Archive for the ‘Vacation 2009’ Category
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.
Our day started out super early. We were up and out of the hotel in Savannah before the sun was up in the hopes that Ava would sleep part of the way to Orlando. Not so much luck with this part although there were some mini catnaps scattered amongst the whining and near constant “Mama, Maaama, Mamaaa” from the backseat. Once I decided to ignore her it would be this instead: “Mama, Maaama, Mamaaa, Dada, Dada, Dada” until he would answer her and she would ask where mama was (Answer: directly in her line of sight). Cute once. Not cute after 2 solid hours so we finally pulled over and broke out the big guns – the portable DVD player. She’d never seen one before so she was quickly entranced and watched bad karaoke Mickey Mouse relatively quietly for the rest of the trip.
After having to detour through Orlando to find a Target pharmacy to refill a prescription that I’d stupidly left at home we managed to nearly drown in a colossal thunderstorm before making it safely to our hotel. The check in experience at the Wilderness Lodge (Villas) was fast and easy and since the resorts were nowhere near at full capacity we were able to check in early. The only downside was that there were no bellmen available so J had to heft all our luggage in himself (and it was quite a hike from the parking lot to our room). 16 or so trips later we were finally ready to head over to the Magic Kingdom for the first time (ever – for all of us).
We decided on the Wilderness Lodge Villas after much indecision and waffling on my part. Our original reservation was for the new Bay Lake Towers but I was never in love with the idea of staying there. We were booked in a studio suite and I was worried about the size of the room so I called back and ended up with a super nice lady who hooked us up in a 1 BR full suite at the WLV for the same (OMG! Expensive!) cost. You know why J wanted to stay at the Wilderness Lodge? Boats. We went nearly everywhere on boats.
You know – boats. Simple things, really. Like cars or even houses on water. Fun transportation, right? We live near the water so all of our neighbors have boats and we see them on almost a daily basis. I grew up with boats. J didn’t but he’s obsessed with them now anyway. But we made a major error in forgetting that Ava had never actually been on a boat.
It was a colossal FAIL! She went absolutely bonkers. She was crying, screaming “No, No, No, Mama” and begging to go to the potty because she knows that usually gets her out of any situation that she’s currently in. She was fighting me tooth and nail, yet at the same time hanging on for dear life.
We felt horrible, of course, and there was nothing we could do about it since we were, by that time, in the middle of the lake. Needless to say it wasn’t exactly what we anticipated as made our initial approach to the supposed happiest place on earth. It certainly wasn’t for her at that point.
She finally settled down as we neared the end of the trip (10 minutes or so) and we made it into the park (amidst 9 billion birthday greetings from every Disney employee we saw – this included Disney throwing a free $79 shopping card my way for celebrating my birthday with them) and walked smack into a parade. She was pretty interested in all of this so life was starting to look up again.
I mean, come on, there was Mickey stuff everywhere you looked (can’t swing an Aristocat in there without hitting another gift shop, can you?) to include balloons. She got to dance in the street and her little eyes and ears were just full of the delights of Disney. Watching her at the parade and seeing her reactions literally brought tears to my eyes – those moments are the ones you wish you could bottle and keep forever. It was magic to her and it made every mile we drove and every penny we spent worth it.
She was fascinated. Until Jafar touched her.
No pictures of that. She was super freaked out and it was all I could do to hold her and stop her from climbing the lamp post behind us to get away. I personally wanted to track down Jafar and kick his rear for doing that. All the older kids around were clamoring for his attention and he has to touch my little kid who was in no way interacting with him prior to his intrusion into her personal space.
She settled down a bit once she saw Mickey and friends (“Mama, PLUTO!” except it was really Goofy), even tossing out a wave or two along the way. She was also okay with the Beast – good thing since their float stopped in front of us for a good 5 minutes.
And then we had Screamy again when she had to get back into the stroller. Except this time she didn’t calm down. We tried soothing, we tried ignoring, we tried feeding, we tried EVERYthing and nothing was working. Mind you, she was past naptime and in sensory overload so I totally understood where this was coming from. I whipped out the MeiHip carrier (still goes everywhere with me) and strapped her to me in the 9 million degree heat + 4000% humidity and toted her around. This did it and she was happy to get back in the stroller a short time later.
And was like this 1.5 seconds later.
