Two for One: Double Disney Birthdays! *Meg nonTR upd 9/23* // *Help out Katie! 10/22*

[MeMom]

14 DAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Two weeks from right now I will be waking up to get the car loaded and head to the airport at 10:30. It will also be Kris' 20th birthday! I can't wait!!!!!

Such an exciting time! The next two weeks will probably zoom by.

I fear getting stuck on a plane. I have learned to cope with the less than two hour flight to Orlando, but I am ready to get off the plane the second it lands. I don't know how well I would do if I had to sit and wait for very long. I hate it when everybody clogs up the aisles, too, and they don't just use some sense of reason in filing out. Just let the claustrophobic lady off the plane before it gets ugly, and then you people can jam the aisles all you want!

 

[Tink9721]

YAY for two weeks!!!

 

[Lovemy3babes]

I love that you have come to like Dinosaur. It's my favorite ride in all of AK!! Great update.

 

[Megablocks]

I love that you have come to like Dinosaur. It's my favorite ride in all of AK!! Great update.

Thank you! And I'm glad I have come to like Dinosaur, too. It took a couple of years and several rides, but now I can watch and mostly just laugh. Kailyn, on the other hand, still has yet to see it in its entirety, but I'm hoping she does soon.

 

[DisKate]

Home finally! It was a fun weekend, but it was busy! I have a feeling it's going to be a long week! 13 days til Disney!

 

[Megablocks]

This morning, for some reason I thought, "Katie's in the teens!", and then I confused myself because I knew the trip was pretty close. I had to actually stop and think about it, and then remind myself that you have been in the teens for six days now.

Tomorrow you're OUT of the teens, and Thursday you get to start the single digit dancing I'm really excited for you to go so I can go with you via pictures and texts! One day we will be able to go together.

 

[DisKate]

This morning, for some reason I thought, "Katie's in the teens!", and then I confused myself because I knew the trip was pretty close. I had to actually stop and think about it, and then remind myself that you have been in the teens for six days now.

Tomorrow you're OUT of the teens, and Thursday you get to start the single digit dancing I'm really excited for you to go so I can go with you via pictures and texts! One day we will be able to go together.

Out of the teens! 12 Days to go! I can't wait to get there, but I have a ton of stuff that has to be done between now and then! And we will be going together some day, hopefully sooner rather then later!

 

[Megablocks]

Out of the teens! 12 Days to go! I can't wait to get there, but I have a ton of stuff that has to be done between now and then! And we will be going together some day, hopefully sooner rather then later!

AND you can say you're going NEXT weekend! I really do wish we lived closer so I could help you get ready or get stuff done. I swear we'd be productive. I'm sure Charles and Patrick would love it if we lived closer together, too, because we would talk so much more than we already do. Oh, and I told Charles recently that you and I are making it a point to go to Disney together sometime, and he said (again), "you guys are insane."

 

[DisKate]

AND you can say you're going NEXT weekend! I really do wish we lived closer so I could help you get ready or get stuff done. I swear we'd be productive. I'm sure Charles and Patrick would love it if we lived closer together, too, because we would talk so much more than we already do. Oh, and I told Charles recently that you and I are making it a point to go to Disney together sometime, and he said (again), "you guys are insane."

We are not insane! We simply want to go to our happy place without any downers with us! I wish almost everyday that we lived closer. I'm sure if we could talk all the time we would be way productive when we got together!

 

[Megablocks]

We are not insane! We simply want to go to our happy place without any downers with us! I wish almost everyday that we lived closer. I'm sure if we could talk all the time we would be way productive when we got together!

So very true! And he just thinks we are insane because we're obsessed I think the first time he said that was when he saw both our countdowns going on my whiteboard. Oh, I showed him the videos you sent me of Ty talking, and keeping his eyes on the TV. He laughed and I said, "isn't that wicked cute?" He agreed that it was really cute, which made me happy even though I know he still detests cats and we can never have one

I seriously wish that almost every day, too I couldn't believe I had a dream that we got to finally hang out and we weren't hours apart -- it was so nice!

 

[Tink9721]

Katie, since it's March now...you're going to Disney THIS MONTH!

Meg, in case you don't know, a few of the Sox spring training games are gonna be on TV. The first one is Wednesday at 6:05 against Boston College Look at the schedule on the Sox website. I think there's gonna be 10 of them on TV. Most of them are on NESN. I'm so excited to watch the Red Sox in TWO DAYS even though it's not an official game, or even against an MLB team!

