epcot: disney day 3!

ok, let's get on with this disney vacation, shall we?! on wednesday (way back in february...), we went to epcot. and we froze. the wind whipping across the parking lot as we hesitantly stepped out of the car was not exactly welcoming. but we bundled up and headed toward the big silver ball. the boys headed to ride test track, and before the girls could blink, we ran into daisy duck! i've heard she is hard to find, so we hopped in line to meet daisy.



we met the guys in the finding nemo aquarium, and ethan could not stop talking about test track! it was his favorite ride... for the moment. :) we spent a good amount of time admiring all the marine life in nemo's tanks. amelia loved watching all the bubbles!




ethan was the only one brave enough to climb in that shark's mouth with brian!


one of my favorite disney shows is turtle talk with crush. it's a little interactive show with the hilarious turtle from finding nemo, and man, i wish we would have videotaped it. i have no pictures and no video from it. :( so it's like it never happened. :( but it did. and it was funny.


these kids could have pressed their noses up against that glass all day... but we had other things to see! we could not wait for ethan to ride soarin', the simulator hang-gliding ride. caroline was not tall enough to ride it yet, so brian and ethan headed to soarin', and gram and i took the girls on a walk around the countries. we didn't want caroline to feel like she was missing out on riding soarin', so i hoped we'd run into some characters on our walk. according to the schedule, some of the princesses and other characters were to be at their posts beginning at 11:30 and then intermittently throughout the day. we arrived in france right at 11:30 to find marie from aristocats coming out to her greeting spot! caroline was thrilled to walk hand in hand with the girlie cat!



marie's "handler" told us that sleeping beauty should be coming out in a few minutes, but when we turned to walk in the direction that we were given, we were shocked to see sleeping beauty heading our way at that very moment!


caroline did not hesitate to take princess aurora's hand and to walk with her as her first little visitor of the day.


princess aurora was so sweet to caroline, even taking time to fix her hair that was looking quite unfortunate thanks to the wind and lack of humidity!


at this point, caroline could care less that ethan is riding soarin'...



as we said our goodbyes to sleeping beauty, we asked where we could find belle. we did not expect belle to walk over to find us at that very moment! this made caroline's day! i whipped out the video camera and attempted to take pictures and shoot video while walking backwards with caroline and the princesses! :) haha! i am sure i was quite a sight! here is a little clip from caroline's favorite moment of the day...


belle walked us over to her spot and really took her time with us. it was great to be there with no line so caroline could chat and play with her! she tried to get caroline to warm up to her by tickling her... i think it worked! (on our walk with her, belle called caroline "a quiet little teacup". ha! more like a gallon of espresso!) does this belle remind you of anyone famous?! (besides belle.) :)



the princesses were just so sweet with caroline. they could not resist grabbing those cheeks of hers! :)





i love this one of belle's lipstick on her cheek. as we walked away, caroline immediately asked me to wipe it off. belle heard her and exclaimed from afar, "don't wipe it off, caroline!" :)


we were still loading up the stroller (and wiping off lipstick) when belle came back over to see us. she talked to caroline about her baby sister and asked her what books she read to her and such. of course belle would ask about books! :) these princesses stay completely in character... it is really neat to experience. (and that is coming from me, who has not been crazy about all things princess-y!) here, belle is asking caroline if she has a sleeping beauty in her stroller. i tried not to be self-conscious of belle seeing our messy stroller! (it was day three, ya know! it was much more organized on monday!) but then i reminded myself that she lived with the beast, so what's the problem with a stroller in a little disarray?!? :)


well, we were on a roll! 3 visits in 30 minutes with absolutely no waiting! so we headed to germany to see if we could find snow white. a very helpful cast member showed us her greeting spot, where she'd be in about 10 minutes. we were waiting on brian and ethan to finish riding soarin' anyway, so why not wait right there!? by the time snow white arrived, a little line had formed, but we were right up front! here is caroline waiting with her big fat pen!


and here is her first sighting of snow white!


snow white was very prim and proper... no tickle fights this time! but there were other little girls waiting, so caroline just asked her to sign her book, and we were done! (notice caroline automatically took her "shy around the princesses" pose.)



next, we were off to find daddy and ethan! i tried to get a picture of caroline and amelia in their matching hats, but amelia would never leave hers on long enough. this is pretty much the way it was most of the day... i can't tell you how many times people picked up that hat for me!


