WDW Day 1: Epcot

The time has finally come to relive our Walt Disney World trip! We have a lot of photos and a lot of memories, so I think the best way to handle it is one park at a time.

We did have to travel to get there- long drive, stuck in Orlando traffic for way too long = about 12 hours in the car. We stayed on site at the Pop Century resort. We stayed on site essentially so we could fast pass rides and have extra magic hours in the park. The hotel was perfectly acceptable (it did have a heated pool that Kevin and the girls enjoyed several times (February is still WAY too cold for me for an evening swim), but for the most part we barely saw the hotel other than sleeping.

Our first park was Epcot. We selected the order of the parks somewhat based on low attendance predictions and somewhat based on which park had extra magic hours (the hour that WDW resort guests can get into the park early), but I also liked the idea of Epcot because I felt like it was one of the parks with less to do and a good warm up park. I was right about less to do, but I was wrong about it being a warm up. Because there was less to do and we were trying to skip ride lines using fast passes, we ended up zig zagging all over the park and clocked our largest milage of any of the parks at 9 miles. The first day! On the upside, everyone was fresh and the walking didn't seem like 9 miles.

Food is always a highlight at Epcot. Alaina grabbed a lunch in Germany, the rest of us picked up pizza in Italy. Dinner was in Mexico, and all of the food was very tasty and just over-priced enough to make you groan but not feel gouged.

The park is split into "Future World" where most of the rides are and the "World Showcase" which involves walking through all of the countries, where you can shop and eat. There are only a few rides in the World Showcase, one being the "Frozen" boat ride, which is, not surprisingly, incredibly popular. Comically, this was Alaina's favorite ride from childhood, partly because it was a fun ride and partly because there was never a line and they could go on it over and over. That is no longer true, and I am really glad we had a fast pass to that one! It was fun, but not wait in a line for an hour fun.

The first ride in the park we hit was Soarin'. Now is a good time to mention a VERY important WDW strategy. You want to bring three adults, and two children, one of whom is under 3. The under 3 year old gets free park admission and can't ride many of the bigger rides. We knew you could do a parent switch, which means they will give you a fast pass for the parent that stays with the smaller child. What we didn't know was that the fast pass would be good for 3 people, which means that Stephanie got to ride every bigger ride twice with two adults, and she really loved that. The fast pass was good for the whole day (actually the whole month, but we only had the day), which was nice the few times that we were having to rush off to something else. While they went on Soarin', I decided to take Gwen on a little boat ride called "Living with the Land". It was really cool, actually, because it went through some experimental gardens/alternative farming experiments at the end that I really enjoyed seeing (and later we all went again as it was a short line kind of ride). They also had tours of the experimental "Seeds of Change" area, but they closed earlier than the rest of the park and we missed it- on the list for next time. Less fun about Gwen's first ride was that the ride broke while we were on it. We drifted along for quite a while in the little boat and Gwen was DONE being on that ride long before they got it moving again. They gave us free passes back to Epcot, but since we only got two and we had a crammed schedule, we never got to use them.

We, of course, did all of the other rides. Other than Test Track, lines were really reasonable, especially when wisely combined with fast passes.

Soarin', Mission Space and Test Track were Stephanie's favorites. Mission Space made me a bit sick the second time I did it, as Stephanie wanted to do the "more intense" version (they had two different choices when you went on the ride, the less intense was fine, but the more intense was a bit much). She came running off the ride, I could barely walk. We did Mission Space three-four times, someone staying behind with Gwen every time, and after the more intense experience volunteers to stay behind were at record numbers- Both Alaina and I were not loving the more intense experience.

Soarin' was my favorite ride. Turtle Talk with Crush was a favorite for both Alaina and Kevin. Animated Crush from Finding Nemo interacted with the audience in a live Q and A. It was very clever and well done.

A big surprise for all of us was the aquariums at Epcot. They were fantastic and had things I have never seen at any aquarium (specifically dolphins and manatees). We all wished we had more time at the aquarium.

I think that mostly covers a full day at Epcot. And now, the pictures!

On the bus, excited for the first day!

See all the people NOT behind them? Good prediction of a low attendance day.

Spaceship Earth had some fun things to do after the ride- this one was a game that you used the paddles to move things around the screen to "power" a city.

An unexpected find in "Future World".

Still looking fairly fresh after a long day! Gwen mostly was carried, mostly on Kevin's shoulders, but Stephanie did the vast majority of the 9 miles herself, riding on Alaina's back towards the end of the day and some on Kevin's shoulders.

A photo by Stephanie!