 

[Megablocks]

Meg, in case you don't know, a few of the Sox spring training games are gonna be on TV. The first one is Wednesday at 6:05 against Boston College Look at the schedule on the Sox website. I think there's gonna be 10 of them on TV. Most of them are on NESN. I'm so excited to watch the Red Sox in TWO DAYS even though it's not an official game, or even against an MLB team!

They're playing BC? That's weird! Doesn't sound right, Boston Red Sox vs. Boston College I'm working till 6 on Wednesday but I might have to watch that just to see what it's like!

 

[Megablocks]

I caught up on my observations/homework, so I decided to finish up day one before I crash.

Friday, February 12: part 3. Epcot!!

When I last left you, we had just been caught in torrential downpours at Animal Kingdom. We had an ADR for Rose and Crown at, I think, 6:50 PM, and Epcot was also having nighttime EMH. I was really excited for dinner, and I was even more excited for Epcot. Epcot is my very favorite park, and I especially love it and the WS at night.

We wanted a little time to go back to the room, relax, dry off, and change before we headed out. Our luggage had already been delivered to the room, so we all changed out of our soaked clothes into dry ones. For a couple of days, there were shirts and pants hanging up around the room and in the tub because everything was completey drenched. My khakis were soaked up past my knees, so I had to change into jeans. I tore up some of the paper bag from our Garden Grocer order and stuffed it in my sneakers to dry them out.

My parents and I donned our ponchos before going out, but Kailyn was still poncho-less, and also hoodie-less, since hers was soaked and drying out. I gave her one of my hoodies to wear, but insisted that she wear a poncho because I didn't want one of my two being soaked and drying out for days. She didn't seem happy, but she relented and ended up wearing one. Once we got to Epcot, though, we didn't really need them. The monsoons had turned into just a light drizzle, then a mist, then nothing.

This was our first stop:

I sat next to Kailyn, and my parents sat together. I had Kailyn promise me that she would do the narration in English (last year, she insisted on German and Japanese), but just to be safe, I reached out and quickly and selected "English." I let her answer all the questions, and she decided to answer dishonestly and make everything all about work and working. I didn't get a lot of pictures, but we both chose to make ridiculous faces. Mine looks more angry than ridiculous. Whoops.

After SSE, we headed over to Test Track. I can't remember what the wait was, but it wasn't too long, so we hopped in line. I didn't upload any pictures from that, but it was awesome. I LOVE this ride! I do think that this was when a group of people who didn't seem to speak English all went into the single rider line and insisted on being put together. The CM kept telling them that they were in the single rider line and they all just kept on insisting, "seat! Seat!" and holding up the single rider line. Finally, they were forced to get out of line and go through the regular line.

After TT, we meandered over to the WS. We checked in at Rose and Crown and didn't have to wait very long to be buzzed. We were shown to a table near-ish to the bar.

This was behind my parents.

This was in front of my parents. This time, it was not always me intentionally making faces in pictures.

This was seated directly in front of me.

I had been really, really excited to eat here not only for the food, but for the drinks! I had been debating on a Welsh Dragon or a Leaping Leprachaun (Kailyn wanted me to get that just because of the name), but I decided it would be a bad idea. My alcohol tolerance is on the low side to begin with, so that plus having been up since 3:30 AM just didn't seem like a good idea, especially since we wanted to stay as long as possible for the EMH. I had been texting Charles and said that I wanted a drink, but had decided against it, and he texted back with, "I think you'd be okay." Um, what? Do you know your girlfriend?

I forget our server's name, but he was very, very nice, and I loved his accent! I took pictures of our food, but I apologize for the darkness -- I held down the flash. No appetizers, because we all wanted dessert! Crediting allears.net with knowing the names of everything.

My food -- Sunday roast with Yorkshire pudding, roasted potatoes, seasonal vegetable, and shallot gravy.

This was SO good. Yummmmm. I seriously want to go back just so I can order this.

My mom's food -- Vegetarian shepherd's pie (Description from allears.net: Creamy Mushroom-Vegetable Ragout topped with Mashed Potatoes and Cheddar Cheese served with Mixed Greens and Roasted Portobello Mushroom)

She said that this was really, really good. Kailyn had been considering this, but she hates mushrooms, and my mom said that there were a lot of mushrooms in it.

