The Bear and the Bow: Planning a Christmas with the Mouses - Update 12/11

[Stringbean&Wingnut]

Yay for 75 days!!!!

The atmosphere of the Harry Potter area does look gorgeous, I'm sure you're going to have a great time just wandering around! DBF has mentioned that he wants to go to Universal on a future trip, so maybe I will get to check it out one day!

 

[Merida]

It's been kind of a long, rough weekend so I'm still working on a couple of photo updates and catching up on things, but I did do something Disney:

Sometimes Disney really gets it right - I mean, it's a princess coloring book detailing the princesses' relationships with their horses. It does come across as though they have no other friends (except Aurora, who meets the fairies) besides their boyfriend and their horse and they dress Aurora in a truly awful gold dress on the back (clashes with her skin tone) but more importantly - they're in different clothes. I know it doesn't really matter if you color the traditional movie costumes differently, but I always feel compelled to do them the 'right way.' Of course, the new outfits in the book are not really appropriate for riding, but it's good enough (except Belle and sort of Jasmine. But now Belle wears a tiara to read books about horses so she can't really win).

Not that I spend too much time thinking about (unintentionally hilarious) coloring books or anything.

 

[Stringbean&Wingnut]

I'm sorry to hear you didn't have a good weekend! Hopefully your week gets better!!

They do seem to take a bit of..."artistic license" with those coloring books . I'd want to put the princesses in their "right-colored" clothes too!

 

[Merida]

They do seem to take a bit of..."artistic license" with those coloring books . I'd want to put the princesses in their "right-colored" clothes too!

I know! I'm waiting for the Disney princess fashion plate coloring book because who actually colors anything besides the clothes (and horses, in this case)?? I would totally make my own, but coloring in the lines is pretty much the limit of my artistic ability!

 

[Merida]

It’s midterm(s) week! I’m currently taking a break (a very long break) from studying for atmospheric chemistry. I’ve finally reached the point in school (18 years later..) where there are more classes without tests than with! Hurrah! Unfortunately, chemistry is a first year class so there’s tests.

Anyway, Bear and I have finally finished collecting the most important part of a trip – luggage! Even though we both moved across the country we had a grand total of two old duffels and a carry-on between the two of us. Not really enough to travel for two weeks. So I’ve been shopping!

First, a new bag for my new camera:

​

Love this bag. Every now and then I worry that it’s too big for theme parks and then I remember it’s way smaller than a backpack. Plus it carries two lenses, my new Canon T2i, and an older point-and-shoot with lots of extra pockets. This will probably be the only bag we take into the parks (if we do take a bag into the parks). I’ve been practicing with the T2i primarily in the house with my cats and they’ve been very well trained. Every time I bring out the dslr they run to get in front of it. I’m not really sure why as only one of them likes to sit still, maybe just the attention I give them? Anyway, about 90% of my pictures of the bags (and I took a LOT) have cat parts in them, which are really hard to edit out. Just wanted to mention this because the next two pictures have our older cat, Darren, photobombing them.

New toiletries bags!

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I am kind of obsessed with bags (and blankets, but for different reasons) because I like to appear organized. I didn’t have anywhere to store a toothbrush or my thousand and one headbands (obsessed with those too) so Bear and I found these and now he wants new toiletry bags (though he did just get a really nice personal/laptop bag FOR FREE from buying cologne. Girl perfume doesn’t come with such nice bags. Totally jealous, even though I don’t wear perfume or cologne. I just really like prizes).

New Veras!

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Veras were huge on my undergrad campus and I’ve had at least one wallet (the full sized purses are a little.. patterny for me) for my phone/bank card for years. We had a full selection in our campus bookstore and then I moved to Colorado where Vera Bradley seems to be less popular. Shipping from the website is absurdly expensive so it practical to get more to temper the shipping costs. When I don’t need my camera bag, I’ll be carrying one of these around depending on how much stuff I need. The gray one is surprisingly roomy and my new Disney visa deserves two wallets (especially since we got the extra 200 Disney dollars for signing up).

And finally, our new luggage.

​

I’m super excited for this. We have enough pieces now that I can start making packing lists. Packing lists! I love packing and am very good about it and really needed a personal electronics bag, on the road overnight bag, Disney bag, and Ocala bag before starting on that project. Two weeks worth of packing (with three-ish days of driving on each end) and limited trunk space (we have a little sporty Kia that we both love dearly, but the small trunk is made distressingly tiny with subwoofers in the back) means packing lists and organized packing are a must. Bear is more of a ‘throw clothes in a bag’ packer and I’m a ‘fold clothes specially and use all the dinky pockets to maximize space’ packer so I’m taking the lead and he’ll stuff them in the trunk in December.

