Every Person Comes Out Tired.

How come no one told me that Epcot is HUGE and fun?!! And I mean huge!  Did you know that almost all of Magic Kingdom could fit inside the lake at Epcot?   And it's 1 1/3 miles just around the World Showcase! And that doesn't even include the other areas of the park- The Land, The Living Seas, Imaginations, Innovation, Space, Wonders of Life, and the Universe of Energy.  All completely different areas. 
  The kids and I left Darren Monday morning because he had to go to work, and we headed for Epcot.  I think Darren was happier to be going to work. 

The plan was for me to take the kids to Epcot till about 2 pm and then drive the 3 hours home.  Darren didn't want me to leave late because he didn't want me driving home tired. Remember- we have already had 2 days of amusement park hangovers.  At about 2 in the afternoon I called him and said, "I'm sorry, we are having a great time and we are not leaving till this place closes.  I'll be home by 1 am." I think we got home about 1:30 in the morning.  It was awesome and totally worth it.  I wish we could have had 2 days there.

Me and my 4 kids. They were SO good and helpful.  We had a great time!

We were lucky enough to go during Epcot's 20th Anniversary Garden show.  It was fantastic! They had all these beautiful Disney characters topiaries made out of flowers.  It was my hearts desire come true!

Look at those cute kids! And the beautiful flowers!

Nemo.  We happened to have a couple min before our fast passes so we went on this Nemo ride I thought would be kinda lame.  Turns out you go through a huge aquarium! Epcot has some pretty cool aquariums that I had no idea about.  They had dolphins, manatees, sharks, stingrays, all sorts of fish, a huge sea turtle, eels, sea horses, etc.  We spent almost 2 hours in that one building.

More cool topiaries.

Did I mention that I love plants and flowers?

There were flowers EVERYWHERE! In the lake, on the sidewalks.  I could have spent the day by myself just doing all the home and garden activities going on.

 The World Showcase was just incredible.  We could have spent 2 days at Epcot, easy.  My kids just loved it too.  We got samples of food at a lot of the different countries. It was a blast.

Oh Canada

Imagine the skill and time it takes to do 1 of these! And they were all around the park! I only took a few pictures.  All the topiaries were made just for this Garden Anniversary.  And they will only be up 2 months.  I felt so lucky to see them.

Drums in Japan, my kids favorite country.  We spent forever in the store there. They had oysters they were opening up to find pearls and make jewelry.  My kids were fascinated. 

Hello Ellie!

The temple in Mexico

Inside the temple it had such a cool ambiance.  Shops, and a restaurant and a ride.  I would have loved to eaten there.  The lanterns were so cool.

We went slow and took so many pictures we would have driven Darren crazy!  He would never had the patience to go so slow.  We tried on hats, goofed off,  and went to all the shops. Maybe that's why we ran out of time at the end of the day and didn't even get to see everything we wanted. Having a taskmaster along does have it's advantages.

Ay! Caramba!

Me and Gabe

We got this great idea to try on hats and take pictures at every country.  I learned it took way to long to get everyone in the picture, so most of them are just my 3 older kids.  

It probably took 5 min. just to get this picture of Gabe.

Look at the camera!!

Paul pretending to be Gabe. LOL

Outside of Mexico they had an Orchid Garden. 

Be still my beating heart.

Norway.  We went to a bakery here and got a bunch of different delicious baked goods.  ymmmm

Remember how I talked about the art and details of Disney?  Yea, check out that wood carved doorway. Stunning.

Hats in Norway!

Beautiful Ellie

Hats in China!

Another amazing topiary. Am I boring you with my botanical pictures? 

So, as we were just about to leave China I noticed a crowd gathering.  Chinese Acrobats on the street in 5 min.!  I told my kids, "oh, we have gotta see this!"  they didn't want to but I insisted.  I have seen Chinese Acrobats before and know it is something you do NOT want to miss.  So we stayed and watched and my kids LOVED it! They were totally freaking out the whole time.  It was so funny to watch their faces.

Gettting carried away with the hats in Germany.

Hat picture in Germany!  And here is where my camera battery died!  Ughh.  I swear we spent half the day just goofing around.  Having older kids is so much fun.  (and babies are fun too!)

 

Paul goofing off again.  LOL I love it.  I have to say that Disney has INCREDIBLE employees. They must tell them to always be happy and nice to the park visitors.  Everyone, everywhere was so nice. We tried on many hats and never once had an employee ask us to put something down.  No employees ever acted annoyed by all my kids or my big stroller.  They always smiled and said, "have a Magical day!"  Thanks Disney for such a great experience.   

