Disney 2016 Day Five

Today we visited Animal Kingdom. It was already packed when we got there at 9am, so upon arriving at the park, we proceeded to the Kilimanjaro Safaris, which was near the back of the park. One of the Photopass photographers took this photo of us later in the day of the big tree that to me is symbolic of Animal Kingdom. On the way in, we didn't want to stop to wait in line for one of the photographers to take our picture.

The Kilimanjaro Safari ride is also a ride that to me is just part of being at Animal Kingdom. The rides takes you through the different habitat areas in Africa and you can see lots of real animals in their native setting. I knew that even Natalie and Eric would enjoy this one. It's also a popular ride, and we weren't able to get Fast Passes, plus many of the animals were usually sleeping by around lunch time, so that's why we headed there first.

The posted wait time for the ride was only 10 minutes when we got there, and really, we probably didn't have to wait that long. They had lots of vehicles that held lots of people, so the line went fast. We were lucky to not only get to see some animals in action, but also to see them fairly close up.

These were apparently "baby" elephants playing. We thought it was kind of cool not only to see them, but to see them interact this way.

I still had to crop both of these photos, but the fact that I still got decent pictures (that weren't blurry) meant that they were close enough for my camera to get them in good focus. This lion was perched perfectly on top of a rock, easily seen by us and by my camera. In the past when we've gone on this ride, the lions were usually hiding or sleeping, so it was cool to see one just showing off on top of a rock.

After the safari ride, we went on the Pangani Forest Exploration Trail. There were more animals to see, and I was eager to do some walking after all the standing still in lines we did yesterday. At one point, Eric noticed a guide talking to some other kids about one of the animals, and it peaked his interest. They have something called a Wildlife Explorer program now. Kids (and some adults that we saw along the way) go to different stations throughout the park, learning little facts and getting "badges" (which were actually stickers) in these little books that they were given. We started visiting some of those stations.

We interrupted our Wildlife Exploration to go on the Dinosaur ride, because we had Fast Passes for 11:05am. It's a very mild rollercoaster/simulator type ride, and Eric enjoyed it a lot. The premise for the ride is that the vehicle you are in supposedly travels back in time to when dinosaurs roamed the earth, but you encounter some unexpected dangers along the way. I took this picture before we got on the ride because Eric wanted me to take a picture. He made that face all on his own. There was another statue of a dinosaur later, an iguanodon from the movie Dinosaur, and I took a picture of him in front of that one too.

Eric actually complained of being hungry even before we went on the Dinosaur ride, which is unusual for him. I held him off until after the ride, and we had some barbecue--Natalie and I shared some ribs, and Eric had a chicken drumstick. Eric also had some apple juice and that was it. He said he was too full to eat the grapes included in the meal, so I told him I wasn't going to get him any dessert until he ate his grapes. I felt funny saying that because it's not like grapes aren't already dessert-like with all the sugar they have in them.

Natalie took this to heart and when she wanted a Mickey-shaped ice cream bar a short time later, she barely let him have any. I had a chocolate covered frozen banana, which unfortunately also had nuts on it. I say unfortunately because I was willing to share, but both Natalie and Eric refuse to eat nuts. I still figure that we're on vacation, so I was letting Eric have some dessert even without eating a large lunch. He ended up eating some of my frozen banana, eating around some of the nuts.

One of the badges for Eric's Wildlife Explorer book was a "music badge". We searched for a while until we found it. It involved this man on stilts playing a "balafon", which is one of the activities in the book, to write down what instrument that is. He also had the kids at his station play some of the musical instruments. As you can see from the first photo, Eric was really enjoying himself!

This station and another station involving info about the Hindi alphabet and Indian culture were the most interesting ones, even Natalie agreed. The guide at that station wrote our names using the Hindi alphabet, and we learned a little about the Taj Mahal, which Eric had not heard of until today. She was very nice and we actually saw her at a different station an hour or so later.

It's been like pulling teeth to get the kids to do a lot of rides and other attractions this week. I wanted to stop at Disney Springs (formerly Downtown Disney) to look around. Today, Natalie finally allowed it, but she wanted to leave early from Animal Kingdom to get to Disney Springs so she could get back and pack. I'm not sure why she thought she needed so much time to pack since she didn't need that long to pack to come here. Whatever her reason, at least we got to go somewhere else and not just stay in our room.

We mostly walked around Disney Springs. We had to stop at the Lego store, of course. I took a couple of photos--this one of the two of them with Woody and Buzz, and another one of Eric outside with a display where Buzz is strapped on a rocket with Woody down below. Natalie ended up buying some Lego Mixels because she loves those and because they were on sale. We thought about eating there, but it was only 4pm, and we weren't hungry yet, so we went back to the hotel.

After a very long bus ride (I love the monorail so much and really hate the buses), we got back to the hotel. After trying to figure out what the kids want to eat for three meals a day, I was tired of doing it. I am ready to eat at home! I knew Natalie would want to just stay at the hotel, which made me a little angry, but luckily, Eric was up for going to the Magic Kingdom one last time to have dinner and dessert. We really didn't spend much time at the Magic Kingdom at all during this trip, not even a handful of hours on the day we arrived, Tuesday. The lines for rides were all really long anyway, but I still wish Eric had some interest in some of the rides. At least he let me take this picture.

We shared a "Pot Roast Mac and Cheese" which is basically pot roast with mac and cheese. I ate the pot roast and Eric ate the mac and cheese. Sharing entrees has saved me during this trip. Usually, entree portions are so huge, and it would have killed me to throw food away because I didn't have a way to heat it up again later.

For dessert, he only wanted one of those Frozen Strawberry Lemonade cups. We also bought some foam swords. Eric and Natalie have been playing with foam swords this week whenever they see them in the gift shops, and this was our last chance to buy them. Eric chose a blue one for himself, and he chose a pink one to give to Natalie. I'm not sure if he was doing this so he would have someone to fight with, or because he was trying to be sweet to his sister. He said to a family we met on the elevator that he was trying to be nice to his sister. What a sweetie.

