"There's my main man, Bo!" and took off! Well, I certainly wasn't expecting Bo to be quite what he was.
I will admit, I was a little worried for a minute but then I saw the picture. Does Chelsea give a reason for being drawn to him? Does she have a thing for pinocchio as well?Upon our joyous reunion Charles immediately went to buy a coke. While we were waiting Chelsea let out a screech, "There's my main man, Bo!" and took off! Well, I certainly wasn't expecting Bo to be quite what he was.
I am torn about Bo. Should I be secretly thankful or concerned that my daughter is drawn to a wooden, inanimate rendering of a man whose sole purpose appears to be to smile and hand out cokes??? Clearly, I need to think about this some more.
Maybe we can have Bo attend her future Disney wedding, of course the wedding will be to a much less wooden man. 
Connor and I browsed through the gift shop while we waited. I bought a key chain for Charles that looked like an old hotel ring with the Hollywood Tower Hotel logo on one side and Room 1313 printed on the back. I thought he would love it.
I love the gift shop window display!
Connor was getting so hot while waiting.
When Charles and Chelsea exited, Chelsea was her normal happy self at having been dropped repeatedly. Charles shook his head and said, "They dropped us like six times. You wouldn't have liked it."
I proudly showed him his new key chain. Now, we have been together since June of 1993 -- by my math that is 15 years (married for 13 in October). I found out something new about my husband when I showed him that key chain.
He is superstitious.
Of the number 13.
I had no clue.
All this time I never knew.
I thought he was joking at first.
But he really is.
The pool keys have a new key chain now.
That is too funny!! What an adorable picture! Is this your favorite of her or is it still coming up?Before leaving the Hollywood Tower Hotel, I wanted Chelsea to pose for a picture by the same tub of flowers as her brother had. She chose the pose. Channeling the 1930's pin-ups of movie stars??? I'm not really sure, but I like her smile!
Happy Birthday Chelsea!!! About 4:00, rested and cooled down, we made our way back to Animal Kingdom. As we were on the bus, I saw one doozy of a storm brewing. Some of you know how I feel about storms, for those that don't: I HATE them. This one didn't look like a typical rain shower -- big, black, twisting clouds were amassed in the distance. Now, because of my fear of storms, I can pretty well figure out storm tracks in North Georgia. However, being out of my element down in Florida, I could not figure out which way the storm was headed. I hoped it was not towards Animal Kingdom.
Alas, by the time we reached the bus stop, it was quite clear that the storm was on top of Animal Kingdom. It looked like a hurricane approaching! The wind was blowing, the trees were bent sideways, and there was the beginning of lots of thunder and lightning -- deafening thunder, I might add. I kept wondering out loud if we should just head back to the hotel -- after all, it looked like thousands of people were exiting AK. Charles said we should just make a run for it -- we had a reservation for Yak and Yeti, and really, there was no point in turning back. Okay, fine -- I was really looking forward to trying Yak and Yeti, and we were in central Florida and while it might be a thunderstorm, there was almost no chance there were tornadoes in the storm.
(Aside: two days later while we were at DHS, I heard a woman on a cell phone saying that there had been tornado warnings in the area Tuesday!So much for my theory.)
We reached Yak and Yeti completely soaked and the kids' face paint running in streams down their faces (remember the end scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark when the bad guys' faces melt? Yep, Chelsea and Connor's faces looked similar). Apparently everyone that did not leave Animal Kingdom prior to the storm had decided to find refuge in the waiting area of Yak and Yeti. I managed to squeeze through the crowd to check in. I overheard one lady ahead of me being told it was an hour wait for walk-ins, so I made a point of stressing to the hostess that we had a reservation. She checked our name on a print-out, and then wrote down our name on a slip of paper that she added to a stack of other slips. I had a sense of foreboding when I saw this terribly inefficient method of slips of paper. Where was the computer and little beepers that the other Disney restaurants had???
We waited and waited and waited and waited and waited. More people squeezed into Yak and Yeti. Charles took Connor to the bathroom to wash his face paint off. When they came back, I took Chelsea to the bathroom to wash her paint off. We waited some more.
I was cold. I was soaking wet. I was tired. I was stressed out from running through the storm. I was hungry. I was packed tighter than a sardine in a noisy, crowded waiting area that felt no bigger than my hotel room (I do not like being squished in a bunch of people or anything remotely unorganized and chaotic).
I watched a family of four who had arrived after us be seated. At that point, I lost it.
With my voice louder than I intended and fighting back tears (I tend to cry when I am furious), I asked the hostess what was going on. She looked at me and reiterated that it was an hour wait for walk-ins. Seething I said, "We are not walk-ins. We had a 5:00 reservation!" She had coded us as walk-ins which meant on the little slip of paper that she had filled out and shuffled in with the rest, she had not put a little star in the corner!!! So inefficient in my opinion! I was beyond furious! In her defense, once she realized her error, we were quickly seated.
Charles was so embarrassed by my outburst, but I will say that as we were being led to a table, I heard another woman checking her reservation -- she had also been coded as a walk-in. So, my diva temper tantrum helped others, too!
