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!? :)

clickety, click, click

we interrupt this disney vacation for a short commercial break....

ok, who shops at amazon?! if you are like me, i check prices at amazon before i shop anywhere else online. i can't remember the last time i bought a book from a local bookstore (besides those christmas kids' books i get 50% off after christmas!). local retail business owners probably despise amazon, but this mom loves it. :) i also love spreading the word about my favorite books. if you are a mom and you have been in a conversation with me about children lately, it is very very likely that i have told you about my latest favorite book: don't make me count to three. (don't worry... she encourages you do to do quite the opposite!) but there's a lot of you out there (at least 3 of you!?) that i don't get to chat with on a regular basis, so i want to share these books that are making a difference in my family's life! i've added a couple of lists to the right side of my blog... first, i've listed the stack of books that i'm trying to read all at once. :) some i have finished (like the disney one), others i am working my way through (teaching the trivium is a thick one!), and others i go back through again and again (the gospel primer-- i should really read it every day!). we are currently using training hearts, teaching minds in our family worship during the week, and our sunday school class just began a study of shepherding a child's heart today! parenting with scripture is a topical book that is wonderful to use alongside the principles in don't make me count to three and shepherding a child's heart.

my second list shares some of the books my kids are asking to read these days. we just got hooked on the little house on the prairie series, and we finished the first book last week! ethan and caroline could not wait to start the second book, and they wake up most mornings asking to read another chapter (which is music to this mom's ears vs. "can we watch a movie!?"). ethan is also completely into history non-fiction, which is music to his daddy's ears! we've been reading about the flight at kitty hawk, abraham lincoln, and most recently, the alamo. caroline is even picking up a little of the history. the other night at dinner, caroline lamented to brian, "daddy, daddy, guess what?! this is so sad. davy crockett died at the alamo!" we had to chuckle at her breaking news!

i hope to keep these lists updated as our reading choices change. i have a few children's books coming my way that i can't wait to share... once they get the approval from those twenty little toes! as you can see from my nightstand pile, i am focusing my reading on homeschooling and christian parenting books right now (and i left the disney one in there for fun!). fiction may eventually find its way back onto my bookshelf, but for now, there's no room! i'd love to hear about what books you are reading, even if they are a totally different focus from those on my bookshelf. somebody's got to be enjoying a good fiction book out there somewhere... right!?

oh, i almost forgot... my whole reason for this post! if you are an avid amazon shopper like i am, or even if you just visit amazon to peruse reviews.... i could use your help. if you click over to amazon using my links to the right (or any links in my post that take you to amazon), i have the potential to make a little $$ from it. not much, but every little bit counts, right!? i'm still figuring out how it all works, but i think i will get some referral $$ if you click on the link and buy anything from amazon or if you just click on the link to check it out but do not end up purchasing anything. i do know that you do not have to purchase the book i've linked to... any purchase from amazon will be considered a referral from me if you click to amazon through my link. so if you want to buy a new tv or dslr camera from amazon, please, please please click on my link first!

is all that as clear as mud!? if you will just take a second to click on a book, your clicks will help me see how this all works, and maybe i can figure it out. really, it's a win-win for everyone... i tell you about my favorite books, and you can help me make a few pennies. which will hopefully add up to a jar of pennies. thanks, clickin' friends!

i'll be back soon with more disney adventures!