I didn't want to leave Disney without having one of the Mickey Ears Kids' Ice Cream Cones, so we got in this long line and I purchased one last item before heading home tomorrow. I had to take a picture of it because I didn't get a picture of it when Eric had one earlier this week. I put him behind the ice cream in this picture just for fun.

What did Natalie eat for dinner while we were gone--mini-muffins. Sigh. I was so mad at her, but I was too busy packing everything tonight. We're out of here early tomorrow, and we'll hopefully be back in San Antonio by 9:30am.

Disney 2016 Day Four

Today was Star Wars day. Most of our activities revolved around attractions with a Star Wars theme. We had to take the bus to Hollywood Studios this morning, in contrast to the monorail we've been taking to Magic Kingdom and Epcot. Now I remember why I paid extra to stay at a hotel located on the Monorail line. The monorails run fairly regularly and there are several cars and lots of seating. The bus ran late this morning, and it took extra time for people on wheelchairs to get on and off. We wanted to get to Hollywood Studios by 9am (or earlier if possible) so we could sign Eric up for the Jedi Training Academy.

We did get there a few minutes after 9am, but there were enough people in front of us that it took us about an hour and 15 minutes to get to the front of the line. By that time, eight of the twenty shows had been filled, and the first available show (and the one we signed up for) was at 2:10pm. That meant that we had to be there by 1:40pm so that they could make sure the kids were all there and ready for the 2:10pm show. We already had a Fast Pass for 1:10pm at Toy Story Mania, one of our most favorite attractions/rides, so that was going to be tight.

While waiting in line, I took pictures to post on Facebook, of course. There wasn't anything else to do. I even called Patrick at home, since we didn't really have a chance to talk yesterday. When he could, Eric started climbing some of the rock walls that surrounded the line--I took a picture of that. Natalie also made a comment that if she were a Sith, she would be a "fashionable Sith". "There's no reason to just wear all black when you can look good with your pink outfit and your color-coordinated lightsaber." That girl cracks me up! Of course, I had to take a picture of her fashionable color-coordinated pink outfit.

After we signed Eric up, we headed to Star Tours, because it was a simulation-based ride that takes you through the Star Wars Universe, and he didn't remember taking it before. He loved it, of course, because he loves all things Star Wars. After that ride, Natalie took off running for the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror roller coaster ride. Eric wasn't interested, but we had already reserved a Fast Pass for 11:20 and it was already around 11:30. Eric and I headed to Star Wars Launch Bay, where they had character meet and greets with Chewbacca and Kylo Ren.

Eric chose Kylo Ren, and interestingly, the posted wait time to "encounter Kylo Ren" was only 10 minutes (which ended up closer to 20 minutes) whereas the posted wait time for Chewbacca was 40 minutes. While waiting, Eric entertained himself with trying to answer Star Wars trivia questions that were posted on TV screens there. There was a girl that came out after meeting Kylo Ren and saying, "He was so rude." Eric just laughed when he heard that, and okay, now we knew what to expect.

I took a video of Eric during the "encounter", which was fairly short. Kylo Ren paced around grandiosely and told the Photopass photographer exactly when it was okay to take pictures, and at the end, he told Eric, "Out of my way." Eric was smiling the whole time, trying not to laugh. Eric kept looking at him even when the photographer was taking pictures. I had to prompt him to look towards the camera. When Kylo Ren told him to get out of his way, Eric turned and headed out the door with a smile but without a word.

Natalie met us while Eric was exploring some of the Star Wars themed video games, and we went to have lunch. After lunch we only had a little time before our Toy Story Mania Fast Pass at 1:10pm, so we had some ice cream. The Toy Story Mania ride line went a little slower than we had hoped. Eric and I didn't have a great time either, because we weren't able to aim our "guns". Mine only shot directly in the middle of the screen and his only shot up almost out of the screen area, even if we tried pointing them in different directions. Eric was getting very frustrated, and we complained when we got off. They gave us free passes to use at another time because we were already late to the 1:40pm check in time for the Jedi Training Academy.

When we got to the Jedi Training Academy check-in, Eric got lined up with the other kids (only kids 4-12 are able to participate), and then they got robes to wear. We waited around quite a bit, actually, probably built in extra time so they could call kids on standby when the designated kids didn't check in and so they would have everyone ready for show time. We then had a little procession to the "Jedi Temple". They got lightsabers right after the show started. One of the kids asked earlier why they didn't get lightsabers when they got their robes. I couldn't hear exactly what the cast member told him, but I'm sure it had something to do with little kids waving giant pointy sticks around while in close proximity to each other.

It was tough to get good pictures of Eric during the show because I'm so short and there were a lot of people there also trying to see and take pictures. They had two Photopass photographers there, but I did try to take some video and some photos. Eric got to duel Darth Vader (or as Eric put it, "someone dressed in a Darth Vader costume") as did the kids in his line or group. The kids in the other line/group dueled against one of the Inquisitors from the Star Wars Rebels show. I can't seem to post those Photopass photos on this blog right now, so I'll have to settle for one of my own photos. Doesn't Eric look intense?

After the show, we were able to see some of the Star Wars: A Galaxy Far, Far Away show, which involved live actors dressed in costumes that included Kylo Ren, Darth Vader, Captain Phasma, and Chewbacca as well as some stormtroopers. After that, we saw the Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular that we've seen pretty much every time we go to Hollywood Studios. It's still a great show, even if they really haven't changed anything in it.

Our last activity was going back to Toy Story Mania for Eric to get a chance to do better on the shooting game. I let Natalie take my ticket while I went to get some Starbucks and get the Photopass pictures from the Jedi Training Academy placed in my account. We went back to the hotel and mostly stayed in our room. The kids were once again not interested in doing anything else at the parks or even watching fireworks downstairs from the window in one of the public areas.

My last photo for this post is a photo from one of the Photopass photographers. Natalie actually liked this picture, which is unusual. I love it because it's of me with my "favorite daughter". We had dinner together in the Contempt Cafe at the Contemporary Resort where we're staying. We had the same grilled salmon entree that we had on Tuesday, but we both still enjoyed sharing it. Eric wasn't interested in coming downstairs to eat, so we got him a kids' pepperoni flatbread to go. Natalie and I got to spend some mother-daughter time and it was a good time. Later, she watched Eric in our room and I got to go to the gym again.