 

[Merida]

Ahh! I've fallen so far behind on everything. We got our new set of foster kittens (mama + three one week old kittens) this past weekend and all of our time has been sucked up by the kittens. Definitely setting time aside tomorrow to get caught up on all my subscribed (pre-) trip reports and, well, my own.

 

[poisonapple_PRINCESS]

Love all your bags! I need some bags for my trip...just one more thing to spend money on! Your cat in the one bag photo is gorgeous! I'd have a cat if I didnt hate pet hair so much....so I just enjoy other people's cats. Cant wait to another update

 

[Merida]

Okay, so my relaxing Friday didn’t really happen. But I did get much further on my research, so maybe this weekend won’t be too bad. Outside of giving three kittens and at least one (maybe two) full grown cats a bath, that is. The mother foster cat has given up on the Sisyphean task of keeping everyone clean so now Bear and I are regularly bathing the kittens in the sink. This goes about as smoothly as one would think, especially since all three kittens start howling the minute you breathe on them. Howling kittens then send our cats into fits because they just really love kittens and they aren’t allowed near the kittens to fix the problem. Mama cat is usually somewhere ignoring the kittens and right now it’s the best because we – obviously – have no control over anything in our house anymore.

I’m guessing we’ll be about this tired when we finish up at Universal. One more car ride and we’ll end up back at Port Orleans, where we started the morning. Our (my) strategy will hopefully have worked and there will be a refurbed king bed room waiting for us. After a nice drive to the Mansions section (this I am adamant about; the Mansions have been the background on my iPhone countdown and ages and I really, really want to stay there) and putting any leftover luggage in our room we’ll settle down for a nice…

Stroll through Port Orleans to a boat to Downtown Disney!

It’s the first day, we can’t give up this early! Plus we won’t have had dinner yet and I need my three square meals to remain pleasant. I have never been to Downtown Disney and this is pretty much our only free night. To be honest, I’m not really sure what’s there but I am expecting it to be packed (too much time on the DisBoards, maybe..) There are some greatest hits I have sussed out:

(also, there’s a TruMoo commercial on right now and that stuff is nasty. We switch off our normal milk/chocolate milk order from the local dairy to pink lemonade in the summer and usually end up craving chocolate milk every now and again. It usually works out that we forget which is the preferred chocolate milk brand so Bear just grabs one until we’ve tried them all. TruMoo was pretty much the worst of the lot; why try and make chocolate milk healthy? It’s chocolate milk. Yuck.)

Dinner: Wolfgang Puck. Maybe Earl of Sandwich. Something for one credit. I was hoping Bear would be interested in going to the T-Rex Café but it got voted off the ADR list since it’s not on the Dining Plan. Maybe next time, dinosaurs!

Lego Store: Lego Land might actually get on our itinerary (after leaving Disney, we’re spending an additional week in Florida with Bear’s family) at a later date but just in case, we need to hit up the Lego store. Bear insists that this one’s a need; I’m pretty sure we won’t buy anything but those statues are so cool.

World of Disney: I go back and forth with pin trading and Vinylmations. Right now I really want to try them so stopping in World of Disney to pick up a Vinylmation is a go (and maybe a My Little Pony box. The new show is really fun and I grew up with My Little Ponies. It’s just so tempting!).

Goofy’s Candy Company: Another no brainer. We both love dessert (me moreso than Bear) and candy stores (there’s a really neat shop in Boulder we always have to stop in). Not sure we’ll do the make-your-own since I don’t like rice krispies but the cupcakes look like an adequate substitution!

Browsing: There’s nothing else that I feel is a must-do. I know there’s a whole bunch of other shops but I’m not a big souvenir person. We’ll stop in what ever looks neat (the art store? The kitchen store? Maybe ice cream?) but it’ll be a pretty chill night walking around either Downtown Disney or the Port Orleans area. Bear has already declared a tradition of stopping in French Quarter for nightly beignets if we’re hungry enough so it might start on this night! We’re bringing our Google TV/hard drive/various other media doohickeys so we can watch some favorite (non-Disney. We only watch Phineas and Ferb and those are available on Netflix so we’ve seen them all many, many times. Bear (and I) need some non-Disney decompression time to gear up for the busy days ahead) TV.

I've two very warm cats on my feet so I will catch with everything that is more involved than copy-and-pasting from my PTR document tomorrow!

(Port Orleans Mansions, DT Disney, Lego Store, World of Disney, Goofy's Candy Co)

 

[Merida]

It’s about 8:30 on a Saturday night and after a long day of bathing cats, driving back and forth to the vet, throwing lots of dirty cat laundry into the washer, nearly (I think, we haven’t turned it back on yet) breaking the vacuum, and getting our cat to take about 90% of his medicine (considering it was two pills and a liquid this is pretty good. Of course, the most amazing wonderful helpful kind awesome vet tech did the two pills because we could. not. get the cat to take those pills. And he did it for free (if he only knew how much money I was willing to give him! (spoiler: all of it. All of my money as long as I didn’t have to force the cat to take those pills))!) So now I’m pretty much doing this:

relaxed and ready to think about vacation while Bear tries to find something good on TV.