hollywood studios: disney day 2

our second day at disney was a soggy one! we pulled into the hollywood studios parking lot hoping that the gray clouds were just gonna blow over. we'd watched the weather forecast like hawks the week before our trip, so we knew there was a good chance we'd run into some rain in the afternoon. but i was determined not to worry about it! lots of people go to disney in the rain, right?!?! we started off our day by seeing these guys, who caroline and ethan both love. while everyone else stood in the short line to meet pluto and goofy, i hightailed it to toy story mania to get our fast-passes for later in the day. next, we headed to see playhouse disney. this was a cute little show that the kids really enjoyed, but looking back, we should have saved this indoor event for later when it was pouring rain. oh well, i was just following my plan. :) i kind of felt sorry for the playhouse disney girl whose job is to talk to puppets and preschoolers in an ultra-animated voice. she probably goes to sleep hearing "oh, tooooodles!", but i guess the benefits are good. you can see that caroline and amelia were loving the playhouse disney show. (daddy...not so much.) notice the teething tablet bottle that amelia is clutching. she carried this bottle all day long. i can't believe we didn't lose it. amelia wasn't feeling so great this day, but holding the teething tablets made her completely content. so we went with it. (the next day, she could have cared less about them! go figure!)


when it was inevitable that this day was going to be a wet one, we decided to find lightning mcqueen and towmater. i remembered from our kid-less trip to disney that the cars are not out to be seen when it's raining. we were happy to find absolutely no line to see the cars! the kids were so excited to see mcqueen and towmater, but i did not think about the fact that they are really loud! the 5 seconds that it took to snap a picture were plenty for our kids. they smiled and then got outta there! (and now the cars are under a garage, so they are probably still available in the rain....)


after seeing the cars, we saw the muppets, another inside show that we should have saved until it was raining. (we are 0 for 2 there, huh?) it was right around the corner from the cars, so we just naturally mosied on in there. amelia and i actually skipped this show b/c she was not happy when we got in there. so i shopped for a little while without anyone begging me for anything (remember, brian was in the show. juuuust kidding, honey!). we made our way over to ride toy story mania and had a few minutes to meet donald duck!


toy story mania is one of the newest disney rides (maybe the newest ride?!). that alone will jack up the wait times.... it's also popular because all ages can ride it... and because it is so. much. fun. i knew to get our fast passes as soon as we got there, and i was glad we did! we had no wait to get into the building, and then it was the typical 10ish minute wait to actual board the ride. this was one ride where i wished we'd had a few more minutes to have to wait so i could have enjoyed all the little details disney puts into the waiting areas of their rides. we walked too quickly by all the big toys!!! but i can't complain. i love fast passes. i did take a few quick pictures outside the ride. i loved how the entrance was made out of tinker toys and playing cards! and check out that wait time over to the left-- 60 minutes!!!!!! i'm sorry, but no ride is worth waiting an hour for. toy story mania was fun, but not that fun.


here's another pixar building, complete with army men hoisting up the scrabble board! and you can also see the ugly gray sky. :(


brian and ethan at the entrance to pixar place. brian is thinking that they modeled these buildings after the actual pixar studios in california.


this picture is kind of hard to see, but can you find ethan and caroline at the bottom? they are waiting to ride the toy story ride with their 3-d glasses on their heads. :) this really was a great ride. you spin around and stop at different midway game stations, where you try to win points... just like the county fair. you're shooting at a 3-d screen, and it is just a blast. i had amelia strapped to me, so i didn't get to really play the games... plus, i was too worried about her dropping that bottle of teething tablets and jamming up the ride! it would have been much more convenient if hyland's would make a teething tablet bottle with a link-a-doo attachment.


well.... by the time we got out of toy story it was raining. i was so glad we'd covered the strollers with cheap-o ponchos from target. (get 'em in the camping section- $0.75- take several.) at first, it would just lightly rain off and on, but it was enough to be inconvenient. adults walking around probably didn't mind the rain too much, but two strollers packed down with stuff in the rain is two strollers too many! the plus side to the rain (if there really is one) was that everytime i'd cover amelia up in the carrier to walk to our next destination in the rain, she would fall fast asleep (while still holding those silly teething tablets!). one time she dropped them and didn't fuss, so i knew she was out. i looked pretty funny carrying her in the carrier with a poncho over me. i made the head hole big enough for her head to peek out too, and then i covered her head up with her rain jacket when she was sleeping. once when her head wasn't covered up, someone passed by me and said, "you've got a baby coming out of your raincoat!" i had to laugh and reply, "if only it was that easy!" i can't believe i don't have a picture of my rain-gear-baby get up. wait, yes i can. i'm the only one in our crew who would even think to take such a picture, and i was wet and full of baby all day. where's aunt kristie when you need her!?