Tomorrow, we're going to the last theme park, Animal Kingdom. Hopefully we'll get to go back to Magic Kingdom also.

Disney 2016 Day Three

Today was a bit of an adventure for me, because I had to arrange for transportation to Universal Orlando from our hotel. A cab would have cost more than $40 one way, but a shuttle cost $21 per person, which worked out to $63 dollars round trip for us. Add the tickets to Universal Orlando for $300 plus total, and it was an expensive day. It was well worth it, however, when I saw both Natalie's and Eric's face light up when we got to the reason why we went there--The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, Diagon Alley.

The shuttle turned out to be a Lincoln Town Car, so we ended up with our own private transportation to the park. We didn't have to make any additional stops or pickup other people, so that was really cool. there was a crowd of people heading towards the parks when we got there, but our first couple of hours were actually almost crowd-free. The weather was beautiful today--70s with a breeze, and sunny.

I haven't read the Harry Potter books in a very long time, and both Natalie and Eric have read all of the books since I last read them. The first photo opportunity was 12 Grimmauld Place, the ancestral home of the Black family. There were hardly any people there yet, so got a photo right away. The same thing happened for the Knight Bus, Natalie and Eric walked right up and took a photo with the "conductor" of the three-story bus. That bus was so big that I couldn't fit the whole thing in the frame when I tried to take this picture.

We then went into the Diagon Alley area, and Natalie made a beeline for one of the gift shops. Although I love shopping, I had to put my foot down and told her that we needed to do something else that was going to be crowded later, so we proceeded to Ollivander's Wand Shop. Interestingly, Eric went to all the sample wands and picked one out that he thought looked cool. It happened to be the Sirius Black's wand. Natalie chose a wand also, but I can't remember whose right now and she's asleep.

I had to tear them from their wand shopping so we could watch the show with Mr. Ollivander where the wand picks the person. There wasn't a line for the show, and later on in the day, there was a line out the door. Natalie grumbled, but we didn't have to wait in line to see the show, and she enjoyed it, as did Eric.

After the wand show, I bought them their wands, then I made them go outside to do something that didn't involve shopping. We went to Gringotts Bank where they have a ride. I had to no idea how the ride was, but as a rule, if there was a possibility of it being roller coaster-like at all, Eric refused to go. I stayed with him, of course, while Natalie went into the single rider line. They allowed us to go on a "bank tour" instead, which was awesome, because we still saw some of the bank scenes like the riders did, but we left just before we would be getting on the ride AND we didn't have to wait in as long a line. Eric was good about posing in front of some of the scenes from the books.

We had lunch at the Leaky Cauldron which included Eric's first taste of frozen Butterbeer. He seemed skeptical at first, but after he had some, he enjoyed it so much that we had to get some more in the afternoon before we left the park. We even had some Butterbeer ice cream, although that wasn't as special, It was like vanilla soft serve with some flavoring. Natalie and I shared the Beef and Lamb stew while Eric had the Kids' Mac and cheese. We've been able to save a little money (and not wasted extra food) with sharing entrees. Neither of us like sharing with Eric because of his very plain choices.

This is a picture of Eric dancing with a Minion. This was the last place we went to before heading out of Universal to the City Walk area. Even though I was sure that the Minion Mayhem ride would be tame (since very small children were allowed on it), he didn't want to ride it, and since Natalie and I had not been on the ride before, we couldn't vouch that he would be okay with it. The wait was 55 minutes anyway, and by this time, that would have made us potentially late for our shuttle bus pickup, so we didn't try to convince Eric to go on the ride.

We did end up in the gift shop that is at the end of the ride, however, and there was a short line to get photos with this Minion, so Eric of course wanted to do that. I was a little embarrassed that he started sticking out his butt like this, but as you can see from his smile, he was having a blast! Besides, that is the way the minions dance in the movie.

I saw this sign also on the way out, and I had to take a picture of Eric in front of it, especially since he was wearing one of his many minion T-shirts today. He hammed it up and made this silly face and held up his thumb. What a goof!

The rest of the time there we enjoyed some street shows. The Blues Brothers sang at one, and I got Natalie to pose in front of their iconic vehicle so I could send it to Patrick. He loves the Blues Brothers music. There was another show featuring the "Beat Builders" which consisted of four guys dressed up as construction workers who played percussion on construction equipment. The beat was catchy and they were entertaining. The show that Eric enjoyed was some guys pretending to sell fish and they did a combo of acrobatics and juggling (using fake fish and knives) to a catchy soundtrack. Eric was impressed, but his favorite part was at the end when they said, "#ourfishfly". He kept repeating that phrase for the rest of the day. Eric and I watched a show featuring rap music while Natalie was on The Mummy ride, and all of us watched one more show featuring two female singers that were supposedly competing. Both of them sang really well, but one sang 80s-era music while the other sang more contemporary tunes. Natalie enjoyed a lot of the songs, so she enjoyed the show.

Natalie rode on The Mummy ride by herself because, again, Eric wasn't interested. That one was probably one he would not have enjoyed anyway, according to Natalie when she came out. Eric and I noticed that the warning sign at the entrance to the ride warned people with prosthetic limbs to secure them or they might be jarred loose by the forces of the ride. That told me that the ride was most likely rougher than what Eric (or I) would be interested in. She would also have ridden the Men In Black ride (which Eric and I might have been interested in), as well as the Transformers 3D ride, but they were both closed when we were there.

We left the park at about 2pm, and ventured out to the City Walk area for a bit until it was time to go to the shuttle stop. We've taken pictures at this one spot before where there is a surfboard and it makes it look like you are surfing on the surfboard. Eric hammed it up when he was on it, but when Natalie got on it, she pretended to only be interested in texting on her phone. She can be a ham too, but in her own way.