Our mission for our first day at the MK was mainly recon – find our way around and formulate our plan of attack – and to have our one and only character meal with Pooh at the Crystal Palace. Since all plans with 2 year olds are jello we ended up canceling our tete-a-500 with Pooh and Friends. I felt like it was too much too soon so we opted for a quieter meal at the Liberty Tree Tavern. Just like us, eh? We drive a thousand miles only to eat at a replica of a Williamsburg tavern just like the real ones virtually next door to us at home. Really good food, BTW. Probably the best meal we had at Disney.
We did spend some time in Fantasyland, of course. Our first ride was ‘It’s a Small World’ and other than the fact that I thought that all the singing animatronic kids were incredibly creepy which gave me a ‘Chucky’ flashback which then made me briefly consider throwing myself out of the boat mid-ride and swimming, er, running wading for my life, she had a wonderful time and that was all that mattered.
Gotta tell y’all that September is definitely the time to go to Disney. The lines were nonexistent and we waited no more than 5 minutes (max) for anything. Even Dumbo.
Her favorite part of the park was Winnie the Pooh’s spot. She could have played here for hours. I was okay with it because it was shaded and about 5 degrees cooler than everywhere else.
Her second favorite was Minnie’s house. She loved it. I didn’t – mainly because all of the non-kidded adults who were hogging up space taking pictures of each other and not moving to let the actual kids in there to look around. We finally (probably rudely) moved one group on in order to let Ava (and other kids) in to play.
She was fascinated with the sewing machine. Her paternal great-grandmother would have been so proud.
She was also quite enamored with the refrigerator and tried to climb in. Oh wait – that was because it was actually cold inside and my kid is not stupid. It was HOT outside.
We wound down with a train ride before the fireworks. Since the day started so very early we all enjoyed a few minutes of being off our feet and watching the scenery go by.
Ohhhh, the fireworks. They were everything I thought they would be and better. No one in my generation who grew up watching Disney on Sunday nights with the family could ever forget the moment when Tinkerbell flies in front of the castle. You could hear the audible gasp from the crowd when she did it during the fireworks show. We stood at the end of Main Street and watched the fireworks over the castle – and it was another tear filled moment. Both for me (because I’m old and sentimental like that) and because hearing Ava ooh and aah was so cool. I was at Disney World with my family and it was a dream come true moment. Who wouldn’t happy cry?
And for me? It was the best birthday I’ve ever had in my whole life.
Our plan was to leave my parents’ house, stop off in Columbia, SC for lunch and a meet-up with one of our China travel mates, and then overnight in Savannah before pushing on to Orlando. That would give us about 6 hours in the car which we’ve learned is Ava’s breaking point for time in the car seat.
We had a slow start to the morning (which was perfectly fine) so Ava got some Mamaw time where they read books to each other and watched some weird kids TV show with a sock puppet. They were engrossed, can’t you tell?
We finally made it out at a decent hour and had an easy and pleasant drive drive to SC. Unfortunately we weren’t able to make the meetup happen – poor planning on my part, I think – and conflicting schedules but it turned out this was probably a good thing when I looked in the back seat and saw this.
You know that old saying about letting sleeping dogs babies lie, right? Well, there was no way I was going to wake this kid up while we could knock out a couple more miles of driving in peace and quiet, so we let her sleep and kept on driving until she woke up – at which time we stopped in Rock Hill for a bite of lunch.
Thanks to a randomly downloaded iPhone app we ended up at a really, really greasy spoon diner called The Little Cafe. In keeping with the ‘little’ theme there just happened to be a mini-convention of Smart cars there – little cars parked everywhere – with their not so little drivers taking up most of the restaurant inside.
The menu consisted of all things fried. Deep fried hot dogs, deep fried twinkies, deep fried eggs, and so on. J had a burger and fries and I attempted to order a veggie plate for both Ava and me. Yes, it was on the menu and no, we didn’t get it. In actuality they don’t serve any vegetables there on Saturdays. Seriously. The only vegetables they had were french fries, hashbrowns, and onion rings. You can see that I did put forth an effort to eat healthy by attempting the veg plate but after that got nixed I just gave into all things oil and ordered a BLT and onion rings. I bet they even deep fried the bacon…it was greasy enough.
Note the applesauce in the background? That was our attempt to order something healthy for Ava. She didn’t touch it of course, mainly because she was too busy shoveling my onion rings and J’s fries into her mouth.
This place was packed, by the way. Clearly a favorite of the locals.
We wrangled Ava back into the car and pushed on to Georgia with only one pitstop – J had an undeniable need for a Dairy Queen blizzard (something we only ever eat on road trips) and, “ohmygoodnesshoneywhatacoincidence, there’s a geocache here at this truck stop, too. We should let Ava stretch her legs and maybe I’ll just pop over there and find that one really quick.”
