practice and Tom and I decided wed really like to try that sometime.
We played around with some robots:
After we left there we checked the times board and saw that wait times for Test Track and Soarin were about 3 days and there were no fast passes. That was okay because we knew wed be back to Epcot later in the week and it wouldnt be as busy. We meandered just looking and taking it all in. We discovered the wait for Finding Nebo, I mean Nemo, was only 30 minutes. We hopped in line and it moved steadily
almost too steadily! I didnt have time to take any pictures!

We loved the underwater theme though and really enjoyed the school of fish making the shapes on the wall. In what was less than 30 minutes I am sure, we climbed into clam-mobiles. It was now 4 oclock and we were on our first ride at Disney!!!

Tom rode with the boys and I rode with Abby. We thought it was really cute. We got a chuckle out of the starfish at the end. Here is a pic from the ride:
From there we went to Turtle Talk with Crush. Dude, we loved it! You should totally go sometime! It was awesome, dude! Evan and Owen joined the kids up front and the rest of us took a seat near the back. When it came time for Crush to take questions from the kids he said, Lets have this little dude right here with the shades on his noggin. Whats your name little dude? And we hear a familiar voice say, Owen. Tom, Abby and I were grinning from ear to ear. So Crush asked Owen what his question was and what followed was a painful silence. I knew Owen would be so embarrassed! But Crush must be used to kids forgetting their question because he said, Dude, thats alright. Around here we call that a Dory-moment. It was cute and it made Owen feel a lot better. As we were walking out of the room afterward he told me that he was going to ask him how old he was.
We spent quite a bit of time after that walking around looking in the aquarium. We really like that kind of thing so it was right up our alley. We stood in line to get this picture:
Yes, that sweet little girl jumped right in there at the last second ~ but hey, she's cute so she can stay! Plus I didn't want to make everyone behind us wait while I took another shot.
Then we got this shot. This is the face Abby makes when I say, Act like you love each other.
We watched the diver in the scuba tube. Abby really liked that. I dont know if it was because she thinks scuba diving is cool or if it was because the diver was really cute!
Next we walked over to The Land Pavilion. We watched the characters interacting with folks in the Garden Grill as we walked by. The kids were so excited when I told them that was where we were going to eat later in the week. Evan thought it was really funny that Mickey was dressed like a farmer!
We found the wait time for Living with the Land was 5 minutes. After some rude people cut in front of us, we got in line. We enjoyed the boat ride ~ even though we had to ride with the rude people! Here is the gratuitous Mickey pumpkin picture!
After the ride we decided we were getting hungry. We scoped out Sunshine Seasons and didnt really like what we saw. We headed back upstairs and outside. While we had been inside it had gotten dark outside and we were happy to see Epcot all lit up in Christmas lights! Here are some really awful pictures:
Over the main walkway to WS:
The tree that Mickey lights each night.
Our nighttime pictures get better during the week, I promise! Tom played around with the settings on the camera and we got much better shots later. But youll have to wait for those!!
We checked the map again and chose to eat here:
We liked it. The kids and I split 2 orders of chicken tenders and fries and Tom had a cheeseburger. We thought it was good except my kids love ranch with their chicken tenders and there wasnt any on the condiment bar. Oh well
I was happy with the honey mustard.
After we ate we visited the pin place right outside of the Electric Umbrella. We got some replacement backs for Abbys 2 pins that needed them. The kids each got a pin too. Abby got a Tink pin, Evan got an R2D2 one and Owen got a Lightening McQueen/Dinoco pin. Ill take pics of those and post them later.
Being newbies at Epcot, I really wanted to ride Figment. We walked over there and right onto to the ride. Now it could always be like that, I wouldnt know, but we decided that even for the day after Thanksgiving we were liking the crowd levels so far! (Remember, our first trip was the week between Christmas and New Years!)
Figment was fun. Except for the skunk part. But it was fun. Here is pic of the kids after the ride. Figment wasnt there ~ it was kind of late, I guess.
After that the kids didnt want to see HISTA!

I tried! Really I did. They wanted to look in Mousegears instead. By now it was nearing 8 pm and it was really cold!!! In our rush to vacate the condo earlier we neglected to grab sweatshirts! We werent the only ones. Mousegears was jam packed with people wanting to buy sweatshirts ~ probably so they could watch Illuminations without freezing to death. We changed our minds and decided it would be a good time to head out.
So that we did
and happily so. No, we hadnt done a lot. But we enjoyed what we had done and knew wed be back. And now we had the lay of the land a little bit. All was good.
We headed out of the world back toward the condo. Before settling in there we hit the
WalMart and got breakfast stuff, soda, water, etc. so wed be set for the morning. Then we headed back and collapsed into those brand spankin' new beds!
Next up
MGM!!!