Our shuttle bus back to the hotel was not so private, so it took us twice as long to make the trip as it did in the morning because of the extra pickups and drop-offs. We finally made it back to our hotel, we rested for a short period, then headed back out to Epcot to the countries we missed yesterday. We were hungry and ended up eating in the Mexico area. Natalie and I shared some beef tacos, and Eric had some chicken tenders. It was so packed at that restaurant that we had exit the restaurant to find seating on the ground a few feet away.

We then proceeded to Norway. I think we have taken a picture with this giant troll in the Norway gift shop every time we have gone to Disney. I should do a scrapbook page or album using all of those photos to show how the kids have grown.

Those were the two countries we missed, but we went ahead and walked in the opposite direction as we did yesterday, to go back through the other countries again, searching for something to eat for dessert. I was disappointed at the gelato choices when we got to Italy, so we didn't end up getting dessert in the Epcot World Showcase at all.

We stopped off at a playground that Eric could climb around in. There were two xylophone-like instruments and three different-sized drums in one area that Natalie played with. Eric did a lot of climbing, so much so that one of the mom's exclaimed, "Look, is that a monkey? That's a monkey!" to her small son. One of the other small children told him, as he hung upside down from one of the bars, "That isn't very safe." Although that is probably true, Eric really knows his way around a playscape.

Our last stop was the Test Track ride. Finally a ride that we thought Eric would enjoy. We originally had Fast Passes for the ride yesterday, but they closed the ride due to the inclement weather, so they said they would honor the Fast Pass today. I would have gone with them on the ride, but we didn't feel like finding a locker for our stuff, so I waited for Natalie and Eric outside. I got some Starbucks while I waited, and I ended up buying a Starbucks Epcot mug also. Natalie and Eric requested some favorite pastries for breakfast tomorrow, so I got those too.

When they came out of the ride, Natalie did not want me to get the ride photo because she thought she made a funny face when they took the picture. I saw it and she was actually smiling, although she complained that her hair was in her face. That girl! I added it to my Photopass, so now I can at least show it to the family when we get home. Eric looked excited when he came out, and he said he loved it. I'm glad he can still enjoy some rides.

We didn't get back to our room until after 8pm. It was a very long and exhausting day, but the weather was beautiful and we had fun. Tomorrow, we are going to Hollywood Studios.

Disney 2016 Day Two

Today was Day Two of our Disney Trip, but we could probably nickname it--Our Rain Day. The day started out very rainy. There were thunderstorms when we awakened this morning. The rain let up a little to barely a drizzle when we first got to Epcot, but it was fairly constant all day, often getting harder, and occasionally lightening up. We decided to visit Epcot today, because it was close to our hotel (so we could go home to change wet clothes or to rest if needed) and because a lot of activities were inside.

I didn't bring my big camera because of the rain. I was hoping to get a bunch of photos taken by the Photopass photographers, since I bought the Memory Maker package ahead of time so I can just download those photos, but because of the sometimes heavy rain, even those photographers weren't out there taking pictures. We did manage to get a few taken, like this one with the Epcot "golf ball", and I was happy to be in some photos.

We started out in the Innoventions exhibit, because there were a bunch of indoor hands-on activities for the kids to do. There weren't that many people at the park yet, which was great because the kids could take their time and not have to wait for anything. We started with some hands-on science activities, and then proceeded to the new "Colortopia" exhibit sponsored by Gladden paint (at least new since we last visited five years ago), where the kids played games with colors. The next stop was an area where the kids designed their own ride, then got to experience the twists and turns that they planned out on a simulator type of machine. It's hard to describe, but I'm sure my big boys would have thoroughly enjoyed it. Eric was within the 48 to 54 inch height window where he wasn't allowed to go upside down, but I'm sure the big boys would have included some of that in their ride. I didn't participate, obviously, because rides just aren't my thing.

I did go on two "rides with the kids. We went on a ride of sorts that included a presentation on energy by Ellen Degeneres and Bill Nye the Science Guy. It was a low "thrill" ride that was mostly the presentation. Eric enjoyed the info and the part that included animatronic dinosaurs.

The other ride was Mission:Space. We chose the "mild" Green Team that didn't involve any spinning. As it was, I got a little light-headed in the simulator that enacted a space rocket takeoff and rough landing on Mars. This is a picture before the "ride" part began. With every ride, Eric was hesitant until we told him that it wasn't like a roller coaster. He has recently decided that he doesn't like roller coasters. He loved the Mission: Space ride. After that, we participated in a simulation involving two teams fixing their space ship, and our team, team Orion won!

We had lunch at the Electric Umbrella, a fitting name for the day. We all ordered the kids' cheeseburger meals, and lunch was only about $20 today. We decided to head back to our hotel room after lunch because we were so cold. The rain wasn't bothering us, but it was windy, and we couldn't take being cold any longer.

When we got back to Epcot, we proceeded to the World Showcase. I tried to get a picture at each country. I took this one in Canada. Natalie actually saw this photo opportunity first and asked me if I wanted to take a picture of them in it. She knows how important pictures are to me, and I love that she is being so helpful.

Next up was United Kingdom, and we ended up getting Patrick a little present there. We went into a lot of gift shops today, because they were interesting with the country-themed goods they had, but also because it kept us out of the rain. The rain actually let up for an hour or two, and we actually thought it would stay that way--of course not!

We were purposely heading toward France, because I decided that I wanted a crepe for dessert and I remembered that they make those in France. I had a chocolate crepe and Eric had the vanilla soft-serve ice cream. Natalie had a Starbucks Java Chip Frappucino earlier, so she declined. Eric's cone was big enough that it started really melting halfway through his eating it, and I got to eat some of that too. The next country was Morocco, then Japan.

I wanted to share two of the photos we took in Japan. This first one was taken by someone who I took a group photo for and who wanted to return the favor. I was going to get Natalie to take the picture of Eric and me, since there were no Photopass photographers around, and she was all set to do it, but then she didn't have to. Eric had been posing for the previous photos as if he had a lightsaber or gun in his hands, but I made him stand up straight since someone else was taking the photo for us.

I took this photo in front of the gift shop in Japan. Eric cracks me up with his posing, and Natalie was doing it too. I let him pose how he wants because these photos will tell me what stage in life he is in plus he still lets me take photos of him. All I have to do is ask.

