Disney for like the millionth time

Labor Day Weekend in Disney World, it's a Wellonsland family tradition.  Being up in Rhode Island last year basking in all that fall glory robbed us of our traditional celebration of sweating in central Florida.  Now that we are back in the land of the mouse, or at least in the same state, we figured we would check out the "improvements" at the Magic Kingdom since our last visit.  We were especially encouraged by an insane discount going on if we traveled before the end of September.  So off we went.  Looking at the map, we figured we had a quick 3 to 4 hour drive ahead of us.  WRONG!!!  It was more like 4.5 hours of mostly stop-and-go traffic.  UGH!  There has got to be a quicker route than the one we took.  I still think our car navigation and both cell phones were in cahoots.  We, at first, thought maybe we were wrong.  Maybe, this year Disney would be a mad house for Labor Day and the traffic we encountered did little to make us feel better.  But no, the parks were still as empty as ever.  I am not sure where everyone was going but it wasn't to the Magic Kingdom.  

Before we left town, our landlord called to let us know that all the windows and doors would be replaced while we were out of town.  I had planned on boarding Oscar which of course he was NOT going to be happy about, but the alternative was to leave him home and risk the chance that workers would accidentally let him out.  Well of course NOTHING goes as planned and instead of the workers doing the work over the holiday weekend (seriously, what kind of company would schedule that), their plan was to start on Wednesday and finish up by late Friday.  Oscar got a reprieve from the boarding since we weren't leaving until Friday morning at the earliest.  Little did we know, this window and door replacement pain-fest was just beginning.  Somehow the workers got behind schedule, so now they were actually going to show up on Saturday to finish the work.  My friend Christine (I seriously DO NOT want to think about how much my life would suck if she were not here with me) agreed to check on not only the workers but also Oscar while we were gone.  I promised to make it up to her with a gift from the wine fairy!

So off we go!

We arrived in Orlando too late to do anything on Friday, so we just checked out our awesome hotel, the Wilderness Lodge.  Wow!  We have stayed in a few of the Disney properties and have always felt the one we were at was always the best.  This time was no exception.  It was nice and LARGE! The children could have easily slept in the HUGE walk in closet without even touching each other!!  I can't imagine why you would need a closet that big.  How long are you staying? The property had a geyser that erupted every hour as well as a pool that started out as a hot spring inside the hotel lobby!  Jim truly outdid himself!

This year would be our first non-stroller visit to Disney.  In years past we have had the big orange Phil-and-Ted stroller to shuffle the kids and all the water/food we bring into the park.  Renting the cart thingys was not going to be an option.  So with high hopes and only a backpack, bright and early the next morning we decided to head off to Hollywood studios.  Jim was on a mission to get the kids to ride some more "high speed" rides, as he calls them.  So he and Lilly branched off immediately to do the Tower of Terror.  I took the other two over to get a fast pass for the Toy Story Ride and then we walked around scoping out the characters until we found the Star Wars Ride.  We decided to go ahead and do it because there was a 3 minute wait time.  It was pretty entertaining. Good thing, because we had to do it again after Jim and Lilly joined us.  They also did the Aerosmith roller coaster and picked up a fast pass for me to do it again with Lilly.  Jim somehow talked Lucy and Ben into doing the Tower of Terror with him.  I am not sure how he managed that, but when they emerged in the gift shop all was not well!!  We needed ice cream to salvage the situation.

Don't know if you can see the grimaces on Ben and Lucy's face.

We had done all the damage we could do so we hurried over to EPCOT to try and squeeze in a few "must do" favorites.  Nothing scary here, except the Test Track which for some reason is not Lucy's favorite while we are waiting in line.

End of the day. Maybe we pushed it to far? 

Two down, two to go.  We decided to do Magic Kingdom on Saturday.

Disney has redone Fantasy-land.  Ariel has gotten a new "grotto", Belle has a new attraction, the Beast has a castle/restaurant (which according to our in house travel agent is actually really good) and there are upgrades to a few other rides that had not been completed.  I think the biggest disappointment for me was the size of the Beast's castle.  The pictures on the website made it look really cool and big.  Ahhh, not so much.  It is really quite small.  Like really small.  I was expecting a castle, like Cinderella's castle were you can walk through it, dine in it, you know the works.  It is more like an optical illusion.  It is small because it is far away, but you can't get closer.  The restaurant is underneath it.  The only way I can describe it is like a cake topper.  It is cool, but not what I was expecting.  

Of course the girls wanted to do the Little Mermaid ride.  It is the same ride technically as the one at Hollywood studios, but they have beefed it up quite a bit.  We rode it twice, no waiting.  Next we skipped over to Belle's story telling. Jim was rolling his eyes at this one, but it turned out to be the highlight of the kids'  day.  The children in the group all get to have parts in a "play" for Belle. Jim got tagged to be a knight, Lilly and Ben were dishes and Lucy got picked to be the Beast!  Talk about type casting!!  Ha Ha Ha one thing we learned from this experience - take your hat off when you are inside.  All our pictures looked like this!