We had a great window table on the second floor overlooking the path from Asia to Africa -- the one I had walked four times earlier in the day. I tried to take a picture, but it didn't turn out that great because of the glare.
After the ordeal of getting seated, I felt we deserved drinks so Charles and I ordered Everest Avalanches -- strawberry-banana with rum frozen drinks. They were very tasty, and I did actually have to say, "Avalanche!" a couple of times!
The upside of Yak and Yeti: the food is good -- Charles ordered the beef with broccoli; Chelsea and I ordered the steak and shrimp; Connor had chicken of some sort. We all had the mango pie for dessert. Our waitress was very friendly, but service was very slow and it seemed forever for our check to come -- I am going to assume it was because the restaurant was packed due to the rain. I would like to give this restaurant another chance, even though I would say this was our worst dining experience of the trip -- but there were extenuating circumstances.
The rain had stopped by the time we had finished dinner, but Everest had not started running yet. Charles stomach was acting up, so he found a bathroom near the Maharajah Jungle Trek. We spent a LONG time waiting on him, so we pretended we were bats. You will notice that Chelsea and Connor look a little jaundiced since we weren't able to do that great a job on cleaning off the face paint in the restroom.
As I was taking this picture, Connor said, "Turn the camera upside down so it looks like we are hanging." Sadly, I had to tell him it didn't work that way.
I had to join in the fun, too.
While we were waiting, a CM came up and amused the kids with various animal noises. Connor was so impressed -- he loves noises and sound effects.
I took some more pictures of signage:
When Charles finally reappeared, it was clear that he was done for the night -- so much for finishing up Animal Kingdom after dinner.
Back at the hotel, Chelsea wanted to spend some of her souvie money on getting one of the caricatures done in the lobby. The artist was super sweet and did a wonderful job -- Chelsea was so excited, and I think it was one of the highlights of her trip. I will take a pic of the caricature for a later post.
UP NEXT: In Which Our Intrepid Adventurers Have a Relaxing Morning!
Wednesday turned out to be the day of changes for us. Originally it was going to be a full day at the Magic Kingdom with dinner at Crystal Palace and finishing up with Spectro and Wishes.
Well, upon waking up Wednesday morning Charles and I had a little pow-wow about the plans for the day. I told him that NO MATTER WHAT I was staying to watch Spectromagic and Wishes with or without the rest of the family. NO MATTER WHAT. I was adament about this.
Charles, in turn, said that he wasn't too keen on hitting a park first thing in the morning and then staying really late. Could we take it easy during the majority of the day and head over around dinner? Okay, I was pretty sure I could live with that since I was starting to really feel all the walking we had done as well.
Before you gasp in horror at the thought of us going to the Magic Kingdom for essentially half a day, remember that we had been there in October and in April -- we were okay with a limited amount of time at MK. As long as I saw the Castle and got my parade and my fireworks, I was all set.
While we were talking changes I threw out the idea that I wasn't too excited about a character dinner. So, we called and changed our Crystal Palace over to Kona Cafe for dinner. Yeay! I was going to get to eat at Kona Cafe after all!
Then we headed to Downtown Disney for breakfast at Earl of Sandwich and shopping.
If the lunch and dinner offerings are half as good at Earl of Sandwich as their breakfast stuff, we are so eating there next time! I had a breakfast BLT, Charles and the kids had bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches, and there was real coffee. I was in heaven! The atmosphere was relaxing and cozy, and it was a great way to start our morning.
Now, no matter what, my children always have an agenda of their own -- I guess they get it from their mother.
After breakfast we went to Goofy's Candy Company and stocked up on snacks for later in the day, and Disney's Days of Christmas for a Mickey Santa for my MIL (she collects Santas) and our ornament to mark the trip.
One of the things that I had decided to do for my mom and Charles's mom was to get silhouettes done of the children. When I was little, every trip to the Magic Kingdom, my mother made me sit still and get my silhouette done. I thought it would be the perfect gift for the two grandmothers. As luck would have it, there was a silhouette kiosk at Downtown Disney, so we had the kids do that -- it didn't take long at all, and I was able to cross that off our list.
Finally (in Connor's words), we made our way to the Lego Store. The boy was in heaven and took FOREVER to choose his purchases. We were all a little antsy by the time we escaped from there! I think he chose a couple of Indiana Jones sets and made some Lego people.
We finished up with World of Disney and Basin. I had never been in Basin and loved it!!! I had to stock up in there!
We got back to POFQ around noon and took the kids to the pool.
Connor heading down the slide. I love how he is waving!
Chelsea heading down the slide.
I wrote out postcards and took pictures of the buildings near the pool.
Here is a picture of the outside of the food court as we headed back.
After a few hours at the pool, the kids ate their treats from Goofy's. I am kind of cringing, now, to see Connor eating on the rug. That's kind of gross!
Chelsea had the giggles about something -- I can't remember what it was though. You can also see her Fat Minnie that she bought at the World of Disney.
By this time, I was over the relaxing and ready to hit the road for dinner and the Magic Kingdom.
UP NEXT: In Which Our Intrepid Adventurers Meet Some Tikis!
We were ready to forge onward to the Magic Kingdom!
UP NEXT: In Which Our Intrepid Adventurers Finally Gain Sight of the Castle!