The next country was America then Italy. In the gift shop in Italy, Natalie fell in love with some expensive perfume by Valentino called "Valentina". She seemed to want me to buy it for her, but that is not something I want to get on our vacation. She did say, "Maybe for my birthday?" I told her no promises, but my baby girl is getting more expensive taste.

Next was Germany, then "Outpost" which seemed to be the same as "Africa". In this picture, we're in the China section, and this was our last stop before trekking back to Japan to eat dinner. We were trying to make it all the way around, but it was already around 5:30pm, the rain was really starting to come down hard, and we had dinner reservations back in Japan at 6:10pm. We made the reservation yesterday when Natalie and I felt like Asian food and every restaurant in Disney that we looked at had only "American". We plan on going back to finish Norway and Mexico tomorrow evening.

As you can see from Eric wearing his hood on his head, the rain was starting to get heavier at this point, so much so that we decided not to wait before heading back to Japan, and it was a good thing, because the rain started pouring down by the time we got to the Tokyo Dining Restaurant--more on this later. Eric didn't bother posing with a lightsaber because we were trying to get under cover. We spent quite a bit of time in the gift shop trying to wait out the rain, but finally we had to go.

Again, the rain didn't really bother us, but it was raining hard enough that some of it was getting in my eyes and causing my eyes to burn. By the time we got to the restaurant, my hair was dripping wet. Our jackets were damp, but at least they were still keeping us warm.

Natalie actually felt like having sushi, so we both ordered some. I was not even going to ask Eric if he was going to have sushi, but they had a chicken tempura on the kids' menu, and I told him that was like chicken nuggets or tenders. They also brought him Miso soup and he just looked at that bowl like he was saying, "No way." He did try to use chopsticks because Natalie and I were using chopsticks. He had a hard time using them the way they are supposed to be used, so he started doing what he's doing in this picture. I even offered him a fork but he said he was doing "okay". Natalie thought I needed to take a picture of this! :)

The rain let up a little so we could get back to the monorail and back to our hotel without getting too much wetter. The kids were ready to take their showers and cuddle up under warm blankets. I was good and went to the gym at the hotel. I was all by myself in there, which was fine by me after fighting the wet crowds today.

Tomorrow we are headed to Universal Orlando to see the new Diagon Alley area. Eric started watching the second Harry Potter movie tonight, so he is primed and excited for tomorrow. The forecast says sunny all day. We're looking forward to staying dry.

Disney 2016 Day One

This is the incredible view from our room at the Contemporary Resort. We're at Disney World!!! Our room is on the ninth floor and overlooks Bay Lake. Natalie and Eric sat on our balcony for a while when we got here, just relaxing and enjoying the view.

We all got up at 3:30am so we could leave by a little after 4am. Our plane flight was scheduled to leave at 5:45am. We got to the airport in plenty of time, and the security line was short. We had a little complication, however. We had planned to carry on our luggage, but I forgot to tell Natalie not to put liquids greater than three ounces into her luggage. The lady checking her luggage at least offered to let me go back out to the Southwest Airlines counter to check in Natalie's luggage, instead of automatically throwing out all of that expensive Aveda hair product. The two kids waited for me at one of the restaurants past the security checkpoint. Thankfully, everything went smoothly after that, including an uneventful plane flight. Eric even said, "The plane flight wasn't that long." That was because he was watching the first Harry Potter movie on the iPad the whole time.

As you can see from the view from our balcony, we had a great view of the resort pool. When they saw that, Natalie and Eric wanted to swim in the pool and play on the beach. I had to convince them that we had to go to Magic Kingdom first, to at least eat lunch, before they could swim in the pool. At that point, Natalie became super grouchy, and she just wanted food at the first restaurant we came to. That was a sit-down restaurant where each entree cost at least $20--um no.

We finally decided on hot dogs. Even then, three hotdogs (one with chili and cheese), two fries, and a lemonade--cost over $30. Ouch! Later in the afternoon, Natalie said that she didn't even like hotdogs, ever since she saw the Nathan hotdog eating contest special a couple of years ago where they described how the competitors were able to eat so many hotdogs. So that meant spending over $30 and she didn't even like the food! At least they ate their hotdogs.

They were much more agreeable after they ate, especially Natalie. She even agreed to getting her picture taken by the Disney Photopass photographer. She had previously refused to pose for a photo with Cinderella's Castle in the background even though I begged her to. After she ate, she even asked me if I wanted a picture at this spot or further down in front of the statue of Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse. She also agreed to pose in front of Belle's Castle later on. She usually is not that agreeable to photos in general.

As you can see in the picture, there were a lot of people at the Magic Kingdom, and it was sunny, in the upper 80s, and humid. Part of the sky looked pretty dark at one point, and it drizzled, so we started walking back towards the monorail, with a few stops in some shops along the way.

Here they decided to pretend to fight with swords and shields in one of the shops in Fantasyland. Eric even posed with a pink shield and sword at one point, until he saw this "cool" metal-looking one. Natalie put on one of the crowns on display in the background. They were having fun trying everything out.

When we saw this water feature, Eric really wanted to play in the water. It was so hot that I agreed to let him. He got soaking wet and loved every minute of it. Thankfully I remembered to make him take his shoes off first or that would have made the evening difficult with wet shoes. Interestingly, I noted to Natalie that, as small as Eric is compared to other nine-year-olds, he was one of the "big" kids playing in this water feature. Most of the other kids were much younger than him.

After that brief visit to the Magic Kingdom, I let the kids play in the hotel pool. They were in the pool less than five minutes when one of the lifeguards announced that they had a cleaning emergency and needed everyone to get out of the pool. At that point they started playing in the sand. Eric really wanted Natalie to bury him in the sand, but she didn't have a shovel and didn't want to sit in the sand because the sand would end up in her swimsuit. She actually lay out instead while Eric played with a bucket in the sand. Meanwhile, I took a really long walk to get some exercise on this day of long plane flights and bus rides.