My dad AND Kailyn both got the fish and chips.

They both really liked it! I knew my dad would, but I wasn't sure if Kailyn would. She's a picky eater and doesn't like meat or usually fish. She ate almost all the chips and all but one small piece of the fish, so I was really excited. We also all LOVED the rolls. I am pretty sure that if nothing else appealed to me on the menu, I could make a meal on their rolls.

My mom and Kailyn were too stuffed for dessert, but not my dad or I -- we both seemed to be of the mind that we skipped an appetizer, so we're getting dessert. He got the bakewell tart, and I got the sticky toffee pudding.

Again, I want to go back there for this dessert. It was SO good. I literally scraped the bowl with my spoon to get all the yummy stuff.

Katie knows about this next part because I texted her (after making sure she was done eating.) It's gross, so feel free to skip this and go straight to the next part (separate post.) Consider yourselves warned, okay?

As we were waiting for our check, a couple came and sat down at the recently vacated table next to us. Like, it still had dirty dishes and plates and even the credit slip sitting on the table. They sat in the chairs, and when I glanced over, the woman had taken off her socks and sneakers and was sitting there, wiping off her feet with the napkins and then THROWING THEM UNDER THE TABLE. It was absolutely disgusting. First, who comes in to a restaurant and sits down at a table that still has dirty plates and used napkins? Second, who takes off their shoes and socks in a restaurant? We were all seriously grossed out, and the woman wasn't even fazed. She just sat there, doing her thing. The guy was looking at me a couple of the times I glanced over (probably looking as disgusted as I felt), but didn't say anything. I am pretty sure that woman broke SOME kind of code of health violation. I was SO glad to finally get our check settled and book it out of there.

Continued in next post...

 

[Megablocks]

I forgot to mention that as we were settling the check at Rose and Crown, our waiter told us that if we wanted to watch Illuminations, we could come back, tell them that we had eaten there, give his name, and be let onto their viewing area. Very cool! We didn't end up doing that, but it was really nice and something to keep in mind for anyone else eating there at night.

For it being the Friday night of a long weekend and EMH's, Epcot was pretty empty. I'm guessing the rain drove a lot of people away, but it wasn't even raining at this point. I didn't manage to get a lot of pictures, but it was awesome. I love Epcot at night, and an almost-empty Epcot is the best.

I did get this picture in Japan.

I think at this point, we were all running out of steam. We had all been up since the very early hours of the morning, traveling, and just had a huge and delicious meal. We all really, really wanted to ride Soarin'. The last time my dad did this was back in April '08, so he was excited to ride. I wrote at 8:36 PM on Facebook from my phone, "Soarin'," and got some comments like "I hate you right now" (from my Disney-obsessed work friend )

I took some pictures of the little interactive games they have while waiting in line!

We ended up in the second row, I think to the right. It was amazing, as always. I had been watching it on YouTube, and I listened to the music on my iPod all the time, but nothing ever compares to the real thing. I love the smells and just everything about it. I rode between my dad and Kailyn. To my left, I had Kailyn freaking out about the golf ball. I know when it is coming, but it still freaks me out. I did manage to warn her, or at least let her know what scene to expect it at. To my right, I had my dad going, "OH GOD. OH GOD," especially when we were going over certain parts. His take when we got off was, "that's scary stuff," only he didn't say "stuff." I just asked him why he thought that, and he said "when you feel like your feet are going to hit the water, and the stupid golf ball." I don't think anyone likes that part.

After Soarin', we just headed out. It had been a really, really long day and we were all ready for rest. I'm pretty sure I was in bed, fast asleep, by 10 PM. It was a very full and amazing first day in the World.

Up next: walk around Pop & DHS!

 

[DisKate]

Katie, since it's March now...you're going to Disney THIS MONTH!

I go to Disney this MONTH! And I go to Disney next week! And I go to Disney in 11 days! (in 25 minutes that switches to 10 days!) Just a brief example of how many ways I can say that

 

[Charleston Princess]

Fun times at Epcot!!! Glad the rain stopped!!! I am so grossed out by the woman at Rose and Crown! I do sometimes wonder if people lose all couth at Disney! Your dad and Kailyn cracked me up on Soarin'!

