Our last first birthday - Part 6

[IloveJack]

Our last first birthday
We've taken each of our kids to the World for their first birthday. Penelope, aka "Eppy," is our last. We decided to make it super-special, so we're spending two weeks at Disney, with 10 days in the parks.

Cast:
Susan, (me), 36, 11th trip
David (DH), 31, 9th trip
Sammie (DD), 8, 7th trip
Lily (DD), 5, 5th trip
Joey (DS), 3, 4th tip
Eppy (DD), turning 1, 1st trip
Connie (DMom), 65, 3rd trip
Sam, (DDad), 68, 3rd trip

Thursday, December 15

We were up at 6:45, and slow moving after the late night we'd had. We caught the internal bus at 8am and headed to Epcot. They were making everyone go through four metal detectors, so it was incredibly slow moving. In fact, it took so long that we missed all but five minutes of EMH. However, we still got in two rides on Soarin by using baby swap, then David and the girls went to Test Track while I took the two little ones to watch the jumping fountains by Imagination, which is where my parents met us for our first FP.
Test Track is always slow, even with FP, so it was 10:45 before they got back to us, and I cancelled the FP as the line was non-existent. We rode with Figment and then rushed the kids through the exit, as we were all hungry and knew they'd be in there forever. We went over to the Electric Umbrella, where we learned that they can't ring up meals and snacks together, so it took some extra time getting our order straight. The kids had fruit, I had an order of fries, and David had a burger meal. My parents also split a meal and a snack.
We split up after that, since we were going to see characters, and Dad wasn't up for that. We headed over to see Baymax, who is cool-looking, but doesn't do much, so was a bit of a let down as he's one of my favorite characters (I wish Hiro met with him).
Then we went over to see Joy and Sadness. Their line was very long and crawled along. The walls are papered in the emotion balls, and I think it would be a great place for a Candy Crush type virtual game, like in Soarin's line. I'm sure they don't expect to keep those two characters out long enough to make the tech, though. Our kids ended up playing with the kids behind us, and a couple on their honeymoon gave us some FPs that they weren't going to be able to use. Joy and Sadness completely made up for how boring Baymax was. They were super happy (is that the right word for Sadness?) to see the autograph books, and they played around with the kids for a while.
We walked through the coke taste-test afterwards, but didn't stay long as it was pretty crowded and it was almost time for lunch. We met up with our parents outside Les Chefs in France.
Lunch was great. The guys had steak, I had chicken, and I can't remember what Mom had. I was happiest with my appetizer, the cheese sampler. I ate a good bit of the walnut bread and goat cheese. Dessert again stole the show, though. I asked our waiter what he recommended and took him up on the crème brulee. It was wonderful. David and Dad had the chocolate swan, and the mousse was amazing. Mom had the meringue basket, and I stole her leftover meringue when she was done. I would definitely recommend eating here. We'd never been before, and only chose it for the Candlelight Processional package, but it was a great choice!
We were almost late for our FP to the new Frozen ride, but it didn't matter as it was down. We hung around for a bit, and then went to see Anna and Elsa. I'd made the kids tees. Sammie's, who is blonde, said "I'm her Elsa." Lily's, who is brunette, said "I'm her Anna." And Joey's said "I'm their Olaf." Anna and Elsa loved them, and we got quite a few comments about them from the other CMs in the room. I like the queue, as well. Then it was back to check on the Frozen ride, but it was still down, so we decided to try back later, after finding out that the FP would remain good the rest of the night.
Again, we had to rush around the lagoon to get to the Candlelight Processional on time. We were 30 minutes early, but they'd already seated most of the package holders, so we were seated in the upper section. The seats were still fairly decent, but one of the main poles was right in the middle of our view. Meredith Viera was our narrator, and while she had a nice voice, she pretty much just stuck to the script. I do love when the entire crowd joins in with Silent Night, though. I was happy that Mom and Dad got to see it, as they weren't with us on our last December trip.
We went back to Frozen (how many times can we circle this lagoon today?!?), and it was finally up and running. However, since it'd been down for hours, the FP line wasn't so quick. It was still much better than stand-by though. It was cute, and we liked it, of course, our kids are HUGE Frozen fans, so that was a given. David and I liked the new animatronics with projected faces. We split up again from my parents after the ride, since Mom and Dad were determined to finish their tour of World Showcase that they'd begun yesterday.
David was on the hunt for icewine, and we went to Germany, where he'd bought it before, but he didn't find it, and he's not one to ask for directions. Then we wandered some, stopping by the wood carver at the Outpost. We've bought something from him on most every trip, and we did so again on this one, getting a black turtle, my favorite animal. The kids were entranced, and sat there watching him carve a knife for at least 30 minutes. In fact, if it hadn't been for dinner, they would've sat there all night.
We met up with Mom and Dad in the UK, parked Mom's scooter and the strollers by the fence to the lagoon, and David and I walked back to Yorkshire with Dad. By now it was getting rather chilly, and the kids were complaining about the cold. We got six orders of fish and chips, and headed back to the others.
David was freezing, and Sammie was shivering, so we ate quickly, although the three youngers were asleep and wouldn't wake up to eat, and we wrapped them in ponchos and headed to Mexico to look for a blanket. We found two different kind, deciding on the one that was large enough to cover our air mattress, and hurried back to the rest of the family. David and Joey covered up in the blanket. I wasn't all that cold, so I just borrowed some body heat. The show was nice; I don't remember watching the holiday ending on our last December trip.
The rush for the busses afterwards was ridiculous. I would've rather stayed in the park and let the crowds die down, but as everyone was freezing, I was overruled. As seemed to always be the case, our bus stop was the very farthest away, and there were so many people lined up for the other resorts, that we had to move the gates and walk through the grass, pushing strollers to get to our stop. It took 30 minutes and a bus that wasn't even supposed to be going to the Fort before we got on a bus. Thankfully, we got a seat, and the kids sat on top of us, or I should say, slept on top of us.
We had just got off the internal bus at the Fort when Sammie lost her dinner. That began a very, very long night of Sammie, Lily, Joey, and myself being sick. Tents weren't made for stomach viruses...

[faline]

Oh dear!! The day was going so well and then tummy issues caught up with your family again.

[MississippiDisneyFreak]

Oh no, I am always afraid we will get a virus while on vacation. Hope it doesn't last long.

[JanetMegan]

Oh noooooooooooo!!! This is horrible!!