After my walk, I went to our room  to get some water, and to rest for a bit. I had a clear view of the kids as they played in the pool. Natalie said that she also saw me on our balcony watching them at one point. After the kids had been playing outside for a couple of hours, I went down to get them out of the sun. They had gone back to playing in the sand again. Natalie was still laying out and Eric decided to bury HER in some sand. They could have played there the rest of the day, but I convinced them that we should figure out what we wanted to do for dinner.

Natalie decided that she wanted either Asian food or Italian food. That's when we found out that most of the Disney restaurants only serve "American" food. We ended up making a reservation at one of the restaurants in "Tokyo" at Epcot tomorrow, but for today, we finally ended up just eating at the Contempo Cafe at our hotel. Natalie and I shared a grilled salmon, and I ended up eating all of the green beans and much of the wild rice that were in the entree because she only wanted salmon. Eric had the kids' cheese flatbread because I must have messed up and didn't say pepperoni.

After dinner, we did a little shopping at our hotel, then headed to Magic Kingdom to get ice cream for dessert. Eric had a Kids' raspberry sorbet, which included chocolate wafers to made to look like Mickey ears. Natalie just had chocolate ice cream, and I had the root beer float.

We did a little more shopping after dessert, and Natalie ended up buying this cute hat including her name embroidered on the back in dark pink thread. We went back to the hotel, took our showers, and watched tonight's episode of Agents of SHIELD on TV. The kids didn't want to miss the show, so we had to watch it live since there is no way to record shows here. After the show, we watched the little light show parade they have nightly on the lake then went to sleep. We had a very long but very fun day.

Tomorrow the forecast says rain all day, so we're planning on going to Epcot since it's close and much of what we want to see there is indoors.

Lazy Sunday?

We haven't been too busy on weekends since Natalie stopped swimming, but we don't usually end up just hanging out at home either. With Patrick's and my exercise kick since last year, one or both of us usually ends up at the gym. I went there at about 8am this morning. He didn't go because he left some time after 9am to drive to Austin. His high school friend Jim Z. was there for a convention, so he took the opportunity to go have lunch with him. Yes, it took over an hour's drive to go have lunch with him, but they haven't seen each other in a few years, and it was good to catch up. Patrick "forgot" to take a picture of the two of them together. Haven't I taught him anything?!

Meanwhile, I got home from the gym at around 10am. I took Natalie to her friend's house at noon. She has been trying to be more social, and we try to encourage that. This friend is going to be going to the same high school as Natalie next year, which is important since many of her other friends are going to the other high school that her middle school feeds into.

I offered to take the boys somewhere for lunch, and Alex suggested McAllister's Deli. There is a new one that opened recently down the street. He has been wanting to go there with Patrick since Patrick is more of the sandwich lover, but they haven't gone yet. Alex wanted to drive there. I had a brief second of panic, since Patrick has been the one that has driven with Alex. I have not been in the car with Alex driving--ever. Alex reassured me, so I agreed to let him drive. Of course, I couldn't resist taking a picture of him driving. He took his eyes off the road to look at me just as I was taking the picture. He didn't say anything and just continued driving.

We survived the experience, of course. Alex did pretty well. He says he still has trouble parking, so we made sure to park away from any other cars. He was very careful and still obviously inexperienced, but I am willing to let him drive with me in the car again. ;)

Eric was in a goofy mood this morning. I recently got him some T-shirts and pajamas from the Disney store, plus he received a couple of T-shirts as gifts from his party yesterday, so he cut the tags off them and put them away. He decided to stick the stickers that were on the clothes all over his face. I heard him mumbling since he had covered his mouth with a sticker, and I heard Natalie let out an exclamation of surprise when he showed her. When he came back downstairs again, he took the sticker off his mouth briefly just to ask me to take a picture so that I could text it to Anthony. I laughed when I took this picture because I asked him to smile for the picture, knowing that his mouth was covered up with the sticker, but he smiled anyway.

Besides putting away his new clothes, he also wrote thank you notes. It might have helped that I told him that he couldn't play with his new toys unless he wrote thank you notes first. He finished all eleven of them basically by himself. All I did was show him the list of toys that he had received, and made a couple of suggestions, and he wrote everything. He wrote sentences like, "Thank you for the money, I will use it wisely." He also wrote on another card, 'I love Legos and Star Wars Lego. Star Wars is awesome!" Alex's favorite card was thanking his friend for a Jango Fett toy--"I'll build it right away today! Hey, that rhymes!" I was gone taking Natalie to her friend's house when he wrote most of these notes, and I was glad he was able to do this by himself. Now he just has to write the thank you notes to family.

Patrick stopped by his parents' house to visit on the way home from Austin. He got home before 4pm. I picked up Natalie around then and the kids all watched Iron Man (the first movie) this evening. I made some Banana Cream Cheese bread and finally wrote a blog post. Yay! It's back to work and school tomorrow. Next weekend we'll be busy getting ready for our trip to Disney World.

Eric's 9th Birthday

Today is Eric's 9th Birthday! I can't believe my youngest baby is 9! His first choice for a birthday breakfast was IHOP, but since we planned on going to Austin today to visit my cousin Rachael and her family, we didn't have enough time to go to IHOP. His second choice was Starbucks. Interestingly, Facebook reminded me that for several years, he has had breakfast at Starbucks on his birthday.

Today he had the Bacon Gouda Breakfast Sandwich and a Vanilla Bean Frappucino with no whipped cream. He usually has the blueberry scone and "shares" the Bacon Gouda Breakfast Sandwich that either Patrick or I order. Now he can finish the whole breakfast sandwich by himself. He also had a blueberry scone at home waiting for him. I used my "sweet receipt" yesterday to get the blueberry scone since I was able to use my Starbucks receipt from the morning to use after 2pm to get a bakery treat for $1.

When we got back home, Eric wanted to open presents. By that time, Alex had gotten up and gotten washed up. Natalie was still in her pajamas, but she was more awake than when we left to go to Starbucks.

I hardly use my "big camera" anymore. It's just so much easier to use my iPhone to take photos and video plus it's always with me. I wanted better pictures, though, so I took a few with the "big camera". I stacked up Eric's gifts and had him stand behind them. He decided to wave at one point, and I decided that the expression on his face was more genuine instead of the usual posed grin, so I kept the photo.