 

[MeMom]

I think at this point, we were all running out of steam. We had all been up since the very early hours of the morning, traveling, and just had a huge and delicious meal. We all really, really wanted to ride Soarin'. The last time my dad did this was back in April '08, so he was excited to ride. I wrote at 8:36 PM on Facebook from my phone, "Soarin'," and got some comments like "I hate you right now" (from my Disney-obsessed work friend )

We ended up in the second row, I think to the right. It was amazing, as always. I had been watching it on YouTube, and I listened to the music on my iPod all the time, but nothing ever compares to the real thing. I love the smells and just everything about it. I rode between my dad and Kailyn. To my left, I had Kailyn freaking out about the golf ball. I know when it is coming, but it still freaks me out. I did manage to warn her, or at least let her know what scene to expect it at. To my right, I had my dad going, "OH GOD. OH GOD," especially when we were going over certain parts. His take when we got off was, "that's scary stuff," only he didn't say "stuff." I just asked him why he thought that, and he said "when you feel like your feet are going to hit the water, and the stupid golf ball." I don't think anyone likes that part.

After Soarin', we just headed out. It had been a really, really long day and we were all ready for rest. I'm pretty sure I was in bed, fast asleep, by 10 PM. It was a very full and amazing first day in the World.

Up next: walk around Pop & DHS!

I'm sure your Disney-obsessed friend hated you in a loving way.

I think they ought to add a water feature to Soarin', so when you get to the dipping your feet in the ocean part, you feel a light mist on your feet.

Do you think waiters are extra specially kind to you guys when they see your dad in those glasses? Maybe they think he is just a little 'special' and they should tread lightly and make sure all goes well with the meal so that he doesn't go off in some crazy fashion?

I skipped the gross part. Whatever it was, I hope it didn't completely ruin the meal and/or your night.

Looking forward to the walk around Pop pictures.

 

[Megablocks]

I go to Disney this MONTH! And I go to Disney next week! And I go to Disney in 11 days! (in 25 minutes that switches to 10 days!) Just a brief example of how many ways I can say that

10 days now, so tomorrow is single digits! You're not going to Disney this weekend, you're going next weekend...on Saturday you can start playing the "this time next week" game! I'll be playing that game too.

Fun times at Epcot!!! Glad the rain stopped!!! I am so grossed out by the woman at Rose and Crown! I do sometimes wonder if people lose all couth at Disney! Your dad and Kailyn cracked me up on Soarin'!

It was ridiculous! I don't know what she was thinking.

My dad and Kailyn were hilarious. At first, I thought it might be that my dad is afraid of heights, but he said no, it was all that other crazy stuff.

I'm sure your Disney-obsessed friend hated you in a loving way.

I think they ought to add a water feature to Soarin', so when you get to the dipping your feet in the ocean part, you feel a light mist on your feet.

Do you think waiters are extra specially kind to you guys when they see your dad in those glasses? Maybe they think he is just a little 'special' and they should tread lightly and make sure all goes well with the meal so that he doesn't go off in some crazy fashion?

I skipped the gross part. Whatever it was, I hope it didn't completely ruin the meal and/or your night.

Looking forward to the walk around Pop pictures.

I would love to have some kind of mist on Soarin'! I also get nervous at the part where the people are in the boats in the lake -- I always feel like I am going to kick them in the head!

I would love to see if they would tread lightly when he is wearing the glasses! He didn't wear them through the whole meal, but he put them on sometimes and just looked around. During the MK EMH, we went to use a bathroom in Fantasyland, and my dad sat on a bench just outside the restrooms and wore the glasses. When we came out, he was looking around with the big smile. He said that he noticed a lot of shapes coming and going out of the bathroom, but he knew it was us when he heard "oh my GOD" and me busting a gut. I wonder how many people looked and wondered about him.

It didn't ruin the meal or the night. It was after we were done eating and waiting for the check, so we were good. I loved walking around Pop. I mostly wanted to get pictures of the Lady and the Tramp statues for Katie, so I did that and just kept on walking around -- it was really nice!

 

[Cat0727]

Your dad and Kailyn are hysterical They're fun to ride along with on rides in your TR

The vegetarian shepherd's pie sounds so good! I wonder if they'd make it without mushrooms, because I can't stand them, either.

 

[kschafer]

I am so excited for our R&C dinner! I can't wait to try the sticky toffee pudding

I'll let you know if I like the leaping leprechaun