After finishing lunch at Artist Palette, we cut through the High Rock Springs pool at Saratoga Springs and caught a bus to Epcot. And as if we didn't get enough food at the all-you-can-eat buffets, anything-and-everything restaurants and late night pizza and ice cream on the ship, we arrived in the middle of ....
Epcot's International Food and Wine Festival! (And since both Bambi and I think that wine is just grape juice gone bad, I'll refer to this event from here on out as the Epcot International Food Festival)
Barely inside the front gate, Madison immediately spotted characters.
Despite Daisy and Stitch clearly not being princesses, Evan wasn't in a characters type of mood.
First stop: Club Cool. Nothing like a nice cold Beverly to...um...make you appreciate what we have here in the States. The theory behind that nasty crap is that it cleanses your palette between courses. My theory is that Cocoa Cola got a good deal on bulk used battery acid and decided to pull a practical joke on Italy. Either way, with a freshly cleansed palette, we decided to take advantage of the other establishment right next to the Fountain of Nations - Fountain View Ice Cream. (Yes, I checked. If you look out the window you can in fact view the fountain.)
Barry's Pie Hole: Stuffed.
From there we burned rubber and pealed out to one of the kids' favorite rides - Test Track. Bambi, being pregnant, had to sit this one out.
That's not her. But it looks like that crash test dummy is sitting this one out too. I wonder what kind of maternity leave they get?
It's always fun to randomly shoot pictures of the kids on this ride. You never know what type of expression you're going to get.
Crazy fool driver. Where'd you learn to drive, Dukes of Hazard?
Warp speed Mr. Sulu!
Well, probably not exactly warp speed. If we assume warp speed to be the speed of light (299,792,458 meters per second) and we're traveling at 28.92 meters per second, then we're actually going about 9.6 x 10 ^ -8 of warp. Cripes, my van does faster than that. This is getting depressing. Let's move on.
Following the leader, the leader, the leader. We're following the leader, where ever she may go.
And where she was going was to the World Showcase and all the wonders, education, culture and food that was there. But mostly the food. This year's sponsor was Ocean Spray cranberries. Who here knew that Wisconsin is the leading producer of cranberries in the nation? See, we're not just cheese, beer and awesome football teams. (oh, and remember that photo. You'll need it for later.)
Ocean Spray was also handing out free sample packs of their craisons - basically dried cranberries. And since the Epcot International Food Festival was winding down, they were giving away as many as you wanted. Take the box, if you want.
Getting ready for a little pie hole stuffing.
Oh, but first the kids needed to try my patience. They saw that creature dreamed up by the Disney Marketing folks who's sole purpose is to separate people from their money. Yes, I'm talking about that walking waste of fur, Duffy.
I didn't take pictures of everything we ate (I only have a 4 GB memory card, after all). But I'm pretty sure Bambi and I each had one of the fancy little gift cards with a wrist strap, each with about $40 on them. I know mine was gone by the time we got to Italy. Bambi's wasted away to nothing soon after.
But we did keep up the tradition of letting the kids get their faces painted. Mostly because they're so darn cute and it's hard to say no.
We did try the Kim Possible missions again. We tried this a few trips ago, and the kids lost interest.
We got our Kimmunicator, started the Norway mission and the kids...lost interest. Well, Evan did anyway as soon as we got to Maelstrom and found that it was only a 20 minute wait. He abandoned the mission and begged me to take him. So we left Bambi and Madison to save the world themselves while we rode the boats through Norway and skipped the movie at the end.
Yes, a fire breathing dragon tatoo and a viking hemet. Want to know how many people made fun on him? No one. He was clearly the most bad @$$ kid in the park that day.
After plundering and pillaging the gift shop for a while, we met up with the women. Bambi took a restroom break, while the kids entertained me with an improv show. Disney does a wonderful job on their shows, but they have a much larger budget. Dollar for Dollar, these kids really nailed it.
Off to China, Madison wanted to meet Mulan. Well, "meet" is probably not the right word. She's met her several times. So let's say she wanted to drop in on Mulan and catch up on old times. Well, Madison was the last person in line, so Mulan took her had and walked through the China pavilion with her. Just chatting about this, that, and the other thing.
Finally, she told Madison that she had to be going, posed for a picture, and was off. Yup, this is how things go for Madison.
We continued clockwise around the World Showcase, stopping to eat whatever stuck our fancy, and stoping to strick some fancy drums. (Pretty nice world play there, huh? Yeah, sometimes I surprise myself.)
Remember that picture of the cranberry bog from earlier in the TR? The one I told you to remember? Go ahead, scroll back up and take a look at it because you forgot. I'll wait.
Well, the Imagineers, doing what only Imagineers do, put a little one in Germany by the railroad. But they forgot the Ocean Spray logo. Someone in the marketing department is gonna be ticked.
And so after watching the sun come up over the Atlantic that morning, we watched it cast it's evening glow on Spaceship earth. We were all pretty tired by this point, so we made it an early night, catching the bus back to Saratoga Springs.
Coming Up: The Happiest and Saddest times - the Magic Kingdom and the flight home.
And Evan is sure growing up. Love that picture of the two of them on the ship with their semi-formal flip-flops on! He looks like such a little gentleman. 
The price of the early seating.