My sisters and Mom ordered gifts from Amazon, as we often do for each other, but we would rather spend our money on the present and not the wrapping paper, so we ship our gifts unwrapped. Last night, I wrapped all the gifts that had arrived for Eric, and that's why they are all wrapped with the same Avengers wrapping paper. I ran out of wrapping paper when I had one more gift to wrap (our gift to Eric), so Patrick got a gift bag for me and we put the present in there.

These are the gifts he opened today:

Lolo and Lola--Lego Jurassic Park Dilophosaurus Ambush
Cynthia and family--Harry Potter shirt (pictured), and Kylo Ren electronic lightsaber
Melissa and Emily--Lego Star Wars Resistance Troop Transporter
Us--Lego Star Wars Battle on Takodana

In this photo, Eric is modeling the T-shirt that he got from Aunt Cynthia and her family. The writing says, "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good." That is a phrase from the Harry Potter books that they have to say in order for the Marauder's Map to reveal where the characters are located. Cynthia said that Eric is "always good, so the shirt is pretty ironic".

Alex commented while I was taking this photo that Eric could hold the T-shirt on himself instead of just balancing the T-shirt on his chest. Eric got a kick out of this shirt because he has been plowing through the Harry Potter books lately--he is now on Book 7, the final book.

After we opened presents, we had a little time, then we left for Austin. I'll put those details in another blog post in the next couple of days or so. After we got back this afternoon/evening, we went to Chili's for dinner--Eric's choice. I was able to convince Alex to pose for this photo, just after he had been tickling Eric--that's why the smiles are so big. I love this photo of the two of them. We were missing Anthony and his friend Alejandro, Eric's "other brother", who usually joins us for Eric's birthday dinner. Alejandro is currently studying in Italy this semester and having a lot of fun.

When we got home, Eric played with his new lightsaber (together with his other Bladebuilder lightsabers) and the Lego Jurassic World Dilophosaurus Ambush set. He finished building that set before he went to bed tonight. He seemed to be pretty happy with his birthday, and I'm thankful for that.

Art a la Carte Plus

Today was Eric's monthly Art a la Carte class. I was on call last night so I could have the day off today, and since it's also the day before his birthday, we did some other special things. The class today was about the artist Robert Wyland, who is best known for painting large outdoor murals of whales and other ocean life. Today's project involved using oil pastels to draw turtles.

They started with a pencil drawing to get the proportion of the shell over most of the page and then leave room for the head and part of the flippers. They then colored in the turtle using colored oil pastels. Mrs. R described a technique to use two colors of the oil pastels to make the shell look more three dimensional. The last part was outlining everything in black and adding the scales.

I've been volunteering for Eric's art classes for a couple of years now, and it still amazes me that there are kids (usually girls) who are so concerned with making their artwork look a certain way (usually they want it to look exactly like the teacher's example), that they have trouble doing the project. I was trying to help one girl who kept erasing and erasing that she wasn't really drawing anything. She was so frustrated that she had to put her head down. Another girl asked me to draw the turtle's head for her. I refused, of course, because this is supposed to be her project. Eric doesn't often do his art like I would do it or even the way I wish he would do it, but I let him do it his way. He has more fun that way and in the end, the result is all his.

I brought Eric his usual lunch from Wendy's--eight pieces of their Spicy Chicken Nuggets and a small Frosty. This time it was a chocolate Frosty instead of the usual vanilla. On Art a la Carte days, art class is at 8:40am. I help clean up after class, so I don't leave until around 10am. I only have a little time at home before I have to leave to get his lunch. Lunch is at 11:25am. I rarely stay more than 20 minutes since he is ready to rejoin his friends after finishing his lunch. For some reason, he took a little longer to eat today, and I didn't leave until 11:50. Maybe it was the selfie I took of the two of us, or maybe it was the trailer for the new Star Wars movie coming out in December called Rogue One that I showed him, but either way, I got to spend an extra five minutes with my not so baby boy.

I would have then had to go pick up his birthday doughnut cake from Krispy Kreme, but Patrick picked it up for me and brought it home. Some of the school staff that saw me bring this in thought it was a great idea. I had to agree.

When I arrived at Eric's school, his class was in the gym with the rest of the school, so I put the doughnut cake on his desk and took some pictures. He got a "special birthday gift" from the school, which included this plastic chair cover that said "Happy Birthday". He apparently also got a pencil and something about Chili's the restaurant (maybe a coupon? I haven't checked his backpack yet).

Eric's classmates were excited when they saw the doughnut cake. They sang "Happy Birthday" to him, then his teacher and I distributed the doughnuts. It worked out that the kids got the type of doughnut they wanted--glazed or chocolate iced. There were three dozen total, half of each type, and enough for each child to have two. Many of the kids asked if they could have seconds. At first, Mrs. S said that we would probably want to take the rest home to feed the rest of the family, but I didn't really want to have that many to tempt me, so I said "Yes!" A Not all the kids had two, but at least one said "I should never have two doughnuts again." Even Eric said he started to feel a little ill after having two, and this is the child who had three last Sunday when we went to Krispy Kreme for breakfast. Regardless, I got rid of most of the doughnuts. The rest of them went with Alex when he went to his friend's house to watch movies tonight.

Tomorrow is Eric's actual birthday. We're planning on visiting my cousin Rachael, who just moved to Austin. I'll definitely take some photos and share them here. I can't believe Eric is already going to be 9 years old!

Eric's School Project

Whenever teachers assign projects to kids in elementary school, or really any child below high school age, they are really assigning a project to the child's parents. They can say that the child has to do the project on their own, but there is now way Eric knows enough about how to do projects to be able to do it on his own. When they assign a project due the Monday after Spring Break, they are assigning homework over vacation. Eric has a project due tomorrow, the Monday after Spring Break, and Patrick and I were not happy about it. Thankfully, we actually did not plan a big trip to Colorado this year, and especially one in which we get back the weekend before school starts, or it could have been worse.