So J deserted us and I asked Ava to smile for a picture or 50. She said no.
But then I got one of my most favorite shots of her EVER! Well, favorite except she looks like a proper little girl here. WHERE has my baby gone?!?!
We made it to Savannah in record time and headed for our hotel – right in the Historic District. And just so y’all know – when I win the lottery and/or become independently wealthy this is where I want to live. I loved it…the houses, the trees with the Spanish Moss hanging so low you could reach out and touch it, just the whole atmosphere of this part of the city.
We dumped everything off and headed out to walk ’round the historic area where we found our dream house.
It’s my dream house because of the wrap around porches. And the shutters.
It’s J’s because it’s located right beside a fire station.
J totally used Ava as an intro and an excuse for a tour of their newest fire truck. Granted, she loved it but I think J loved it just a little bit more.
We walked and walked and walked. And rested, because it was HOT!
And then walked some more. Or maybe not. Someone had another boneless moment when she was told she either had to hold Daddy’s hand or ride in the stroller.
Needless to say she ended up in the stroller about 3 seconds after the last picture. She was screamy – good thing we were in a cemetery where no one cared. Although, come to think of it, she was loud enough to wake the dead.
We ended with lunchables in the room for dinner and a quick swim in the rooftop pool before bedtime. (Come on – you KNEW you were going to see more wet baby pictures at some point.)
The pool at the hotel was awesome. It was a rooftop pool with a lovely view of the surrounding area. J and Ava were the only ones actually using the pool although there was a steady stream of people coming to peer off the top floor and take pictures of the riverfront.
The night ended on a bit of a low note. After some mutual splashing…
Miss Ava broke one of our cardinal rules of pool playing. NO RUNNING. She did and (you’ll note the tiled pool surround, right?) fell – thunking her little head hard. She cried. I cried. I worried about Natas.ha Richardson and googled the nearest hospital. J monitored her pupils and reaction times and we kept her up for a couple of hours longer than usual before letting her fall asleep in bed with us. And she was fine, thank goodness.
Albeit by a very circuitous route. A long (really, really long) and winding road, if you will.
Back in July J and I found ourselves with a week off at the same time. We briefly floated the idea of heading to Disney World on a spur of the moment trip then but our friends (thank goodness) quickly talked some sense into us and we postponed the trip until September when it would be cooler, less crowded, cheaper, etc. Oh, and it would be a nice birthday present to me too which made me happy because there has been a sad lack of vacations and travel in my life lately (oh, since about January 2008) and I’ve been getting itchy to go somewhere, anywhere to get away from it all.
Disney was not my first choice. I actually spent a day or so trying to work out a trip to St. Maarten but then decided that Disney would be simpler, cheaper, more easily accessible and Ava would like it better anyway (that point is debatable, by the way). We’d also looked at a Disney cruise until I figured out that I could pay off my car for just about the amount the cruise would cost us. Ummm, no. So that left the Disney parks. I threw myself into planning, scored some free Disney vacation planning books off of Freecycle, and then agonized about it for weeks before deciding on a hotel and plan.
Our plan included driving – in part because we have 2 dogs that needed a place to stay. I didn’t want to board them for 8 days (hello – can you say bankrupt at $20 per day per dog?) so we hauled them across the state to stay at my Mom’s house. The advantage of this course of action is clear: my mom and dad are dog people so I knew the girls would be in good hands and I wouldn’t have to worry. The disadvantage was that it added another leg to an already long trip.
We rented a car. Well, a minivan. Nice to have the extra space but it solidified my position on minivan ownership – it’s just not for me. I would hate, hate, hate to have to walk out of my house every single day and know that I had to drive a minivan everywhere. I disliked it enough that, with the exception of one short portion of the drive, J drove the minivan for the entire trip.
Despite the fact that we preplanned this trip we were still not packed and ready to go as I’d hoped. Ava went to daycare in the AM while I packed and cleaned while J was at work. J slacked a bit this time by not packing days in advance as he usually does which means I was at least spared the evil eye he normally gives me when he’s forced to wait on me as I gather up needed items. What was even better was that this time J made us late – really, really late as in finally hitting the road in just enough time to land us in Friday rush hour traffic.
6.5 hours later – we’re at my mom’s house. Mission accomplished with dogs settled into their temporary home while we’re away and the !st leg of the journey complete.
And, believe it or not, no pictures from today. Zero, zip, nada. I think that’s a record in and of itself.