Lucy as the Beast

Sir Daddy

Dish 1 and Dish 2

Another "new" feature was Rapunzel's tower.  See how it looks like you should be able to get to it?  Well you can't.  That is it.  I am assuming there will have something else to tie Rapunzel to this location at a future date.  Right now it is smashed up against the Haunted Mansion.  Just a photo opportunity, so of course I took one!

Col Jack Sparrow?

The dreaded Tea cups!

Taking our cue from the day before, Jim pushed it up on the rides he wanted the kids to ride.  Of course we did Small World, Peter Pan, Tiki Room, Haunted Mansion and Aladdin.  We also managed to do Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Splash Mountain AND Space Mountain.  Jim promised giant lollipops if they did all 3.  Of course Lilly was game, the other two, not so much.

We survived Space Mountain!

One last ride to go.  The go karts!  We have always avoided this ride like the plague!  Lines too long, go karts on a track, what else is there to say.  However this time Ben was not going to be denied!!  So off we go.  Again, no real wait time, maybe 20 minutes.  Ben was sooooo excited, Lucy again, not so much.  I am beginning to see a pattern here.  Ben rode with Jim, Lilly was solo and I was in the car with Lucy.  I can tell you I do not want to be in the car with her once she gets her license!  She has some ROAD RAGE!!  She couldn't reach the pedals so I let her steer and I worked the brake.  Lilly was directly in front of us and she was also having some trouble with the pedals and Lucy was ramming her in the back bumper!  The whole way around the track.  She was yelling the entire time!!!

MOVE IT LILLY!

The last day the kids bribed us to take them to Animal Kingdom!  I am so over Animal Kingdom.  There are big changes coming up according to the Disney website.  Avatar is coming people!!  But not for a few more years.  Oh well, onward to Animal Kingdom.  We checked out the usual suspects and try as Jim might, he could not talk Lucy and Ben into riding Expedition Everest. It took him HOURS to let it go.  In fact I still don't think he has let it go.  So that was fun.  

A little Disney Labor Day Love!

All in all not having the stroller went pretty well.  There were several requests to be "carried" and it would have been nice to not have to carry all the water bottles on our backs, but the freedom of just walking away from an attraction without going to the stroller prison to retrieve said stroller was pretty nice.  Added benefit was the children slept better - they were TIRED.  When you start out the month at Disney World, nothing else can top that! Our September was a pretty good example of that.  Oh sure, there were fun days and not so fun days, but all in all pretty average.  

We hung some lizards from our ears while eating a Popsicle.

Made many (many many) trips to the Library.

Quick question, does it make sense for a drive-through book drop to be THIS FAR AWAY FROM THE CURB?!!  Add to this the fact that it is totally uncovered without so much of a gutter to keep you or the books from getting wet while you are depositing them in the rain.  Keep in mind that during the summer it pretty much rains EVERY DAY!!!!!!  WHY? WHY? WHY?  

Lucy has apparently inherited my hair, along with several almost all of my most annoying habits.  She also got my hair.  In all of it's fine, humidity curly and baby bangs glory!  We have been trying to get her to cut it for quite a while, well Jim really has been trying.  I was on the fence.  To our complete surprise, she decided she wanted to cut it on her own!

She LOVES it!

I must say I am really happy about the kids wearing uniforms to school.  Cuts down on all the drama of what they can and can't wear.  There are lots of opportunities for them to have non-uniform days at school.  In fact we have had at least two "red white and blue days" since the beginning of school.

In our continued effort to stop moving boxes and boxes of stuff we don't ever get to use (much less unpack), Jim decided to sacrifice a weekend to drive up to Swansboro and transfer said boxes to a more "permanent" storage solution.  That is just a fancy way of saying it is going to the third floor of the marina to die.  When we moved into the current house we had to get not one but two storage units to store the over-flow junk.  We needed to whittle this down to only one storage unit but that meant some things HAD TO GO!  Every time I went to the units I would get in a bad mood.  I mean just look at this!

I can't get to ANYTHING by myself and if we both (read all 5 of us) have to go every time that is neither fun or helpful.  So now I have a storage unit that doesn't make me lose my mind when I visit it - yeah me! 

We have been taking trips to various beaches and state parks around Miami trying to figure out the places we like best.  I must say so far the over all favorite has been South Beach.  

Newest beach toy is a hit

I mentioned in the last post that we had giant toads living on our porch and in our garage.  On her almost nightly excursions she caught one of the largest ones.  Yuck!

September had a few bumps and bruises too.  This is what happens when you are jacking around at our friends' pool and you come too close to the side.  Poor Ben.

Finally, I leave you with an experiment.  I know it is WAY past the time when I should be planing moon flowers, but I can't help myself.  I figure I still have months before we are in any real danger of frost - HA frost! So I planted the seeds on Sept. 1st.  This picture was taken on Sept 29th.  WOW!  I am both happy and now scared.  This vine may take over my house!