Ooh, the monorail DOES smell funny... (almost finished!) [11/30-12/17, 2010]

[bumbershoot]

more of dec 2!​

We had gone to DHS by bus, then come back. A, Syl, and I had been thanked by the menfolk. The kids ran around in circles, loving the space. The master bath area was especially good for running, because you could do a loop. Hallway, bedroom to big-bath room, to toilet/shower room, to laundry room, and repeat.

Eventually, hunger overtook us all. There were many ideas thrown around, but ultimately I spoke up to say that I thought Sweet Tomatoes would be most excellent. It's a restaurant that is a soup/salad/pasta/etc sort of place. For me, it's like Zoopa.

This was agreed upon, and we caravanned on over. Went past DTD and the hotels near there, and it was pretty close. On the maps I originally had, and in my mind, I thought things were going to be so far away, but everything is really interconnected.

Sweet Tomatoes at the Crossroads is right next to the Pirate Mini-Golf place. OH how I wish we'd gotten over to play mini-golf! It was just too dang cold, though; the cold really slowed us down and sucked away our momentum. It's probably the same when it's super-hot.

We all got tasty food, exactly what we wanted. They have a huge salad bar (it's the same on both sides, FYI), with some organic ingredients. Everything is well labeled. After you pay you get to the non-salad stuff. Various soups (Robert had a sort of stir-in Asian style thing where you get the broth and then put in other stuff), pastas, cornbreads, muffins, just all sorts of things.

It was 26.60, I believe, for the 3 of us. Cheapest meal of the trip, I believe.


We also experimented with having a kids' table. Set them at a booth and we took the half booth right next to them. It...did not work. The kids were too busy playing to actually eat. My son was not innocent in all of this, in fact he was a big instigator after Lady had such a bouncy happy reaction when he accidentally nudged her under the table, so he kept doing it.

We did not make the mistake of the kids' table again! Maybe on the next trip when they are older.


We were all enjoying multiple courses and coffee and just being mellow, when Lady started grabbing at her ears and holding her throat. UH OH. We hadn't remembered, but they've recently noticed a peanut allergy showing up. So this meant she'd gotten some peanuts.

Cousin A got out the benadryl she carries, but her mom had a more immediate idea. This will sound odd to those who haven't thought of it before, but Syl suggested giving Lady little sips of coffee. Coffee, you see, is a GREAT medicine for lung problems. I use it myself, when my lungs are acting up and thinking about being all asthmatic. It just opens things right up. So although they'd already dosed her with a pill, they gave her tiny sips of coffee. That stopped the itching and the throat-clutching *immediately*. I mean instant change. The benadryl was a pill, so it hadn't even started to disintegrate by the time the coffee took effect.

We also discovered that Lady LOVES black coffee. I should mention that she's 3! Not something one would normally find out about your 3 year old! But it's not a big surprise. Most of the women on my mom's side of the family enjoy coffee (and beer) quite a bit and from a relatively young age.

[Coffee at a young age, I mean. Well, I had my first sip of beer at 8, and I liked it from that moment, but I don't know how early the other women tried beer. Since my mom was married at 17 I imagine she had beer pretty young, and I imagine her sister did too...but I don't know about my cousin...anyway, I digress. I meant *coffee* when I said we liked it from a young age.]

So after the triage and action happened, we started working out where the peanuts had come from. Robert finally outed Sh. Because Sh wasn't saying anything, but Robert had seen it all. Sh made a sundae, put a peanut topping on it. Was eating it. The topping was mixed in, and Lady wanted a bite of ice cream. (that that their cruddy softserve is "ice cream", mind you, I saw the ingredients!) This is still all new, and we know perfectly well that it's hard to remember everything when you're first finding out about a sensitivity, and he just didn't think about the peanut topping...

I later reminded him, because we seemed to get along very well, that he's going to have to be careful even about kissing his little daughter, if he's going to keep eating peanuts.


So the scare was not scary anymore, and we were ready to go! Where to? Back to DHS, to see the Osborne Family Lights.

By coming into the park so relatively late, we got rock star parking. Just aisles away from the bus lane, which is right in front. That was nice.

First we went on the Great Movie Ride, and saw the gangster storyline. I have a very hard time describing this ride. You're on a ride through movies, and then you're kidnapped? And it's melodramatic and goofy, and the kidnapper CM was a cute young woman wearing jazz shoes with heels and obviously was a dancer from the way she moved, and wouldn't it be fun for E to continue with dance and get a job at Disney doing that stuff while he's on college breaks? Anyway, then finally the original CM comes back and it's all very dramatic how the kidnapper CM is taken care of, and then you're off the ride....

