Vacation Diary - Days Four, Five, & Six

It's Thursday night and I haven't blogged in three days.

Why?

Disney World, that's why. My feet still have blisters (but we won't blame my hubby and the shoes he picked out for me because in all fairness, I wasn't there to try them on and he did his best).

That said, I have one pair of white women's athletic shoes, barely used, for sale if anyone's interested.

Disney World was Tuesday. And by Tuesday, I mean bright and early Tuesday morning into not-so-bright and waaaay-too-early Wednesday morning. We had to forcibly remove the kids from the park which is kind of the point of bringing them in the first place.

Highlights:

1. Pirates. Not just the ride, which has this cool hologram of Davy Jones you have to ride through to drop into the main ride and which has Jack Sparrow in all the right places, but the gift store the ride vomits every passenger into was totally my idea of Excellent Places To Blow Your Vacation Money.

2. The castle. Wow. The version in Anaheim's Disney Land (where we used to go 3 or 4 times a year when we lived just an hour away) is a poor cousin next to this incredible confection of splendor and beauty. Apparently, you can rent a room in the castle instead of staying at the Disney World resort. I shudder to think of what that night of sleep costs.

3. The Monster's Inc. comedy show. Totally freaking brilliant. A live comedy show using animated monsters who interact personally with the crowd. It's funny (the "psychotic" monster was my favorite) and amazing. If you go, don't miss it.

4. Big Thunder Mountain roller coaster. None of you will be surprised to hear that I'm a roller coaster girl through and through. I haven't met a coaster I won't try. Thunder Mountain has always been one of my favorites and this time I got to introduce it to Daredevil (who kept saying after each turn "Is it over? Please don't let it be over!") and Starshine.

5. The fireworks show "Believe" at the end of the night was really cool.

As for my children, the Scientist loved driving the race cars with his customary careful precision, Starshine was constantly in danger of either being lost or of bowling over innocent groups of tourists as he spent the entire day either staring at something behind him, or hopping over cracks (so he wouldn't break his mom's back!) with his eyes firmly fixed on his feet (I should have just recorded myself saying "Starshine! Please catch up!) to save myself the 857 times I had to repeat it.), and Daredevil had a new rule instituted after a particularly interesting encounter while waiting in line for Peter Pan - "No talking to strangers!". Unfortunately, the rule was for the safety of the strangers.

We spent much of Wednesday in Epcot and it was a nice change of pace from Disney World. Epcot is right up the Scientist's alley as it has a showcase of innovations you can play with, the history of space exploration, and a really cool walk through various countries of the world.

Highlights from Epcot:

1. Soarin' is an amazing ride, made even more special for us since we lived in Cali for years. Some featured cities in California included where we used to live, where we went to college, and where we spent our honeymoon.

2. Spending time in the "land" of China was really cool. We could close out the view of the rest of the park for just a little while and pretend we were there to collect our daughter. Plus, they had this amazing shop of all kinds of Chinese exports including the most incredible carved jade dragon ship ($3300! Ouch!) and I wanted one of everything. I'm bringing an empty suitcase when we travel to China so I can bring home tons of cool stuff.

3. Turtle Talk with Crush (from Nemo) is an interactive experience with an animated character where Crush actually interviews some of the kids in the audience. Our worst fear was that Daredevil would be interviewed and would ask one of the many questions he'd already run by us for pre-approval (all of which were turned down with an emphatic "NOT unless you want us to deport you to the Netherlands!"). He wanted to ask things like "Where do you poop?" and "How can you tell if you're a boy?"

Sure enough, the first child Crush turned to was Daredevil. It's Murphy's law. Since he was sitting on the floor and we were up on a bench, I had visions of turning to other parents and saying, "Wow! Whose kid is that?!" but all my fears were for naught. Daredevil eschewed all bathroom-oriented questions and instead amused the entire crowd (his dark gift) with his answers.

Starshine was the true problem.


Crush finished interviewing various kids and went behind a rock to grab an item he'd found the other day on the beach that he needed the kids' help explaining. He returned with a bikini top hanging from his neck.

Cute, I thought. This is because I am not psychic and had no idea the disaster about to commence from Starshine himself.

Crush then asked, "Can anyone tell me what this is?"

And Starshine, who has never once, not ONCE, clued in to something before everyone else, suddenly yelled out, in that split second before anyone else could respond,

"IT'S A BRA!"

Crush had some difficulty recovering from that one.

So did I.

Today, we left Orlando and drove to Cocoa Beach where we spent the rest of the day on the beach body surfing, finding shells to make a family photo frame, and building a sand castle "home" for the dead jelly fish (sans tentacles) Starshine found. I still don't think Starshine realizes the jelly fish isn't just taking a nap.

Highlights from today:

1. The Scientist dragged a body board out to where the waves were really breaking and proved to be a natural at body surfing.

2. At one point, my hubby joined him using a skim board, an ill-fated decision since a) skim boards are not meant for body surfing and have a regretable tendancy to plow their noses into the sand and their tails into your stomach and b) immediately after my hubby recovered from being punched in the gut with the skim board, the Scientist rode a wave right over his head, plunging my poor hubby once more onto the edge of the skim board.

My hubby gave up boarding after that.

3. The Atlantic Ocean is so different from the Pacific. Not just the temperature, either. The Pacific has so much going on out in the water... boats, barges, islands or rocks jutting out, a definite break between the water and the sky. The Atlantic looks like you're standing at the very edge of the world. The sky presses against the water until it looks like maybe we're all living inside Truman's bubble. You can't see any rocks, islands, or any indication that anything exists beyond the sand at your feet. No wonder people thought the world was flat.

4. Daredevil, Starshine, and I waded out to body surf without boards which translates into me anchoring myself against the wave and the gravitational pull of the undertow, one hand grasping Starshine, the other holding onto Daredevil, and then letting them float along without ever letting go. We chose to face the shore and let the waves crash into us from behind. For some reason, the catch phrase of the day became "Hold on to your poop decks!" before each wave.

No, I did not think of it.

Yes, I yelled it with them.

Unfortunately, after one particularly fierce wave knocked me off my feet and I surfaced to a few unexpected drafts, I realized that it wasn't my poop deck that needed holding.

It was my bow. Both of them.

I think a surfer or two owe me some singles.