The project involved Eric coming up with important events/dates in his life, such as vacations, important firsts, etc. Eric had a worksheet and all he put on it was what grade he was in during each year. He knows his birthdate, but he had no idea what dates anything else happened. He knows we took vacations, but he has no idea what the dates were. No third grader would be able to come up with that stuff on his own!

We still wanted Eric to do most of the project, of course, so I let him look at my photo library and let him pick out which pictures/events he wanted to include. I had to guide him because there was no way he was going to be focused enough to sort through those thousands of pictures I have of him since he was born. I'm afraid I provided him with too many options his first year, because we chose four pictures from 2007, his birth year, but then I only showed him a few events from each of the following years, so he chose a total of 13 pictures. The instruction sheet for the project suggested including pictures, so to Eric, that meant we didn't have to include pictures--of course we had to include pictures! Plus it's nicer to look at if there are pictures!

Patrick helped him write down the important events on little strips of paper, and I glued it all down. The timeline was not to scale because I wanted to include larger pictures, but I thought it made a nice visual timeline of Eric's life up to this point. Eric chose to leave the background white (he really is a no-frills kid) and wanted one long strip with the timeline drawn in on the bottom. We put paper strips with dates on the timeline that matched the color of the paper strips describing the important event. Eric did all the writing.

Just to show what events he thought was important, here is a list:

April 7, 2007--Birth (with photo of Patrick holding baby Eric)
Sept 2007--First plane trip (photo of me holding Eric on the plane)
Sept 2007--First Disney trip (photo of Anthony holding Eric--one of my all-time favorite photos)
Dec 2007--First Christmas (photo of all 4 kids in matching Christmas pajamas from Grandma)
Mar 2008--First Snow (in Colorado--with photo of Patrick holding Eric on a sled)
July 2009--First trip to Washington, D.C. (photo of Patrick with the kids with the Capitol in the background)
Aug 2010--Ring Bearer (photo of Eric being the ring bearer at my cousin Rachael's wedding in Michigan)
June 2011--Lolo's 80th Birthday (photo of my dad being embraced by all his grandkids with Eric hidden under everyone else--interestingly, Eric decided to put "Grandpa" instead of "Lolo" so other people would know who he is)
Aug 2012--First Day of School (photo of Eric waiting for the school bus on the first day of kindergarten)
Mar 2013--First Cruise (photo of Eric with cousin Aly and Natalie on a beach in the Bahamas)
Mar 2014--Spring Soccer (Eric really wanted to include a photo of himself playing soccer)
Aug 2014--Grandma and Grandpa's 50th Wedding Anniversary (photo of everyone on that side of the family except for Uncle Geoff)
Aug 2015--Eric's First Jiu-Jitsu (photo of Eric smiling after his very first Jiu-Jitsu class--he really wanted to include something about Jiu-Jitsu)

I sure hope "we" get a good grade on this project.

Walks to the Park

The weather has been beautiful here this month--lots of sunny days with the temperatures in the 60s and 70s. Eric has also started enjoying one of the nearby parks called Phil Hardberger Park. He likes playing on playground equipment there, from the swings to the climbing structures. We've been walking there on most of the Saturdays this month, and even on some Sundays.

Eric is usually pretty energetic on the way to the park. He often jogs most of the way there. Mind you--it's over a mile walk to get to the playground from our house and he jogs most of the way. He is not usually as energetic on the way back. I usually have to convince him to walk a little faster. There are a few benches on the way, but there is one in particular that is about halfway between our house and the playground. There is a circular paved area in front of that bench. In the past, I've run some laps around that small circular area in front of the bench to get some extra cardio exercise in while he rested. I tell him how many laps I'm going to run and then I tell him that after that many, I want to get going. This time he told me something like, "You can run three laps while I rest and then we can go." He wasn't bossy, but I thought it was funny that he was telling me how many laps to run. This is a picture of him holding up how many laps I've just run! He wanted to make sure I didn't lose count. :)

This is from yesterday--Saturday. Patrick went with Eric and me to the park. He decided to get on one of the swings with Eric, and here he is trying to time his swing so that he could swing with Eric. After a few minutes, Patrick went back ahead of us so he could go ahead and take his shower before we got home, then we could get ready to go to church and then dinner.

Alex was out with friends and was planning to spend the night at his friend John's house. Natalie was at a birthday party all day, but she was going to want to be picked up so that she could get some good sleep in her own bed. It was just the three of us all afternoon and evening--a glimpse of our future when the oldest three leave home. Patrick and I are savoring our time with our Eric, and the weather has been cooperating.

Student-Led Conference

My schedule for this week flip-flopped a couple of times, but luckily, the end result was that I got the day off today. That meant that I got to attend Eric's Student-Led Conference at school which Patrick had already scheduled for today at 1:20pm. Eric had an early dismissal from school today at 1pm, so we met up with him shortly before his scheduled conference then went to his classroom to wait for his teacher. His teacher was out with the kids in class who were going to be picked up in the car line, so she wasn't there at first.

I'm not sure if Eric was nervous or impatient, but he pulled up a chair at his desk (all the chairs in the classroom had been stacked and put away), and when Patrick and I grabbed chairs and sat down also, Eric opened up his binder and started reading from a script. They started doing these "Student-Led Conferences" a few years back. I prefer the parent-teacher conferences where we get to talk to the teacher, but these are good practice for the kids to practice getting organized and talking about their progress in school. Of course I enjoy spending more time with Eric, especially when he says more than "good" when we ask him how school went.

I included the front and back of the front page of his presentation. Eric read these pages and all the other pages in a monotonous tone. I tried to teach him about making eye contact with your audience when you're doing a presentation. He nodded to acknowledge what I said, but then proceeded to read without looking up in a monotonous tone just as he was before. The rest of the presentation was pretty much the same, with a few details including some benchmark scores and reading levels.

If you click on the pictures, you can see them bigger so you can actually read the pages. Note that Eric answered all the questions with what you might expect. "If you just walked into the room, you would probably see me like this: I pay attention. When we're discussing something as a class, and I know the answer: I raise my hand." Of course, when his teacher came in, she confirmed that Eric is "a good boy" and those answers were accurate after all. I had no doubt, but I just had to make sure. :)