I've read that there's also a cowboy storyline.



Near the GMR was a popcorn stand, and I saw that they had two of the awesome special snowman buckets there...there was no time to buy it at that time, and I was nervous because there were only the two, but at least I'd spotted it.


I've said it before, DHS confuzzled me. So I'm not sure where we might have wandered before we got to the Lights. It was also dark by then, and we were being led around, so I got turned around.

Then as we were on our way out (we stayed so long the park was almost entirely closed and empty by the time we walked to the gates)...

The legs moved in a "can can" sort of way, or Rockettes if you prefer...



We left! We drove "home"! We relaxed! The kids played, we talked, got to know each other... It was fun. Good night!

 

[Sherry E]

I love those Osborne photos, and the little can-can/Rockettes doodads. I see that E was enjoying the snow!

Sweet Tomatoes is called Souplantation down here. They're in the same family. Have you been to Souplantation when you've been in SoCal? It always amuses me how certain things have different names depending on the region. Down here, it's Best Foods mayonnaise. All over the rest of the U.S., it's Hellmann's. Down here we have Ralphs's grocery stores, but in the rest of the country it's Kroger.

What quick thinking about the coffee to treat Lady's peanut allergy attack! Coffee is a wondrous beverage, anyway, but that just makes it all the more so.

 

[kaoden39]

I love that lit up bicycle. I have to show that to Scotty later. He will love it.

 

[bumbershoot]

I haven't been to souplantation, but I might in the future! Up here, as I think I said, we have Zoopa, and it's GOT to be related b/c even the signs are almost exactly the same.


Coffee's great. If I got into a serious bout of asthma attacks I wouldn't necessarily rely on it solely, but it has helped me at times I didn't really think it would. It was so cool that another human on the planet put their trust in it, and that it worked out.


The bike was cool.

Every year they put a black cat in the display, hidden, and we did find it, but it didn't come out in the picture, boo.

The Rockette things, by the way, since there's no size reference in the picture, were human-sized!

 

[kaoden39]

We are deprived in the bay area. We have none of them.

 

[twokids0204]

First we went on the Great Movie Ride, and saw the gangster storyline. I have a very hard time describing this ride. You're on a ride through movies, and then you're kidnapped? And it's melodramatic and goofy, and the kidnapper CM was a cute young woman wearing jazz shoes with heels and obviously was a dancer from the way she moved, and wouldn't it be fun for E to continue with dance and get a job at Disney doing that stuff while he's on college breaks? Anyway, then finally the original CM comes back and it's all very dramatic how the kidnapper CM is taken care of, and then you're off the ride....

I've read that there's also a cowboy storyline.

Was reading your trip report, and saw this...

Just thought I'd confirm

Here's a pic of the cowboy.

Story line is identical - including the "very dramatic way the kidnapper is taken care of"

 

[bumbershoot]

Thanks for the picture! Interesting that they end up the same, isn't it. For some reason I figured that you saw different things, but now that I really think about it, it makes sense.



Michele, I was looking at the store locator, and it seems there are Sweet Tomatoes in the Bay Area...San Jose (two locations), Fremont, Pleasanton, Pleasant Hill, and Sunnyvale. Not that I'd make a special trip for it (our Zoopa is near the airport and Ikea, so we go there when we are doing other things up there), but they do seem to exist out there.

 

[kaoden39]

Yeah, I saw that too. I figure from what I read that it is very like Fresh Choice. Pleasant Hill is the closest location and that is over a bridge, and 30 minutes if I am lucky away. I figure that if I am over there I may try it.

 

[bumbershoot]

OH, see? see? Fresh Choice is Zoopa. We're all one.

(I'm still not well, I'm not sleeping very well, and Robert's off watching The Expendables with a friend while I hold down the fort at home. I'm a little loopy. But don't you worry, I plan to sleep until 2pm tomorrow while Robert is home! Gotta beat this stupid crud (that my aunt and cousins ALSO still have).)

 

[kaoden39]

That is the souvenir I hate to bring home. I hope you feel better. I had wanted to see the Expendables, but I haven't yet. I have Harry Potter twice. The movie I really want to see is True Grit.

 

[bumbershoot]

So how was Harry Potter 7a? 6 and a half? #7 part one? You know what I'm saying.


