Today here in Ohio it is POURING. Yet again. I got up at 7 am and Pine Sol'ed my house. I LOVE the smell of Pine Sol. And I'm on a "not as many preservatives in our house" kick so I'm making all the bread we're eating from scratch this month. Instead of making two loaves this morning, I made one loaf and a batch of homemade cinnamon rolls. I asked the girls if they wanted to help and Mulan said,
"I think you can handle hitting the Pillsbury can on the counter all by yourself, Mom."
Clearly, preservatives are not a normal issue in our family. They did eventually come out to watch me and Ariel said, "Making cinnamon rolls is a little more interesting than making dinner, but not nearly as exciting as making cakes." And the went out to the living room to turn on the Wii.
So it's now 10 am, I'm sitting in a clean house, only 1 load of laundry to do, we're all watching Mulan play Epic Mickey, and I've had coffee and a cinnamon roll.
I'm telling you all that, because I'm gonna try really hard to write a lot today!
Reason being, I'm not doing anything. And I'm pondering starting my June pretrippie on Monday as tomorrow is a planning day. So I'm feeling pressure and, if you haven't noticed, we're only half way through our FIRST day! That is not good. Our June trip is lurking.
So this first chapter of my day's hopefully 3 chapters
is the conclusion of our meals.
I start you out with Suzy's dessert. Well, let's be honest. There is no way this is the only dessert she ate. But I wasn't there and this is the only one she took a picture of. Do you think she took a picture to compare to my oreo ear cupcakes? For our June trip I'm making the cupcakes again but this time I'm gonna buy sprinkles specifically for them instead of recycling Bengal color sprinkles which were the only ones I had.
And while she was eating that, Donald Duck came up to say, "You can't even wash your kids up for dinner?"
While they were chitchatting with Donald, we were meeting a Prince. To me, this Prince Charming seemed like one of the characters in a movie about Harvard. Not the pretentious boys, but just the random, clean cut, Harvard kid in the background.
I'm sure it's just my prejudices coming out, but the last princes I had met were Aladdin and Naveen on our September trip. Prince Naveen was a real charmer and told great jokes. And Prince Aladdin was a real chitchatter and love Mulan. Prince Charming, on the other hand, was so boring. He was a cardboard prince.
I just asked my girls which of the princes they would choose and simultaneously and without hesitation they replied:
Ariel: "Prince Naveen!"
Mulan: "Aladdin!"
Boo: "Prince Charming!"
So there ya go. Prince Charming's actor was chosen for his appeal to the under five set.
Meanwhile, back at the Mouse House, Goofy was schmoozing with some pirates. Even though Goofy cleans up well when he is at his night-time gig as a Chef in a 5 star restaurant, we all know that he actually is a pirate for his day job. So he was happy to see some of his own ilk.
In all the chaos that was our dinner, I had completely forgotten that the thing to eat here was the strawberry soup. I've been on many a cruise and had many a bowl of strawberry soup. So I was really looking forward to this and all of us, other than Donald, had a bowl. Though the big girls just got a tiny bowl to dip their strawberries into it. This is what most of us chose to do as this was overly sweet and rich. It was more of a drink or a dip than a soup.
Boo, however, is a HUGE berry freak. Berries of all kinds. She could eat them day and night and has had plenty of blue poop in her day from the sheer amount of blueberries consumed. So none of us were surprised when she came up with a solution of how to eat this deliciousness from a bowl when you are only 4 and don't have good spoon skills.
Lady Tremaine was NOT happy about this display of bad manners and quickly came over to give us a piece of her mind. But she didn't have enough time to do so properly as her hated stepdaughter had arrived in the pumpkin to take over the night.
Cinderella spent quite a bit of time talking to our girls. I have absolutely no idea what was said. Because I couldn't hear her. But her dance music started while she was at our table and she spent a few extra moments dancing with Boo:
And then the Prince came to claim her and they went to waltz on the floor. The Prince wasn't a very good waltzer. This may be why I was so disappointed in him. He and Cinderella laughed and talked while they danced and he seemed genuinely in to her. She seemed not very in to him. Am I over analyzing this?
Lady Tremaine looked on in disgust and kept turning to us and saying witty things, loudly, which I still couldn't hear.
And while I'm talking about Lady Tremaine, I forgot to tell you earlier that she and our server originally hit our table at the exact same time. So Lady Tremaine was there when we ordered drinks. I was going to let my girls choose their own drinks but they were being indecisive and Lady Tremaine says, "You are the mother. Take charge!" And then proceeded to take charge of the entire situation and ordered the girl's drinks herself. I don't even remember what they got to drink. Because I had no part in it. I'm pretty sure Cinderella's real mother did NOT die of natural causes. I think she was just like me and Lady Tremaine took things into her own hands to rid the world of such an unworthy mother.