So when we left off, we were getting back after a night in Downtown Disney. For some reason I’d mixed up our planned days and assumed we were heading to either MGM or Animal Kingdom. Instead we’ll be getting up horribly early and heading to a pre-rope drop (please please don’t change this Disney!) ADR at…

Crystal Palace! Yay! Like Leslie Knope and Ron Swanson (if you don’t know who these people are, do yourself a HUGE favor and start watching Parks and Recreation. Start with the second season. It’s hilarious and wonderful and full of kittens and rainbows and unicorns, it’s so happy), I am a big fan of breakfast foods so I’m planning on making this meal count. Puffed French toast and Mickey waffles in particular! (I’m sure there are other lovely things I’m planning on eating here but I forget what they are right now and most menus are terribly unhelpful. A smoothie maybe?)

After a leisurely walk up Main Street, filled with as many pictures as Bear lets me take, we’ll head inside for a character-less meal. The point of this meal is getting into the park early for us, not the characters. I’m hoping it’ll get us in and out faster (especially if we ask for our check at the beginning) so we can enjoy the opening of the park.

A lot of people apparently have a ‘way’ to tour Magic Kingdom, but we.. don’t. We haven’t been to Magic Kingdom that much. I’m not really sure how much time we’ll spend in each section or which side we’ll start on or how much we’ll get done before lunch. Maybe we’ll collect fastpasses or maybe not. We have all day (literally)! Except if we feel like hopping to Epcot or somewhere (a monorail ride is a definite possibility). The easiest thing to do would be to head straight for Adventureland and jump on Jungle Cruise.

So that’s what we’ll presume Bear and I will do (in actuality I will probably be overwhelmed by being so close to the Castle and will drag Bear up to go look at the mosaics. But on topic…) ! Looking at the Disney map, Adventureland looks massive. I didn’t realize Jungle Cruise was that big! We’ve never really done anything else in Adventureland and apparently we don’t look at maps that much. Huh.

Anyway! Wikipedia tells me there’s two main parts of Adventureland: The Arabian Village and the Caribbean Plaza, with parts of the old Polynesian theme still visible. Like I said, the only parts we’ve seen are Pirates and Jungle Cruise so there’s plenty of new stuff for us to see! The new old Tiki Room, possibly Aladdin, and all of the theming with additional passes through Pirates and Jungle Cruise. If possible, I want to do the Jungle Cruise at night as well. Adventureland doesn't really have the same sentimental value for us as the other parts of Magic Kingdom - we're not really Dole Whip people - so it'll be a pretty brief stop.

This has officially taken longer than I thought so I will continue in the morning!

(Crystal Palace, flickr)

 

[lilpixiebabe101]

It’s about 8:30 on a Saturday night and after a long day of bathing cats, driving back and forth to the vet, throwing lots of dirty cat laundry into the washer, nearly (I think, we haven’t turned it back on yet) breaking the vacuum, and getting our cat to take about 90% of his medicine (considering it was two pills and a liquid this is pretty good. Of course, the most amazing wonderful helpful kind awesome vet tech did the two pills because we could. not. get the cat to take those pills. And he did it for free (if he only knew how much money I was willing to give him! (spoiler: all of it. All of my money as long as I didn’t have to force the cat to take those pills))!) So now I’m pretty much doing this:

relaxed and ready to think about vacation while Bear tries to find something good on TV.

So when we left off, we were getting back after a night in Downtown Disney. For some reason I’d mixed up our planned days and assumed we were heading to either MGM or Animal Kingdom. Instead we’ll be getting up horribly early and heading to a pre-rope drop (please please don’t change this Disney!) ADR at…

Crystal Palace! Yay! Like Leslie Knope and Ron Swanson (if you don’t know who these people are, do yourself a HUGE favor and start watching Parks and Recreation. Start with the second season. It’s hilarious and wonderful and full of kittens and rainbows and unicorns, it’s so happy), I am a big fan of breakfast foods so I’m planning on making this meal count. Puffed French toast and Mickey waffles in particular! (I’m sure there are other lovely things I’m planning on eating here but I forget what they are right now and most menus are terribly unhelpful. A smoothie maybe?)

After a leisurely walk up Main Street, filled with as many pictures as Bear lets me take, we’ll head inside for a character-less meal. The point of this meal is getting into the park early for us, not the characters. I’m hoping it’ll get us in and out faster (especially if we ask for our check at the beginning) so we can enjoy the opening of the park.

