December 19th, Cont.
We headed over to eat. We were a couple of minutes early and it was really empty, so I followed Lily as she ran around. The chicken was sooo good, much better than when we’ve gone a little later in the day. Lily really enjoyed my chocolate cake dessert. Unfortunately, we’ve definitely being overdeveloping her sweet tooth lately.
If you’ve read the last report you know that one of the big successes of that trip was Lily’s behavior at the restaurants. As long as we had plenty of snacks, she was happy to sit and soak in the attention. This trip? Not so much.
She started squirming and was crabby almost right away. I could see that the Tiny Diner was going to be useless. She just tore it off the table and wanted to throw everything. So we ate fast!
We got out in one piece and used out Buzz FPs. We’ve decided that whoever controls the vehicle (and isn’t holding a baby) has a much better chance of getting a high score. I think I had under 1000 points? Lol
We headed toward the hub and there was a parade going on. I was surprised since it was nowhere near 3:00. It was the Move It, Shake It, Celebrate it parade. There were relatively few people around, and we never get to see the afternoon parade, so we stayed to watch. We had no idea that you actually get to move into the street around the castle hub and dance with the characters. I watched the stroller and took pictures and video while DH and DD had a blast. It was great!
I thought I took a lot more pictures, but I must have been filming instead. DH was very tired after dancing, but he really had a blast. He told me he got all teary at one point thinking about how awesome it was to be there dancing with his daughter. Awww.
Here’s a tip! Try to snag a spot near the opening into the Main street hub. If you can, get in the middle (where the statue of Walt is) instead of on the outside. There will be a float right in the intersection that has Goofy, Minnie and Mickey. When the dancing happens, you can dance with Goofy on the left side (facing Main Street) or M & M on the right. Otherwise you’ll dance with Frozone or Mr. Incredible near the entrance to Tomorrowland. I don’t know who was on the other side.
We decided to leave at this point, because Lily was tired and it was really cold. I stopped to take a couple of photos.
Crowds had picked up and I could tell it would be a very busy afternoon.
So I went through the turnstile to discover DH with a bemused grin on his face. He does this thing where he dances with Lily in her stroller—spins her around and makes her giggle. Well, he spun her only to discover:
She fell asleep! She only fell asleep once in her stroller on the last trip and didn’t stay that way long, so I figured she wouldn’t this time. I was wrong and this time she passed out. And she was OUT. So we reentered the park. There was no way I was going to pull her out and wake her up to get on the bus. We decided to hit the shops on Main Street, but they were really crowded. DH wanted me to buy something nice for myself this trip, so we were looking through the stores on the Bakery side (which we much less crowded). I don’t know how I never noticed the glass blowing place at the back of the glass store. It was nice and warm in the back so I pulled off the blanket and sat on the floor while DH looked around.
I had to take a picture of these. So cool.
Lily was still asleep and it was still early, probably 11:45 ish? So we walked back up through the Main street hub to see if Tiana was out.
In August we saw Tiana a couple of times, but never stopped to take a pic. For some reason, DH really wanted to get one this time, but we always showed up at the worst times. This time the CM told us she would be back in 15 minutes, which is too long to wait with a getting-crankier-by-the- second toddler. They had her gazebo all decked out.
As we got near the gazebo, Lily woke up. We decided to see if we could catch Country Bears and then leave. So we walked past Tiana’s gazebo and heading into Frontierland and came across:
I don’t know why that’s the only picture I have of the band. Lol And no, it wasn’t meant to be a rude gesture!
I had DH park over there to watch while I went shopping at the nearby Christmas store in order to get the blanket I was becoming obsessed with. It was getting really, really cold and I wanted to get the blanket deal. (Spend $40 and get the fleece throw for $15) We had gift cards to burn, and I knew I wanted to get DD her first stocking, which was $22, so spending another $18 should be easy right? I got her a Minnie stocking and looked around for something else to buy. I settled for the Mickey santa headband that was on clearance for $16.99
and grabbed some candy to make it to $40, but I really didn’t want the headband or the candy so I kept looking and agonizing. They had a small Nemo ornament that I probably should have picked up, but it was $12.99, which was way too much.
I was in there for about 10 minutes, when DH and DD came in to find me. I showed the stocking to DD and she grabbed it and started sucking on Minnie’s nose. I knew then I should find something else to let her suck on, so I picked out the Christmas Tree Goofy plush that she’s clinging to in the photos of the Boardwalk giant chair. It was $14.99 (way too expensive, but he is really cute and she loved him!) and I grabbed a bag of chocolate covered pretzels. Whew! Quite a hectic shopping trip with a pretty full store.
DH also took this while they watched the band:
I snuggled the blanket around DD who was very happily munching on Goofy’s nose and the ornaments. That blanket got a LOT of use over the week. We did bring a small blanket from home to use for the stroller, but this one was much warmer.
I tried to find a picture of it and this is what I came up with:
I really hope that’s not it, because that’s the same blanket I bought in 2008. I swear the one we got has both castles on it (DL and WDW). I’ll have to look. I love them both, so it’s cool. They are light fleece, but super soft and warm. They have a weird smell to them that goes away with a wash. Both of them had it! (ETA: It's the same blanket from 2008. lol)
We headed over to the Country Bears, but it had a 12 minute wait, so we decided to save it for later and head out or maybe to Pirates? It’s the only reason I can think that we took the long way around past Splash Mountain, where I took this:
OMG! Had the crowds finally arrived (it had been a wonderful medium crowd afternoon, after a low crowd morning)? Nope the group you see near the back of the picture was a school. Once we got past them, it was better, but noticeably more crowded.
We skipped pirates, because it had a 15 minute wait and it was clear that Lily was done, so we headed to the exit. And we left for real this time!