We all slept pretty well the night before. No one could really take another night of restlessness, so we all crashed. I think we could have done with another hour or two of sleep but the kids, parents and grandparent all felt better. Today was the day of my Mom's arrival. We were looking forward to having everyone together and starting the real celebration of Mimi's 2nd birthday!
In the morning we headed again to Disney Hollywood Studios. Once again, as we hit the inside of the park, Dave took all of our tickets and headed over to TSMM for the FP collection. We got a much better time on our second day witht the earlier start. My MIL and I stopped on Hollywood Blvd. and took pictures with the kids and Stitch. Then we stopped for cinnamon buns at Starring Rolls (oh my goodness were they delicious!).
I took this picture of Roo in the morning light when he could barely see! But what I like about the picture is the Goofy sticker. we usually get Mickey Mouse stickers, and this was the first time we'd gotten one with a different character:
After breakfast we started to walk toward The Great Movie Ride... :
... when we noticed that Goofy and Pluto had appeared and there was very little wait to meet them, and we joined the line. Roo was so excited, and my MIL couldn't wait to get in there with him and the characters, but Dave kept her off on the sidelines so that Roo could have his moment (remember that Mimi was freaked out and didn't have any interest):
We decided to head to the Great Movie Ride, and on our way in I stopped the kids to show them Mickey's hand/paw and shoe prints. Here they were comparing their hands to his:
Dave literally hip checked me out of the way to get a photograph, even though I was taking the ones above. Of course when Mimi noticed I was no longer behind her, she got freaked out and ran away from the Mickey prints yelling "Mah-mmm-my Mah-mmm-my!" Admittedly, this is a cute picture, but now you and I both who gets the real credit for setting it up
:
Once we had finished TGMR, we decided to kill some time by watching Voyage of the Little Mermaid. I dont' know hwo it happened, but Dave and my MIL had Roo and they got seperated from me and Mimi. I guess it weirded Roo out, and he was calling for me all around Mickey's hat. When we found each other again, he had to come dashing to me:
and he needed some special Mommy-reassurance hugs:
I look like I have a dower face in this picture, but it's only because I was near tears by the dart'n'hug I'd just got from Roo. Stoopid lump in my throat... gettin' me all choked up an' everythang:
NOW! After this we walked to VOTLM. We got in kind of late and seats alllllll the way on the stage left side. TERRIBLE sightlines. I could see backstage in certain scenes. It was ok for me because I'm a theatre nerd and I love to catch a glimpse backstage, but my advice? If you are stuck with the edge seats, skip the show and come back another time. It was my first time seeing VOTLM and boy howdy did they cram a long story into a 15 minute show! But Mimi was crazy for it! Luckily, Dave recorded the whole show and the quality was good, despite the poor sightlines. Now Mimi can relive it any time she likes!
After some retail shopping/wallet-bloodletting, we went to The Magic of Disney Animation. Mimi simply adores wall-E, and here she is showing him to me:
Once again, we did the character meet behind the presentation. Here are two pictures I didn't post previously, although they all pretty much look the same:
IT WAS TIME! Time for my MIL to experience TSMM! She loved it, of course! And even she managed to get a half-decent score (much throat clearing here... I think she only scored a few thousand points, but we wanted her to feel really good about her accomplishment and showered her with praise). The great thing was that Mimi put some numbers on the board! She scored 1,500! Ok, so the first 500 was me showing her how to pulll the string... but now Disney can actually say "Toy Story Midway Mania: so easy, a 2 year old can play!" Sorry I don't have pictures of her. I know, that would have been adorable, huh? I was too busy trying to beat Dave's score. Stoopid competative streak in me!!!!
It was around this time that my Mom had arrived. She called me to tell me she was on the bus heading over to DHS for our 1 pm lunch ressie at 50's Prime Time Cafe. Which was really good because everyone was starving! Dave, Rita (MIL - it's just easier to use her name), Roo and Mimi did some shopping on Hollywood Blvd near the restaraunt... :
... while I jogged over to the POR bus stop to meet my Mom. She had a great flight, albeit a very early morning (4:30 am
) and like us, she was ready to CHOW DOWN!!!
Buuuuut of course we had to wait to be seated.