A lot of people apparently have a ‘way’ to tour Magic Kingdom, but we.. don’t. We haven’t been to Magic Kingdom that much. I’m not really sure how much time we’ll spend in each section or which side we’ll start on or how much we’ll get done before lunch. Maybe we’ll collect fastpasses or maybe not. We have all day (literally)! Except if we feel like hopping to Epcot or somewhere (a monorail ride is a definite possibility). The easiest thing to do would be to head straight for Adventureland and jump on Jungle Cruise.

So that’s what we’ll presume Bear and I will do (in actuality I will probably be overwhelmed by being so close to the Castle and will drag Bear up to go look at the mosaics. But on topic…) ! Looking at the Disney map, Adventureland looks massive. I didn’t realize Jungle Cruise was that big! We’ve never really done anything else in Adventureland and apparently we don’t look at maps that much. Huh.

Anyway! Wikipedia tells me there’s two main parts of Adventureland: The Arabian Village and the Caribbean Plaza, with parts of the old Polynesian theme still visible. Like I said, the only parts we’ve seen are Pirates and Jungle Cruise so there’s plenty of new stuff for us to see! The new old Tiki Room, possibly Aladdin, and all of the theming with additional passes through Pirates and Jungle Cruise. If possible, I want to do the Jungle Cruise at night as well. Adventureland doesn't really have the same sentimental value for us as the other parts of Magic Kingdom - we're not really Dole Whip people - so it'll be a pretty brief stop.

This has officially taken longer than I thought so I will continue in the morning!

(Crystal Palace, flickr)

That's awesome that the V-tech did that. My best friend is a v-tech and there are days she comes home, and she looks like has been mauled by a bear from trying to get so many animals to take meds.

We're doing pre-rope drop CP on December 18th at 8:10, and ill be pissed at Disney if they change that date!

 

[Merida]

That's awesome that the V-tech did that. My best friend is a v-tech and there are days she comes home, and she looks like has been mauled by a bear from trying to get so many animals to take meds.

We're doing pre-rope drop CP on December 18th at 8:10, and ill be pissed at Disney if they change that date!

I can't imagine having to do that day after day. We trim our cats' claws regularly (not fun at all!) but it seems that most people don't do that. My boyfriend really wants to get a dog but I can't imagine trying to get a dog to take medicine ever. People who can are my hero.

I will be so sad if it gets changed. Doesn't Disney know how early I got up to make that reservation!?! (Okay, not very, but it was a very stressful morning!) I'm banking on the fact that it seems to be a silly idea to have extra magic hours in Magic Kingdom on a Christmas party day (at least, I think it is).

Love all your bags! I need some bags for my trip...just one more thing to spend money on! Your cat in the one bag photo is gorgeous! I'd have a cat if I didnt hate pet hair so much....so I just enjoy other people's cats. Cant wait to another update

Thanks! I love bags because they're just so easy. And fun. Aw, he thinks he's very handsome too (loves having his picture taken and getting tons of attention)! He's one of the smartest cats I know (especially when it's time to go to the vet's!) and can be a handful sometimes. The hair does get incredibly annoying (but somehow we've still ended up with seven animals in the house right now) and we're constantly vacuuming hair/litter/food bits out of everywhere. Most of our friends live in places that don't allow pets so they're always over playing with the hedgehog/our cats/the foster kittens. It works out well for us because they love petsitting when we're on vacation!

 

[Merida]

Okay, so it’s kind of close to the morning. I got caught up in homework (writing about plankton blooms), reorganizing my academic future (maybe going to a different department for my PhD), weaning kittens (there’s fewer random kitten body parts getting dunked in the milk dish, so I’m counting that as progress) and recalculating our projected tips costs (after a mini-meltdown helped by my potential department switch). We signed up for the Chase Disney visa with the ‘get 200 Disney dollars!!’ deal and I’ve been banking on using that money for tips. Given that we’re coming up on 45 days I decided to just pay off the rest of our trip. We were never expecting to have piles of money Scrooge McDuck style from the card but it’s been slow going (the trip is our biggest chunk and we got a whopping $20) and I go through our planned meals periodically and make sure we’ll have enough for tips (it always ends up under $200 so I have no idea why I continuously do it over and over, but it’s very reassuring!). (Okay, I’ve been spending an inordinate amount of time on Pinterest looking at hair tutorials as well. Not that I ever use them, but it’s still an option if I ever feel proactive. Also doing some online window shopping because, well, it’s easy).

