Disney World part 2

 

Disney World part 1

You might have heard that it snowed in Boston recently. Six feet or so in the past two weeks, record-breaking mumbo jumbo apparently, most snow on record, etc. Grace has had 8 snow days already, there is talk about canceling spring break or holidays. The T was shut down today. I have never seen this much snow outside of a ski area (where snow belongs!). I saw a neighbor today, and as she and her children stumbled and straggled over to us she said "I'm so starved for human interaction, I might lay on you." Basically, everyone in the city of Boston has gone crazy, including my children, one of whom said to me "I need to go to school, i'm not used to this." We are so lucky to live in a very densely populated neighborhood where we are not cut off from friends or services. We've been out and about and seeing friends and we are still losing our marbles. All the parents I know have a slightly crazed look in their eyes. We actually rescued our neighbor's son out of her car where she'd been in a traffic jam for hours because he needed to go the bathroom, and it was faster for us to walk to her car and get him than for her to wait until she could get out of the traffic.

So anyway, back two weeks ago when there was no snow on the ground, we happily flew off to Florida for a long-planned vacation to Disney World. Steve and I both had business trips in January, and he spent every other moment on call, so we were all set to spend a week relaxing and mulling over our big life decisions (i.e. where to move!). Then there was a blizzard in Boston, and we felt oh so smug. Instead, the life decision pieces didn't fall into place in time for us to spend our ride-waiting time having reasoned, deep conversations and instead we are trying to have that conversation in snatches between looking up snow reports and scraping snow and salt off every surface. And the blizzard was just phase one of the epic snow.

But, let's go back two weeks to the sunny days at Disney World...

We thought we might be crazed for planning a week at DW, but we figured that since we were making the trip, we should go all in. We planned to go to the Kennedy Space Center for our non-Disney day, but by we ended up just taking a day "off" from vacation. Ridiculous, and so American, no?

All the pictures from our first day at Hollywood Studios and the Animal Kingdom are on my phone, so I'm starting with Magic Kingdom and Epcot. Henry loved the carousel, Dumbo, and the teacups. We weren't really sure how much he would care between Disney World and a playground, but he was definitely into it. 

We got to see the new Fantasyland, and the circus area, for little kids, which was a fun alternative to Toon Town (the Disneyland equivalent). Grace loved the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, the new roller coaster in the new Fantasyland (also the source of the longest lines).

They both loved the cars, but many Henry is a crazy driver. At one point we were racing the boys, and I was trying to snap some photos and Grace got on my case to "focus focus focus!" and make sure they wouldn't win (I was responsible for holding down the gas while she steered...)

 

 

Steve was a little traumatized that this is not what a Small World is supposed to look like... there were more than a few comparisons to Disneyland from that Dr. LA-hometown-pride.

When Grace was just shy of a year old, we took her to Disneyland, where she was thoroughly traumatized by the characters... Henry kept seeing Woody and Jessie, waving and saying "hiiii!" but when I finally took him over, he burst into tears.

Steve We had traumatized Grace the first day by taking her on Expedition Everest at the Animal Kingdom (kind of a big-kid roller coaster) so we had to cajole and promise that Thunder Mountain wasn't so bad... good thing we forced her because it turned out to be her favorite (and she went on to ride it 8 times over the week - she now recreates it by dragging her brother around the apartment with her hula hoop).

After another morning at the Animal Kingdom, for the very cool safari ride and the Lion King show (it's so fun to be there a week and get to do the shows and parades and stuff... the kids loved all that), we headed to Epcot, which is such a sensory relief compared to the other parks.

Something wrong here? Henry wanted to be carried (by Steve and only Steve) all week, and Grace wanted to ride in the stroller.

Henry fell in love with Mickey Mouse (well, Kicky Mou), but was not so jazzed about actually meeting him.

Strolling around the World Showcase (Steve insisted we watch the Canadian Lumberjack show, which was hilarious but hard for me to explain to him how it was also a lot like elementary school social studies).

We even ate a civilized meal in a sit-down restaurant. Steve alleges that Henry went bananas when Grace and I stepped out for the restroom, but I saw no evidence, although Steve would not speak to him the rest of the evening. We stayed up late for the light and fireworks show (had never seen it!), and it was just as good as promised. The kids were exhausted, and sound asleep by the time we returned to the condo. All were ready for our day off!