Do you know what it is like to hang around a waiting room with two antsy and extremely hungry toddlers? It's... it's... like... an emotionally unstable tornado touching down in the middle of an over-populated trailer park... aka: DISASTER! But we managed to capture a few cute, quiet moments amid the choas:
Roo poking at Mimi.
Trying to get them to sit still.
Mimi petting "the dog"
Mimi poking "the dog" in the eyes.
Just when you think it can't get any worse, thankfully our name was called! Here is Mimi's look of relief at the sight of chicken nuggets and french fries:
GIMME! I'M HUNGRY!!!
Here is Roo and his Grandma Rita waiting for ice cream sundaes to arrive:
I'd like now to take a few moments to talk about something that I would say drove me batty throughout our trip... for the first half our trip we mostly used our sit-down credits on the dining plan to give the Grandmas (and the kids) lots of breaks. And overall I found the service to be very slow. We would spend more than an hour at any meal - b'fast, lunch or dinner - from the time we checked in to the time we walked out the door. The service was really appallingly slow. It got to be that Dave and I would ask for the check right after dinner was ordered, to try and get out 15 minutes earlier. I can't imagine that service could be that slow during the busiest times of the year, so why it was so consistently slow late September whent he crowds were very low was beyond me. We expected to spend on average about 45 minutes for sit-down meals, but we got 1 1/4 hr on average. The longest we spent in any place was Tusker House where it took two hours from check in departure. Maybe I'm too cammando, but I really do not want to spend that much time sitting in a restaraunt. Neither do my kids. And that is my general complaint. Not much to bark about, but hey - when your kids are whining because they want to ride Star Tours and you're waiting 20 minutes just to get your check... it makes you want to bark a little bit.
After the meal, I took Mimi back tot he resort for a well-earned nap while Dvae, the Grandma's and Roo headed over to EPCOT via boat. I had this picture in my head of what the Test Track photopass photo would look like with Roo sitting int he middle between two unsuspecting G'mas! HA HA HA! I don't have the photo to share with you, but it is a good one. When we get the CD, I promise to post it!
Before their FP to Test Track, they rode on Ellen's Energy Adventure, and Spaceship Earth, where Dave captured this photo of Roo having a technological hootennanny with an unnamed boy:
I met back up with Dave and the G'mas at Boardwalk resort for an early dinner. Dave's Aunt and Uncle who live about 1 1/2 hour drive from Orlando came to sup with us at Spoodles:
What you can't tell from this photo is that Mimi had pooped through her diaper and all over her dress. UGH. Disgusting. Surprisingly not smelly, though. Still, she had to go back to the resort in nothing but a spare pair of Ronan's shorts. I FOOLISHLY figured since we were only going out for dinner that I didn't need to bring spare clothing for her... it was the only time I didn't have extra clothing for her. Isn't that always the way!?!?! Needless to say we got a cab to take us back to the resort after that and wow! Was that wonderful. I loved taking cabs all over WDW to and fro. It was so much faster than using the bus transportation, and driving a car! I had stars in my eyes over the whole cab thing.
AND THAT IS IT FOR SEPTEMBER 27TH. It was kind of a boring day on my TR, I think. But it gets better from here. Once all the obligatory family stuff was over and we hit a groove and started to really have fun. The pictures and stories will get more interesting - I promise!!!!
Memories of our fourth day: The weather was 86 degrees and sunny
The best thing was Roo riding Test Track with his Grandmas!
The worst thing was Mimi pooped all over herself and was left with no spare clothes!
The funniest thing was all the little kids crying in the pitch black of the theater after Ursula disappears in Voyage of the Little Mermaid. Also, watching Mimi give the dog statue kisses in the waiting area of 50's PTC.
Today we tried Magic of Disney Animation
and the result was good - the lines to meet characters were really short (albeit a little slow) and there were some unusual photo ops there as well (The Incredibles, and wall-E).
The most magical moment was how Ronan ran to me and hugged me when he thought I was lost and had found me again, and how Mimi did the same thing to her Daddy after returning to the party after her nap.
Notes for next time: HIRE MORE TAXIS!!!!!! Worth every penny!!!! Cheaper than a rental car and faster than Disney transportation. With little kids, it's soooooo worth it. And you don't have to fold up side-by-side dbl. strollers if you hire a van!