If we continue around Magic Kingdom, Frontierland comes up next. My selective memory comes into play here because I remember this being jampacked with fun activities, all sorts of sights to see, a designated stop in MK. Yet the only thing that’s a must do for Bear and I is Big Thunder. I don’t like water rides (hate the feeling of wet clothes), don’t like the sound of gunfire, and the Country Bear Jamboree is just weird (no sensory issues here, unless the chairs have some weird cloth on them. Which has happened.)

If we remember, I’d like to head over to Tom Sawyer Island on the first boat to look for the paintbrushes. I need to remember to load up Tom Sawyer/Huck Finn on my Nook before leaving. I’ve never actually read (unabridged) Mark Twain even though I’ve seen movie and TV (Wishbone but it totally counts) adaptations and read abridged kid’s versions. Twain wasn’t assigned in school for me but pretty much every other traditional boy’s novel was so my personal reading usually featured lady main characters. But it’s probably time to get over my refusal to read Twain (and admit that maybe something can come close to the Wishbone version) and a 30+ hour car ride may be the perfect opportunity!

However, what Frontierland lacks in quantity, it makes up for in quality. Our last trip (the day after Thanksgiving 2009) was a marathon day of the Grand Floridian, MK, Epcot, and the MK again and – even going standby – Big Thunder was the ride we were on most frequently. I’m not sure why; neither of us are big Western theme people (we did finally get around to watching True Grit after it languished on our coffee table for about a week – and it was very good - but, in general, the cowboys’n’Indians thing doesn’t really appeal to us). It’s not even that fun of a queue (I like queues a lot)! But we both love it and it screams Disney vacation. If there’s a way that I can wrangle it being our first ride of the day, I’ll probably do so.

And we will be riding it many, many times at the Christmas party that night because what's better than Big Thunder Mountain at night?

(flickr, flickr, flickr)

 

[Merida]

Some days I really like being a grad student and today is definitely one of them. I finished up my two big homework assignments plus a big snowstorm is blowing in. Bear keeps trying to convince me we’ll get 12+ inches but he’s a horrible snow forecaster having grown up in Florida. It’s really fun to be in an atmospheric science department right before a big weather system comes through – it’s a really laid back field, so everyone’s on the look out for some reason to delay working (Mondays, Fridays, nice sunny days, blustery snowy days, etc.) so all through the department people are comparing forecasts and discussing the clouds. So in that spirit, I thought I’d write up an update at a more EST-appropriate time (I do miss living in the EST zone. TV schedules are really messed up out here.)

I’ve been studying Magic Kingdom maps for hours (except not really because it was mostly relying on my memory) to figure out how to get to lunch. We’ll be eating at one of our favorites in the Magic Kingdom but it always seems awkward to get from the rides part of the park back to Main Street. So we’ll hit

Liberty Square (there are very few pictures of Liberty Square signage on the internet apparently. I sense a gap I need to fill!) before lunch (hopefully). I think Liberty Square is really fun to look around (lanterns! Old-timey buildings! Old timey costumes! Presidents! History!) but I’ve never had a chance to do so. Whirlwind one day trips and traveling in a school group don’t really lend themselves to intense study of minute details.

(Two pictures because I love seals! And The West Wing – the building and the show. Is it a real one? Why is it fenced off? Do they change the eagle’s head direction here too?? So many questions!)

I really want to see the Hall of Presidents. I love animatronics and I love cheese and I love history so this is pretty much right up my alley. In talking with Bear, a couple of things went on the ‘approved touring strategy’ list that weren’t there when I started. This includes things like ‘waking up early’ and ‘doing everything we can possibly and realistically do.’ I’m assuming this includes doing the Hall of Presidents and heckling Andrew Jackson (if we’re alone, etc., etc. Jackson and I go way back to the 6th grade when I had a Jackson-enthusiast as a social studies teacher. We didn’t get along and thus I have always supported Martin van Buren. Plus van Buren had the better hair style. Also van Buren’s VP and one of my favorite boundary layer meteorology professors share a name so obviously van Buren is cooler.)

This is the point where I pretty much couldn’t name anything else in this part of the park. Except Haunted Mansion but I wanted to end on a bang and not ‘and then there’s some shops which I will run past on my way to lunch.’ The last time I was in Disney there was some Princess and the Frog thing on the Liberty Belle but I don’t think that’s going on anymore. The Liberty Belle looks pretty in pictures but…

(I also love this picture because in the caption the person talked about Spirited Away. LOVE THAT MOVIE SO MUCH. We probably won’t see the boat at this time of day.)

I don’t think she’s going on our must-do list this time. Sorry! I like boats but there are other boats that actually transport me somewhere in other parts of Disney that I will go on instead. Boats that just go around a lake make me sad.

Then there are a bunch of shops and restaurants we’ll probably skip until the Christmas party when we need to restock on cookies and cocoa. Priorities!!

(So important it needs two pictures! And I like them – architecture is fascinating! - and I’m bored.)