Anyway, back to the moment at had, the prince and Cinderella chose alternate partners and danced with them. The prince chose poorly and the girl he got would NOT dance with him, try as he might. Come on, girl, it's your moment in the spotlight. Enjoy it. She'll grow up to be a shoosher for sure.
The Prince was simply not scoring with the ladies this evening.
Lady Tremaine came to wipe Boo's face off one more time before sweeping out of the room.
While all of that was going on, our server, who was an excellent server, by the way, came to give us clean spoons. Because this meal had been so frantic I had not remembered that it takes 20 minutes for your tummy to feel full and had scarfed down my food. And had gotten every dessert they made so I could try them all.
Well, the spoons arrived about 25 minutes after I had started eating and I had clearly eaten WAY more than it takes to be full. I was so full I could blow up. And then these spoons arrive. I actually grabbed the server's arm and said, "Why did you just give us spoons? We don't want these spoons."
Seriously, I said that. And she laughed at me. And said cryptically, "There is another special surprise coming."
Oh no! By this point in the day, Donald was sick of his eye make-up, the girls were done with their itchy dresses, we were tired of the deafening noise. Suzy & Milo were checking out and we didn't want them to have fun without us. And we were so full of who knows what food that we just wanted out of there. We don't WANT these spoons!!!
So as she sashayed off I yelled after her, "Just bring us the check!" And she gave me a cheeky smile and pushed the "announcing door" open and was gone before you knew it.
I went to grab my purse and couldn't find it! Panic! I went out to the stroller to see if it was there. And Donald texted me, 'It's under your chair, yo-yo."
So back in humiliation I came.
And arriving on our table (with our check) and a lot of fanfare was this:
You cannot tell from this picture but this thing was HUGE. Overwhelming for the overly stuffed. And yet look at Boo's face. I guess even stuffed full kids still get excited when they see ice cream covered in berries, pineapple, and whipped cream.
It was good. I choked down a few bites while we waited for the check to return with our cards.
And then we left Donald to pack up and the girls and I went into the bathroom. Do you know what we did in there?
No guesses?
They put their other clothes on and THREW OUT their dresses. Yup. We trashed 'em. I felt so free.
Now, let's get the heck out of Dodge and go use our 122 FP's, watch fireworks, and party the night away!!! I could not be sicker of pretending to be princesses. It's exhausting. We are rough and tumble girls and that's the way I like it!
We walked outside only to realize that the stairs to the monorail are permanently closed. So we had to go back in and rode the elevator up. A monorail was just pulling out as we arrived so I was a bit concerned it'd be a long wait but I guess on 10 days with EMH at MK they run a lot of monorails because there was another one almost immediately. Another perk of coming at a busy time.
And then I made an error I almost never make. I chose the wrong bag check line. Argh! It seemed like forever and I knew for a fact Suzy and Milo were already in the park having fun. I don't have contraband. I have a camera. And some AP's and room keys. And some baby wipes. That's about it, dude. Please let me in the MK!
Finally!
Donald had decided to keep his make-up on for our official castle picture.
Sorry, Boo, you aren't in this one:
We turned right at Tomorrowland cause the rest were riding Buzz. But Mulan and I had a stop to make. Her shoes were hurting her. And I wanted Mickey
crocs. Even though she is only 10 her feet are almost the same size as mine. So I bought myself some crocs and let her wear them this night. Her shoes went in the bottom of the stroller.
I have Mickey Crocs! I've wanted some ever since my mom bought them years ago in this exact store. The store behind the Merchant of Venus behind the ice cream shop.
And there, I leave you. That's all the pictures I have uploaded so you'll have to wait for more chapters.
As for my final conclusions of 1900 Park Faire. I know it seems like we are Commando Tourers. But the truth is, I really like to mosey and kick back and watch. I'm both a watcher AND a participator. I like a nice balance. And if I could put my finger on the one reason I didn't enjoy this meal it was quite simply there was no balance. There was no kicking back. It was full on participation with no breather at all. It was a commando meal. I could have cooked the meal myself and had more time to relax than I did here.
Let's go RIDE RIDES!
Fine. I've been schooled. Mac's are cool. But let me tell you for internet surfing & word processing, Microsoft rocks and Mac's are stupid. And I will not be swayed.
Crystal Palace & Tusker House's food. 