we found the boys and headed to eat lunch. ethan absolutely loved soarin', and it was now his favorite ride. he was even more excited when he found out that he would get to ride it again with mommy and gram later that day! as for brian, i don't know what he was more excited about.... taking ethan on soarin' or not having to experience the princesses with caroline! :) haha!

i love this shot of ethan with his mickey cookie. he looked forward to this treat every day and counted the cookies as one of his favorite memories of the trip. :)


caroline was hoping to find princess jasmine in morocco after lunch, but aladdin was there instead. the kids have not seen aladdin yet (the evil guys are a bit too evil!), but they know who aladdin is. i thought ethan would be excited to see him, but he did not want to meet aladdin. so caroline marched right over to get in line by herself, even if jasmine was nowhere to be found. aladdin cracked us up. he was just so funny and did a great job being aladdin! even now, a month later, if you ask caroline if she met aladdin, she'll say, "he has a snack in his hat for his monkey!" here, aladdin is saying, "genie must have made your pen extra big!"


i love this one with her little fingers showing aladdin that she's three.



here's a little peek at caroline meeting aladdin (notice he compliments her "autograph book"- ha!):


well, ethan couldn't get out of saying hi to aladdin after all. he walked over to where ethan was sitting and totally charmed him. he started talking tigers, and ethan was grouchy no more! of all things for him to choose to talk about with ethan... thank you, aladdin, for choosing tigers!


aladdin continued to make ethan laugh, even after the tiger talk:


well, we didn't fly on any magic carpets this day, but we did take quite a wonderful ride on soarin'! ethan could not wait to take gram on this ride. here he is saying, "c'mon!" he skipped down the entire boarding area of this ride... so excited... so precious.


and here is ethan with our beloved fastpasses! this ride would be worth waiting a little while for, but we loved not having to wait at all!


all during the ride, ethan would say to my mom, "see gram?! i told ya! i told ya it was awesome!" he was the expert on soarin', i suppose. as you can see, ethan gives this ride a big thumbs up!


i just found a youtube video of soarin'. now, keep in mind, this will in no way do soarin' justice. but it's fun to watch and remember this great ride. and when i show this video to ethan in the morning, i have a feeling we're gonna be watching it a few times.


after riding soarin', we met up with brian and the girls at innovations, where daddy loves visiting all the little exhibits! while brian and daddy explored,


caroline snored! gram happily volunteered to sit with caroline while ethan enjoyed innovations. a wise, wise place for couches, walt disney!


once caroline woke up, she got to enjoy a little bit of innovations too. i love this profile shot of them. i have no idea what they're doing... trying to pull something heavy?


while we were at innovations, caroline also got to meet minnie mouse!


and afterwards, we ran into chip and dale outside! the kids love these silly guys!


we could not visit epcot without brian taking time for some close-up shots of the epcot ball...


while we waited on brian, the kids begged to run around somewhere. they'd been bundled up in the strollers long enough, i suppose!


for dinner, we ate our fish and chips in england and then peeked into the english children's store. such a delightful wee shoppe! we were pleasantly surprised to find tigger and pooh in there as well! not the stuffed dolls... but the real things! (well... as real as fake characters can get, i suppose!) ethan had a ball bouncing with tigger! and as you can see, caroline had no problem snuggling up with pooh.




we did not get to tour all the epcot countries as i would have liked because it was just so cold. after the sun went down and the wind picked up, we were edging toward miserable. we had originally planned to stay for illuminations, the wonderful fireworks and laser show... but when brian (who loves that show) suggested we head out, i agreed. we would have probably been too cold to truly enjoy the show. we ended our night in mexico, where we rode the donald duck boat ride and played with all the handmade toys for sale before shivering our way to the parking lot. though our day at epcot was a chilly one, we loved every minute of it--we had a full day but still left some adventures for next time. some families with small children sort of turn their noses up at epcot, thinking it will not be entertaining for their kids... i am confident that our kids would be severely disappointed if we skipped epcot on our next trip to disney!

i'll leave you with an epcot funny... ever since our "un-disney disney trip" back in 2008, ethan has called epcot "ep-a-cot". we've corrected him numerous times. (i think my husband's request to this speech therapist mom was "fix him, honey!") :) ha. anyway, he is confident in his pronunciation of "epacot" and will be prepared to defend his decision! well, on the way home from disney, caroline had apparently had enough. we overhear ethan in the back seat mention something about "epacot", and caroline adamantly corrects him, "efan, it's EF-cot. say EF-cot. not epacot. EF-cot." at least i know i'm not out of a job anytime soon, right!? :)