Finally – the only reason people stop in Liberty Square – Haunted Mansion. For some reason I’d always thought that Haunted Mansion and Tower of Terror were similar and thus refused to go on Haunted Mansion for ages. I was finally coerced to getting on the ride during my senior trip and it was hilarious. Four teenage girls in the doom buggies who were possibly being a little obnoxious during the loading ceremony and thus got their comeuppance. We weren’t being that obnoxious – more like my friends were teasing me about how scary the ride was. The cast member jumping out at us was definitely the most terrifying part! It’s only happened on the first ride but I still can’t go on it without flinching automatically at that spot. And interactive queue and all that jazz – but I’m definitely more excited to see if we’ll get ‘scared’ again (thanks anonymous scary guy!). And to see the stretching room (I have weird favorite parts of rides apparently – queues and boarding areas. I never realized it before but I’m surely a blast to go to a park with – hurry up and stand in this line with me so we can see the line!! ).

(Mouse Planet, WDW Info, flickr, flickr, All Ears, flickr)

 

[IheartDDuck]

I'm joining!

You make me laugh. Random kitten part dunking, etc.

I love your opening picture. I can't wait for that movie to come out!

I also agree wholeheartedly with not feeling comfortable coloring the princesses dresses a different color than they should be. Something about it is so.......wrong.

 

[Stringbean&Wingnut]

Oops! How did I miss so many updates??? Your plans sound great - we always start MK touring via Adventureland - not sure why, just do .

As far as Goofy's Candy Company, the make-your-own treats include much more than rice krispy treats! They have dipped cookies, apples, pretzels, marshmallows...(and a few other goodies I'm forgetting at the moment!), so you're definitely not limited in your choices there! They definitely do have cupcakes too though, but I always think the make-your-own is so much more fun!

 

[ZehnJahren]

Hey, just joining in!

Just so you know, we did the MNSSHP on Thursday 10/13 and there WAS an EMH morning that morning - just an FYI; maybe they were trying to get more people in to the park since it closed so early for the party. THAT was a long day, even though we napped. We were up at like, 6:30 to get to the parks.

Love your little kitties! Those foster kittens are unbelievably adorable. I have a (huge) cat myself, and when I got him from the shelter almost 13 years ago, he was recovering from some illnesses still (they found him on the street, and his brother died of pneumonia shortly after reaching the shelter ). I had to give him ear drops and pills every day for awhile. He didn't like it, so I used a trick I read online (he had all his claws, too!); take a thick bathroom towel and wrap them up in it snugly so they can't claw you. Then, QUICKLY, push the pill through their back teeth towards their throat and close their mouth, then start stroking their throat like you're petting them (it should encourage them to swallow). Usually, as soon as I let him out of the towel, I had a little treat ready; that encouraged him further to swallow. I also mushed the pill in (once or twice) with a tiny bit of wet cat food as a treat - he slurped that right down.

Sometimes I felt a little bad about the towel, but I would have felt worse not being able to give him the meds he needed! And today, he's wonderfully healthy and still acts like a kitten (even though he's almost the size of the dog - he's slender, but just big)!

I'd never been to DTD before our last trip; I of course went to EoS but was VERY VERY disappointed. I probably wouldn't eat there again; the bread was soggy and the sandwich was mostly tasteless. I loved the stores, though - so much to see and look at and wish you could buy. The art store is especially cool.

 

[Merida]

Okay, I don’t really have an update. One of our (personal, not foster) cats had to go to the vet and we got hit with a snowstorm. The latter I’m counting as Mother Nature agreeing with me that Halloween is an inferior holiday compared to Christmas. Weaning the kittens isn’t going well either, they’ve started eating everything (including litter!) except their kitten milk. So instead there will be a short kitten/snow picture spam because, well, it’s all I’ve done this week. Taking pictures of kittens is also way harder than I thought so these aren’t the best pictures I’ve ever taken (I also just did all the editing in one Daily Show and half a Colbert Report during which our cat Robin figured out how to get on top of the kitchen cabinets and then got stuck. So.. yeah. Not high art in the least!).

So we have three foster kittens (two boys, Edgar and Mr. Mustache/Winston/No name and a girl, Daisy) plus their mother (Hester) right now. The kittens finally are getting a personality and sometime in the past week figured out how to walk and are now everywhere. Hester still is not enjoying being a mama cat at all (not that I blame her, given some of the mama cat duties she has to do) but everyone is at least kept clean now (a problem in the past). She does enjoying bossing around our other cats and is particularly fond of climbing up the shelves where we keep cat food, pulling down opened trial bags of cat food, and helping herself to second breakfast.