Oh this computer. See it has a sensitive middle part of the keyboard, and the trackpad thing is BIG. So if you even think of brushing up against it while typing, which is easy b/c the non-keyboard, wrist-rest, portion of the keyboard unit, is very deep and broad, it will take your writing up, down, or over to wherever your cursor is sitting. It's absolutely maddening. I'm having to re-learn how to type like on a typewriter, with hands way up in the air and wrists up. Exhausting! But even then it will take just the closeness of a hand or sleeve or whatever, and will think it's a touch to the touchpad.... It's like we have touchscreen tecnology on the trackpad, but we're not supposed to!

stupid Dell Inspiron 1501.....

 

[DLR29]

Sorry about your computer troubles. Just catching up here because I was at DLR yesterday. First, I really enjoyed the Great Movie Ride and both times we've been, we've seen the gangster scene, so I am also very curious about the cowboy section. I also would love to see the Osbourne Lights. They look amazing!

 

[BillyFan]

I would love to see the Osborne Lights some day! The last time we were in the World, it was an October, and they were setting up for it.

And yep, Zoopa is Fresh Choice here in San Jose. There is one in Almaden Plaza, so not far from your old stomping grounds, Molly.

 

[bumbershoot]

Speaking of soup/salad places, I miss Lettuce Souprise You in Atlanta GA.




Yesterday in a frenzy of pre-2011 cleaning, I gave myself my second worst asthma attack. Yay me! This condo is possibly the dustiest place I've ever lived in (and let's remember that I lived in dry and dusty San Jose with no AC so we had to have windows open for ventilation and we lived next to farmland which was later turned to housing developments ). I was grossed out by it, and knew I wasn't doing myself any favors by not vacuuming etc, so first I dusted the big bedroom, then vacuumed most of it. The amount of dust in my just-cleaned-out-vacuum-canister after doing that was frightening. And then..I couldn't breathe.

Robert and Eamon were doing errands and recycling, so I just sat, texted them, and waited. Couldn't find my inhaler, couldn't get up to make coffee or nettle tea. Was only 5+ minutes, felt like a million years. Not fun.

And this was right after I thought I was starting to feel better from the whatever it is I brought home...just had to go and bring up all the dust...

So today we got the filter set back up again, let's see if that can help with the dust.

Bleah.

 

[kaoden39]

Oh Molly that's awful. I hope you feel better. Kacy gets like that, and it is scary as heck. Have you ever tried warm beer? I was once told that it works wonders. We haven't tried it yet.

 

[bumbershoot]

December 3, day 4!​

I do not know if we woke up bright and early this day, but I do know it takes a LONG TIME to get 8 people up and out. This morning, like all but one of the other with-family mornings, started with people making breakfast! How fun is that?

Although I didn't do any cooking, I loved having the full kitchen available to us, especially since others were doing the cooking.

Since I was at Disney, I was one of the first up, and I do believe that my cousin's husband and I bonded by going to Conch Flats to pick up eggs and bagels and all that sort of thing. I had brilliantly bought and brought salt and pepper! But if I hadn't, they had it at the store. Of course, the stores at DVC places are approx twice the cost of Publix; if you have a rental car, use it and go to the proper store, IMO....

It should be noticed that Ms Ants-in-her-pants (while at Disney) was quite content just being with the family. This was new and unusual and a bit weird (and kept freaking out her husband), but it was good for that time. Alas, it set a bad precedent, and apart from one day at DHS, we never got to a rope drop, not even our Crystal Palace morning (because they opened the parks an hour early than they had scheduled!).


We got ourselves out to the bus stop...

And where do you think we went?

OK for the DLR-newbs out there... Once again, WDW is enormous. So even when you're dropped off somewhere, there is still walking. Like with the Mickey and Friends parking structure at DLR, you think you're right there, but really you have to unload your car, get to the insanely tall escalator or the elevator, walk to the tram, wait for the tram, take the tram, and still have to walk partway through DTD to get to the bag check area before getting to a park.

So it's not like in my head, where we'd pull up and WHAMMO there's the Epcot ball in all its glory. Nope. Instead, you see it in dribs and drabs.

I'm going to interrupt myself here to mention that bag check at WDW is intense! At DLR, I'm used to the CMs asking ME to open my bag, to move stuff around, etc. At WDW, they get ALL into your bags! They root around in there with their hands, they'll open zippers, the whole nine yards. I was actually pretty shocked by how intense they get with the bags.

