Archive for September 14th, 2009
Apparently the Florida sun was bothersome enough for even Ava to ask to wear her sunglasses – normally she just tosses them to the ground.
But it didn’t last long. After wearing them for maybe 10 seconds she spent the next 30 minutes trying to wear them on her head or tuck them down the front of her shirt just “ike Mama do.”
Then she tossed them, naturally. Hopefully some other kid can use the many pairs she’s lost along the way.
(Thus the title of the post. It’s only cheap sunglasses for many years to come, I think.)
P.S. She gets that from me. I lose at least one pair (expensive! prescription!) per year. Sometimes more. J, on the other hand, has had the same pair of $20 sunglasses for at least 10 years now and will probably have them for at least 10 more.
Ava’s first Grand Tour plus Morocco plus Asia…Epcot style.
One thing I learned rather quickly is that there’s no sleeping in on a Disney vacation. You have to be up and at ‘em pretty early to beat the heat and the people. Although it wasn’t very crowded anywhere it was certainly more pleasant in the early hours when hardly anyone was up and about.
The great thing about the WLV is that our suite had a full kitchen so breakfast was super easy to have in the room. That made the mornings much smoother because Ava is a morning eater and must have breakfast within 15 minutes of waking or she turns into a whiny mess. J is just like that, too, so the kitchen was a life/marriage/vacation saver.
The first order of the day was to get a picture of Ava with her clip on mouse ears attached. These were the very first things I purchased with my free birthday gift card – loved them on sight. Ava? Not so much. We parked her on the hotel balcony and took about 90 pictures of her scowling at us while we were gushing over how incredibly cyoooot those ears were. She got sick of that pretty quickly.
Then she just completely ignored J taking pictures while singing to me (complete with hand motions), “Mama, Mama, I love youuuuuuuu.”
I know, I know. The kid can play us me like a finely tuned piano.
On the way out we even tried a family photo shoot using the Photopass photographer staked out in our hotel. She wouldn’t smile for him either.
Getting to Epcot was an adventure in and of itself. Let’s see. The boat from WLV to the MK. The monorail from MK to the Transportation Center and then transfer to another monorail there which felt like it was 900 miles away. Uphill, of course. And all the while we’re pushing a stroller loaded to the gills with junk. Finally, we end up at Epcot where Ava immediately starts screeching because she wants out of the stroller RIGHT NOW IMMEDIATELY THIS VERY MINUTE to play in the fountains near the entrance.
Oh, the boat? She’s cool with it by now. As long as we were in the back and she was facing inward so she couldn’t actually see us heading into open water.
She nixed the ears shortly after this photo was taken, by the way.
So. Back to Epcot. We mostly loved it. Our first stop was a Nemo ride and the aquarium. She was kind of ‘meh’ about the ride (which I nearly busted my tush on with the moving walkway and all – you’d think I’d never been to an airport before) but she really liked the aquarium until J committed the cardinal sin of making her wear her shoes. That caused a mini-meltdown which ended in her being carted outside wailing “No Shoes” at the top of her lungs. She did like the fish though – even though she had no idea who or what Nemo was. Nor did we, for that matter.
Once the shoe issue was resolved to her dissatisfaction (they were non-negotiable) we set out to tour the world. On the way over I reached down to pull out the sunscreen to slather her up again only to discover that of the 4! bottles I’d brought to Florida with us none of them had made it into the stroller that morning. This meant that I was robbed when I had to buy a bottle in the park. Would you believe I had to pay $13 USD for a small bottle of cheap-o sunscreen? Well, would have paid except for that free birthday shopping card. Highway robbery, I tell you.
We had lunch at a little sidewalk cafe in France. It was pretty good – crusty bread, yummy pastries, rude French waiters and all. It wasn’t the real thing (except the waiters) by a long shot but it was close. I did cheat a bit and sat inside (A/C, y’all) in a simulated outdoor setting. It was very realistic, though, complete with crumb scrounging bird who came right over to stand beneath our table patiently waiting for his lunch to fall from the sky.
Oh – mustn’t forget the chocolate mousse. My kid, who usually has not the slightest interest in dessert or sweets, tried one bite of my dark chocolate mousse and promptly took it away from me in order to dive in headfirst and devour it. Clearly it was finger lickin’ good.
Our one slightly negative park experience happened just about this time. Ava dropped her Pooh Bear and by the time we turned around to get it (not long at all) someone had apparently scooped it up and claimed it for their own. We did check the local shops to see if it had been turned in but no joy. The upside is that we were only a few steps from Epcot England where there just happened to be a whole shop full of Poohs – even a real live one with no wait to have your picture made. We tried. It didn’t work – although the Disney photographer gave it a valiant effort. The result is a picture of me holding a weeping Ava with a very puzzled looking Pooh standing 3 steps behind us. She did depart the shop with a new Pooh and she held on to him very tightly from that point on.
Ava fell asleep right after lunch so J and I saw most of the world showcase on our own. We even watched the whole China film (loud China film, I might add) with Ava sleeping through the whole thing in her stroller. She finally roused long enough to do some shopping where I did a decent amount of damage in the Yong Feng Shangdian Shop. Their prices were all over the place – some items were really reasonable and others crazy expensive…especially since I know what those teeny silk dresses really cost in China.
It was about this time that we needed to work our way back for our dinner reservations at The Coral Reef restaurant. Honestly – not that good and I felt like we wasted a perfectly good dining plan credit to eat here. Definitely a pass for us next time we’re there.
On our way to dinner we encountered our only afternoon storm so we quickly dashed into “Journey into Imagination with Figment” which Ava loved. She really liked the hands (feet) on kids stuff after the ride and we really liked the fact that it was a) dry and b) air conditioned.
We ended up visiting China one more time so Ava could see the acrobat show and Mulan (from a safe distance, naturally). I mentioned on Twitter that Epcot China must be the North American version of Mecca for China adoptive families because everywhere we looked there was another Caucasian family with a Chinese kid (or kids). What I found interesting is that no one seemed to want to acknowledge the others – not with a smile or nod or anything. This even extended to the China adoptive family I introduced myself to when we were checking into our hotel and had a brief conversation with while we waited. They were standing about 5 feet from us while waiting on the movie and they wouldn’t even glance our way. It was just slightly weird as I (unsocial being that I am) generally love to talk to others with whom we share a common bond. I think we need a secret handshake or something for those of us who are okay with talking with other China families.
You know what I was disappointed with, though? The lack of Mulan stuff to buy at Disney everywhere, but I was especially miffed that I couldn’t even find a token item in the China pavilion or anywhere else at Epcot. The only thing I found were 2 Mulan pins and a Chinese flag Mickey head pin which I hope to find a way to mount and frame as a souvenir for her.
We hit a few more rides on the way out. If it was air conditioned and suitable for a 2 year old then we were there. Then we got stuck behind these folks.
We ran into them seemingly everywhere. The scooter lady in the lead had a faux personalized license plate zip tied to the front of her scooter. Her name was Madge.
Since we weren’t going anywhere fast Ava stopped off for a quick dip in the fountains.
She was refreshed and delighted. We were jealous.
After some shopping (still on Disney’s dime, at this point) we headed back to the hotel in reverse – monorail, monorail, boat, and walk a long, long way. The pools (and hot tub) were calling so we took a brief detour to dunk us and the kid into the water for a bit before we all fell into bed completely and totally exhausted.