Well folks,3 days of fun and we still have one day left on our passes!  We are planning on going to Animal Kingdom when the spring break crowds slow down.  I've heard it's awesome and can't wait!

The Gift of an Ordinary Day

 I loved this poem.  It is kinda long- like 7 min, and the video seems a little dated and cheesy, but its still worth watching.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olSyCLJU3O0

Orlando- day 3

After 2 days of Amusement Park Crazyness we took a much needed Sabbath day rest.  We went to  church and then took naps.  Then we headed to Orlando to see my great friend Andrea and her beautiful family. Unfortunately my camera ran out of batteries so I only got 1 picture! I should have gotten pictures of Jared and her 4 cute kids. She has 3 boys and just had a beautiful baby girl. I am so happy for her.


This is me and Andrea.  I love this girl! We became friends when Darren and I were first married.  She lived in our basement and I got to know her very well.  I think we must have been friends in the pre-earth life.  We are so much alike, we could be sisters!  It was so great to see her- the last time I had seen her was for her wedding in Orlando about 7 years ago? Andrea is a convert to the church and such an example to me.  I love to be around her and feel her strength and testimony. I love the friends in life that you can go for so long with out seeing- then you see them and it was like no time had passed at all.  Thanks Andrea for the delicious pizza, fun yard, cute kids, fun dog, and great company!

Video of the Kids fighting Vader

Videos of the kids fighting vader. 

Disney's Hollywood Studios

Saturday morning we woke up with amusement day hangover from Magic Kingdom.  We were up early packing lunches for the day when I looked over at Darren.  He had huge circles under his eyes, I said, "you look terrible."  He said, "so do you!"  We laughed pretty hard.  The kids were really excited because they had had such a great day.  They had learned that Disney amusement parks are actually fun and not comparable to a concentration camp as Daren has been telling them all these years.  We were pretty worn out so we planned on staying till 2 or 3 in the afternoon and then go home and take a nap.  We ended up having so much fun we were begging for one last Toy Story ride at 9:59pm.  They let us go and we were practically the last people out of the park.

Here we come!!!

Tower of Terror!!

One of everyone's favorite activities of the day was the stunt show.  The kids, and even Darren loved it.  He said his mouth started watering when they motorcycles drove out. Ellie was beside herself when one of the stunt guys caught on fire- she thought it was a real accident! And just look at Kyle's face! Yea, it was awesome.

 Behind us stands the Hollywood Tower of Terror.  It takes you up and then drops you and takes you up and drops you. Oh the joy of thinking you are going to die.   Darren went it on it with the kids.  When they got off they were like, "it's not that scary".  I knew they were lying.  Remember the Rider Switch Pass? Yea, it was my turn to take them.  I really don't care for scary rides as they make me feel like I have morning sickness all over. But I'll pretty much do anything for my kids.  So we got in line and Kyle blurts out, "We tricked you!! It's so scary!  You have to go! You can't get out of line! It's so scary, your going to die!!!!"   Then he said, "I hate it, but I love it too!"  One thing about Disney is they are very family friendly.  The height requirements are all kid friendly, so Kyle was allowed to go on every big ride except the Rockin Roller Coaster.  I can't believe they let kids on some of those rides!

This was Gabe's favorite- Honey I Shrunk the Kids set.  He crawled around everywhere and loved every minute.

Crawling around in the earth worms holes in the Honey I shrunk the Kids set.

Paul hugging a giant dog's nose.

We signed up for this fun activity called "Jedi Training".  Kyle and Ellie loved it, Paul hated it.  He was way to mature and grown up to act like a Padawan in training.

Paul is like, "mom, why are you making me do this?"

The Jedi Master

The Padawans were instructed to hold their light sabers with 2 hands.  Paul refused.  He was much to cool for that.

Darth Maul

The Padawans train, and then Darth Vader comes on stage and each of the kids get to fight him or Darth Maul. It was great.

Good job Padawans!

One of my favorites was the Back Lot Tour. They take you on a tram and take you behind the scenes of Disney, they talk about how Disney is run and all the props, etc.  At one point they take you through a set and there is a huge rainstorm and an flash flood.  It's lots of fun. 

Ok, I was not ready for this, but they take you through the rooms where they make the Disney costumes and uniforms.  My mouth started watering! There were rows and rows of sewing machines, fabrics, thread, etc.  My heart almost beat right out of my chest.

It's kinda blury, but can you see all the different colors of threads?

How fun is this!!!

The original dress from The Sound of Music.

I bet the women who work here are pretty amazing seamstress- but  Marilyn could sew circles around them!

Well, we had a great day.  Ellie fell asleep holding a turkey leg in her hand.  That's a sure sign of a good time.