​

Mama cat Hester

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Edgar, who is about twice as big as his brother and sister. He used to whine constantly but now he’s grown up a lot and really likes climbing on people. He.. doesn’t photograph as nicely as the other two.

Daisy by wingsfive, on Flickr
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My baby girl Daisy! She’s the runt and pretty timid and I totally didn’t mean to cut off her ears in the second one but that’s her signature pose. She was the first to learn to sit up and has perfected that skill (however, she still eats litter so not that bright).

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The other one. You can kind of see that he has a little mustache marking on his nose (hence the name). We can’t think of anything else for him but I feel badly about calling him Mr. Mustache when we’ve named everyone else. He’s the brains of the bunch.

Bonus Mr. Mustache and Daisy:

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And our other cat (Darren can be seen in an earlier post, I don’t have any other pictures of him currently uploaded) Robin.

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Bear and I finally got out today to see the snow (just in time! It’s been melting fast). We spent the first night at the vet’s and the second night was pretty rough, so this afternoon we walked down to our local park. This was the first wet snow I’ve seen in Colorado and there were tree branches down everywhere. Even the university got shut down (for classes and activities after 5PM only, of course)! The detritus has been pretty well cleared from roads/public places so now everyone’s out snow shoeing, cross-county-skiing, and other Colorado-type activities.

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A super boring update, so hopefully everyone loves kittens! I’m focusing more on an upcoming Saturday brunch right now than Disney just because I need a right-now break more than a in-45ish-days break. And it’s brunch, possibly the best thing humanity has ever invented.

 

[Merida]

I'm joining!

You make me laugh. Random kitten part dunking, etc.

I love your opening picture. I can't wait for that movie to come out!

I also agree wholeheartedly with not feeling comfortable coloring the princesses dresses a different color than they should be. Something about it is so.......wrong.

Ha, we haven't really gotten past that part in drinking milk yet. I just can't understand why it's so hard to drink milk from a dish. I mean, it's pretty basic stuff.

I know! I'm so excited for Brave, it should be excellent! It was supposed to be released on my birthday, so I hope the date doesn't change around too much.

I mean, they're princesses! They should have a way larger wardrobe than one dress colored multiple ways.

Oops! How did I miss so many updates??? Your plans sound great - we always start MK touring via Adventureland - not sure why, just do .

As far as Goofy's Candy Company, the make-your-own treats include much more than rice krispy treats! They have dipped cookies, apples, pretzels, marshmallows...(and a few other goodies I'm forgetting at the moment!), so you're definitely not limited in your choices there! They definitely do have cupcakes too though, but I always think the make-your-own is so much more fun!

Sometimes I just feel the need to rebel and go on a writing spree instead of doing homework or research (obviously, tonight was not one of those nights). I feel like I've always started in Tomorrowland (Space Mountain is a very powerful draw!) and it would be a neat switch to head to Adventureland first. I think.

Goofy's (ugh, I keep using pronouns and it makes no sense. Proper nouns for everyone!) certainly sounds (and looks!) delicious. I've never really had a dipped treat (I'm not sure why; they seem like a carnival food to me, and I always got the funnel cake as my carnival snack) so I think that it will definitely be on the plan to try something new.

Hey, just joining in!

Just so you know, we did the MNSSHP on Thursday 10/13 and there WAS an EMH morning that morning - just an FYI; maybe they were trying to get more people in to the park since it closed so early for the party. THAT was a long day, even though we napped. We were up at like, 6:30 to get to the parks.

Love your little kitties! Those foster kittens are unbelievably adorable. I have a (huge) cat myself, and when I got him from the shelter almost 13 years ago, he was recovering from some illnesses still (they found him on the street, and his brother died of pneumonia shortly after reaching the shelter ). I had to give him ear drops and pills every day for awhile. He didn't like it, so I used a trick I read online (he had all his claws, too!); take a thick bathroom towel and wrap them up in it snugly so they can't claw you. Then, QUICKLY, push the pill through their back teeth towards their throat and close their mouth, then start stroking their throat like you're petting them (it should encourage them to swallow). Usually, as soon as I let him out of the towel, I had a little treat ready; that encouraged him further to swallow. I also mushed the pill in (once or twice) with a tiny bit of wet cat food as a treat - he slurped that right down.

Sometimes I felt a little bad about the towel, but I would have felt worse not being able to give him the meds he needed! And today, he's wonderfully healthy and still acts like a kitten (even though he's almost the size of the dog - he's slender, but just big)!

I'd never been to DTD before our last trip; I of course went to EoS but was VERY VERY disappointed. I probably wouldn't eat there again; the bread was soggy and the sandwich was mostly tasteless. I loved the stores, though - so much to see and look at and wish you could buy. The art store is especially cool.

Aww, boo. Why doesn't Disney follow my schedule?! It would be so much easier (for me). I just want one picture of Main Street with a few less people!