after lunch, we raced over to the lights, motors, action stunt show. this was on ethan's "must-see" list, and we were hoping they would not cancel the show due to weather. thankfully, the seating was covered, and the show was not cancelled. the guys really, really loved this show. it is totally a guy thing. my mom, caroline, and i liked it too, but there's just something about fast cars, bad guys, and things blowing up that impress the male species. case in point: my favorite part about the show was being dry. ethan's favorite part was this...


as we exited the show, the rain really started coming down. my too-long pants were soaking wet. i was really missing my capris. the guys went to ride star tours while the girls headed to the little mermaid show. we really had planned on skipping this (as caroline will readily tell you, "we haven't seen the movie because ariel disobeys her faver (father)"... and gets everything she ever wanted. that's the kicker. anyway...), but with the rain pouring down, we thought it best to find an inside show (that we hadn't already seen). caroline was thrilled beyond words at the thought of seeing ariel's show, but we arrived one minute too late. the show had just started, and another one would not be for another hour. we were to meet up with the guys in about 20 minutes, so we had to tell caroline that we'd missed the ariel show. she was ok with it because we were standing in a princess souvenir shop when we told her. she was happy to spend the next 20 minutes browsing (the same merchandise she saw just the day before). she really was a trooper this day. we met up with brian and ethan in the animation studio, which is brian's favorite part of hollywood studios. our plan was for the kids to meet characters in there while brian went to the animation academy (where you learn to draw a character from a disney artist), but ethan's mood was like the weather. he didn't want to meet anybody, even giant quincy and june! so caroline went solo to meet the (not-so) little einsteins.


there were some other games and activities for the kids to do while brian finished up his drawing... here, the kids are watching some video they helped create... and i wondered why they both had fevers by the end of the week.... (remember? disney is the most magical petri dish on earth!)


here is my favorite artist with his masterpiece, jiminy cricket!


it was still raining when we left the animation studio, and we had about 10 minutes to make it to the final beauty and the beast musical. we had to make it. so we sloshed our way there as quickly as we could. we got there with plenty of time for me to wring out my pants before the show began. :) this was undoubtedly caroline's highlight of the day. my squirmer did not move for the entire show:


again, she wasn't smiling, but i know she loved every second of it. here's a shot from the "be our guest" sequence. it was really a good show. my mom was so cute... she kept going on about how it was so much like the movie, and i said, "well, it's disney, so it better be!" :)


as the show ended, the magic spell was removed from not only the beauty and the beast characters but from the horrible weather as well! it had stopped raining! my mom and the kids had a snack while brian and i snuck off to ride the rock'n roller coaster. what a thrill that ride is. it gives me a headache every time, but it is so worth it! we enjoyed a few minutes to ourselves, and the kids had fun coloring and snacking with gram at a nearby table.

since it had stopped raining, we attempted to get a family picture in front of the big sorcerer's apprentice hat, the icon of hollywood studios. by the time we got over there, it started raining again, so we gave up and went home. it was probably 6 pm by then, so we stuck it out most of the day. it actually felt good to get back to the condo at a reasonable time. the kids had a fun bubble bath in our jacuzzi tub, and we all got a good night's sleep.

our day at hollywood studios was not ideal because of the rain, but we made the best of it and still had a great time. there were some things we missed due to the rain that we can look forward to for our next visit, like the parade and the jedi training show. and as i was preparing this post, i realized just how few pictures we took that day! 178 compared to 537 at the magic kingdom! it's like we were hardly even there! :) i look forward to enjoying this park again the next time (read: i look forward to taking many, many more pictures the next time)... hopefully with beautiful blue skies! we certainly had blue skies the next day! it wasn't raining, but boooooooy, was it a chilly one!