I was also shocked by the guy who brought a dry-sack, like something you would put your kayaking gear in, to a park, who then had to dump it ALL out so the CM could go through it, because there are no organizing pockets etc in a dry-sack...

The monolithy looking things leading up to the ball in one of the pictures there are a memory-type of thing. Most of them have pictures, if I'm remembering correctly, and names of the people who bought them. It's all very cemetery-like, and I wonder what it was like there before they put those in.


The first ride we did was Spaceship Earth. I was recently reading a post about "what stupid things do you hear at WDW", and while most contributions were funny and good, some bugged me. Why? Because they are things easily said by someone who just hasn't been to WDW, or a part of WDW, yet.

For instance, someone overheard someone else asking how you get into the ride. IMO that's a good question! I saw people in a line on the left hand side, and people in line on the right. We saw people going across, in line, from the left to the right? Wha' huh??? Where do you get IN? It's a fair question. The answer was, right in the middle. And to get there, you have to move through the clump of people all "trying to meet up with their party" (one of whom did so,with the help of the CM, which caused our entire group to say "well that was disappointing", because in her case it was entirely obvious that she was just cheatin' the system).


Yesterday I read a thread about SE and now my memories of it are confused. It's a basically nice ride, it's rather dark, it's got Judi Dench narrating, it involves computers partially....and at the end of that first ride, Lady went haring off after something and Eamon grabbed her hand, so the two of them were missing in the crowd for about 4 nervewracking minutes.


OK just thinking about those moments makes me a little faint, so I gotta take a little break.

 

[kaoden39]

Oh that is scary as heck. I would have totally freaked out Molly. And as far the ride how confusing is that?

 

[bumbershoot]

Yeah, it was NOT fun. I was the one that said "I'll stay right here" while the others fanned out. The end of the ride is a big area, sort of like part of Innoventions, and they have big screens where you can see yourself "in the future", and there's something that people can do on table sort of things, and there's just a lot of people in there all milling around. For a short person like me (and my cousin and my aunt) it was just miserable; the men could see a bit better, but on the other hand, the kids aren't very tall themselves! My aunt was the one that found them. E was doing his best to keep her in one spot, and I'm GLAD that he tried to protect her, but we're going to have to do better in the "use your VOICE" part of "how to be found when we can't find each other" lessons....



Trying to work out the timing of our very slow Epcot day. We did little. We saw lots. We talked a WHOLE lot. But my camera was not manually changed to daylight savings time, and it wasn't changed to eastern time...and then Robert used an app on his phone to keep track of rides, and he had issues with the timezone changes and his phone...so we're just a bit lost on what we did exactly when.

But the end of the story is going to be "you guys hardly did anything!" and I'll just have to say "ayep, and it was OK". Back soon.

 

[cheshiregirl]

subbing!

 

[twokids0204]

Yeah, it was NOT fun. I was the one that said "I'll stay right here" while the others fanned out. The end of the ride is a big area, sort of like part of Innoventions, and they have big screens where you can see yourself "in the future", and there's something that people can do on table sort of things, and there's just a lot of people in there all milling around. For a short person like me (and my cousin and my aunt) it was just miserable; the men could see a bit better, but on the other hand, the kids aren't very tall themselves! My aunt was the one that found them. E was doing his best to keep her in one spot, and I'm GLAD that he tried to protect her, but we're going to have to do better in the "use your VOICE" part of "how to be found when we can't find each other" lessons....



Trying to work out the timing of our very slow Epcot day. We did little. We saw lots. We talked a WHOLE lot. But my camera was not manually changed to daylight savings time, and it wasn't changed to eastern time...and then Robert used an app on his phone to keep track of rides, and he had issues with the timezone changes and his phone...so we're just a bit lost on what we did exactly when.

But the end of the story is going to be "you guys hardly did anything!" and I'll just have to say "ayep, and it was OK". Back soon.

The end of the ride, they ask you questions on a touch screen, about how you want to live in the future, and then they compile all of your answers and build YOUR future.

What you do at the exit of the ride (when you see yourself on the big screens)... You can identify your ride car (from one of the computer consoles), and e-mail the pictures back to yourself, the ones of you in YOUR future.

Great pics of the Epcot ball

The "cemetery" type looking thing, is called LEAVE A LEGACY, where you can put your pic or family pic permanently on the wall in Epcot.