We do the towel thing but he's learned how to get out (helped by the fact that's he a massive cat. Who is maybe supposed to be on a diet right now, but after he's been to the vet three times in a month, the diet's kind of slipping.). I'm not even sure how because he's got some brain problem where he can't jump or run properly. But he has a magical power of getting out of towels (very useful talent). Blowing on their nose helps them swallow too; our cats are always too offended to eat after medicine (stupid Siamese). They're also ~too special~ to eat wet food; they both refuse to eat it every time we (well, I now) try. So now they eat the expensive, hippy cat food that's all natural with acai berry and no grains and lots of meat protein to make sure they get all the needed nutrition. It's very disheartening when your cats eat better than you! We've moved on to just a face cream right now which is so much better.

I grew up near Philly and felt like there were sandwich places everywhere. There's a decided lack of good sandwich places out where I am in Colorado so I'd give anything for a decent sandwich right now! After two-three days on the road, I'm sure anything different will taste good (hopefully? I think we're leaning more towards Wolfgang Puck today, at least).

I've been to the art store at DHS (when it was MGM; it was right inside the entrance, no idea if it's still there) and got this really nice poster with all the princesses done in pencil sketches. I want to look for some of the vintage ride posters, I think they're so pretty (and Bear has vetoed any more princess art in the house ).

 

[Merida]

It’s a beautiful Sunday here in Colorado since we (very cleverly) were at the beginning of the current snowstorm hitting the Northeast instead of the end (and not near large bodies of water). It’s been an excellent weekend in general – brunch to watch the FSU/NC State game and then a marathon of Revenge (which is one of our favorite new fall shows. It seems like everything’s been on break recently so our DVR is sadly empty. Except Parks and Recreation! Maybe today will be a P&R There are some things about Colorado I dislike, but the weather is definitely not one of them (though I do have to say it’s for my location – east side of the Rockies, in the foothills – but it’s nice to be able to visit snowy places in June as well)! It is nice that our weather turned around, since I’ve been going through what I like to call a ‘trial run of travel-friendly clothes’ and other people would call ‘wearing pajamas to the office’ stint while it’s cold and snowy. I’m trying to proofread as I go along, but I am getting additional help from the kittens (which is not so helpful because kittens are terrible spellers. But they’re fuzzy and cute so I’m going to say it’s okay!)

So we’ve just finished up Liberty Square and are coincidentally back near the Castle. This is excellent planning since our lunch is back on Main Street and passing through the Castle is one of my favorite walks in Disney.

(I love this sandwich. Waiting for dinner right now and EVERYTHING looks extra-tasty right now)

Our lunch is going to be at the Plaza! We went to the Plaza on our Thanksgiving trip and both loved it. The interior, the theming, the food, everything (also, by process of elimination. We’re going to Crystal Palace for breakfast, don’t want to go to Tony’s, and don’t feel like doing counter service). By my schedule, it’s going to be a late lunch so we’ll probably stick around for the parade and possibly the stage show.

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Having rushed in pre-rope drop for breakfast and then headed straight for rides, we won’t have had the time to fully take in Main Street. Sure, there’s empty Main Street on the way in but I love breakfast and usually eat it right after waking up. There’ll be limited photo/exploring breaks on our way to puffed French toast and Mickey waffles. So after a leisurely lunch at the Plaza, I would love to see whatever’s left of the parade (I think we’re at overlapping times) and then do window shopping. Neither of us are big shoppers so we probably won’t go in anything unless to Vinylmation/pin trade or there’s a really excellent window. Maybe even do the train ride around Magic Kingdom (that I have somehow missed every other time) and look in at Town Hall.

I love the theming of the new meet’n’greet (magicians! Stage shows!) so would not mind just ducking in the queue and snapping some pictures but it’ll definitely be a spur of the moment decision. Either way, there’ll be some downtime (as much as possible) without having to head back to Port Orleans. We’ll most likely be bussing in today and I don’t want to have to take more trips than necessary. Basically – can we stay in MK from 8AM to 12 midnight? More than likely, especially if a trip on the Monorail doesn’t count as leaving. Neither Bear nor I can resist a quick jaunt on the monorail when we’re thisclose to them. 16 hours is a LOT of Magic Kingdom for one day in December (especially when crowd reports are SO variable) so heading out of park for our favorite ride may be a nice break.


(Disney Food Blog, Disney Tourist Blog, flickr, flickr)​

 

[archdandy]

16 hours in MK?! I can't wait to hear all about that! Maybe you'll get to see talking Mickey when you go to the meet and greet? I love all of your kitties! They're adorable! I've got three cats now, all full grown and I miss the kitten stage terribly. Sometimes I go to the SPCA here and just play with the kittens.