Christmas in March

As St. Patrick's Day approaches, I find that I have gotten further and further behind on the blog! In February, we went to Disney World, and once I have gathered all of the photos up from that, I have a big blog post planned, but in the meantime, I realize I didn't even post any Christmas photos. Now Christmas seems like a million years ago, and I have long since forgotten any small stories about the week (which is unfortunate, as that is one of the main reasons I keep the blog!), but it feels important still to have some of the photos out there for at least those parts of the memory. 
This year's trip was to my family only, which meant fairly minimal driving. We were able to visit with a lot of family, but you wouldn't know it looking at the photos, as I apparently stuck to taking pictures of my two favorite photography subjects. Earlier in the month, I spent a weekend with Alaina, sans kids, and got some camera lessons, and I was working really hard to practice and get some of the photos I thought I should be capable of. There was mixed success, but now that I know some of the more basic principles of using my camera, I think I will generally be more successful, especially in the dreaded low light environment.
One of the highlights of the trip was a visit from my Aunt that brought a snow machine for the kids to play with. It was a fairly warm day and the since snow was fake, so it was exactly the kind of snow play I love.
Kevin and Stephanie got to go to the movie theater to see Rogue One. Gwen became completely obsessed over the toys at my Mom's (dollhouse things that never appealed to Stephanie much but that have now fully had their use with her hours and hours of play).

Christmas present yoga!

Learning the low light settings on my camera!

Mom had about 4 little signs like this... I let Stephanie choose between them "Family" and "Love" were also options.  "Relax" was her pick. It was appropriate for the week, but gotta say I thought some of the others were more what I wanted her to choose for the photo op!

Went for our third year at Lewis Ginter Gardens for the lights show.  Still very cool, and a lot of (mostly failed) opportunities with my camera. I think it will be our last year for a while. It is very cool, but it doesn't change all that much each year and is a pretty significant drive and expense. I think we will all appreciate it more if we take a few years off.

BUT there WAS this. The train room has stained glass buildings in the little town that the train went around. We almost didn't wait in line for the trains, as we have seen them several times before. What a fantastic surprise! I could have stared for much longer than we were able to stay.

Here is a Mom lesson. I was really annoyed that Stephanie was making silly faces when I FINALLTY got a picture in which Gwen was looking and smiling. Three months later and it is a funny picture to me. SO apparently I just need 90 days more than Stephanie to find the funny in the silly.

SNOW MACHINE! Best great aunt ever!

I do really wish I had gotten to this sooner for all of the smaller memories, but looking back at the photos, there are plenty of happy big memories!

Snowpocalypse 2017: The Sled Sisters

North Carolina takes their snow seriously.  I was told by another parent on the morning of the looming storm that we should estimate one day out of school per every inch of snow.  She was clearly feeling conservative with her estimate.  Here is the reality:

1. Snow predicted to begin at 7pm, then forecast adjusts to 5pm on Friday.  School dismisses early at 11:30 Friday.

2. Rain starts before I pick Kevin up, so maybe 5:15?  Snow does eventually start, after dark. 

3.  Sleet and snow overnight.

4. Heavy wet snow on the ground Saturday morning, but thankfully large flakes fell for long enough that morning that it really felt like a snow day.  I would estimate about four inches of total accumulation.

5.  Freezing temps that had set in remained through Tuesday at noon.

6.  School resumes on Thursday at the normal time. 

It was honestly fully treacherous out until Tuesday evening, and our first outing was Wednesday, at which point cars were still abandoned on the sides of the road in our area and the driving still wasn't great on the local backroads.  They just don't have the resources to treat snow here.  Nor should they, which was abundantly obvious to me when I walked into work yesterday and thought to myself, "It feels kind of chilly, maybe I should have brought a coat?"  Today is was downright warm mid afternoon.

As previously mentioned, the snow was wet and heavy.  Not good for snow balls or snowmen, and not even really good for sledding.  Stephanie and Gwen ending up sledding in the large culvert/ditch in front of our house.  It was relatively short in length, but turned out to be long in fun.  They played in the snow every day it was on the ground, and the last day was as much fun as the first.  We were armed with hot cocoa and a fireplace, and since the snow and freezing weather is so uncommon, we really enjoyed the time that we were trapped by our NC blizzard.

The last three shots were of a legitimate crash.  They cried, I laughed.  Stephanie told me it wasn't funny.  I assured her that it was in the pictures.  She marched over to the camera, took a look at the photos and agreed.  Then she tried about 10 more times to crash on purpose.

Will it be the last snow day of the year? That is pretty likely, which is okay with me.  We are now out of built in snow days for the school district, so I am not really interested in her missing any more days-  I don't want to pay in summer weather what is fun once a year in winter weather!