News & Notes, TGINAD Edition

In case you're wondering, that acronym stands for "Thank goodness I'm not at Disney".  After spending half of the summer worrying that either COVID or weather would spoil our Disney trip, I'm watching The Weather Channel tonight grateful that we didn't somehow decide to wait an extra month to go to Disney...or that this weather didn't hit a month earlier.  We landed in Florida a month ago tomorrow, and today Disney World is closed and people are sheltering in place at most of the resorts--the ones that aren't closed, anyway.  A nasty hurricane is passing through and Disney parks are closed for at least two days.  As we were waiting for our trip, all the people on the Facebook site I followed were like, "Oh, Disney almost never closes.  Hurricanes are so rare there."  And yet I was still nervous--and apparently for good reason since there were thunderstorms every single day when we were there--but we were only a month off from my worst nightmare coming true.  I would have been completely beside myself seeing my trip plans go to crap.  It's been interesting watching posts from the resorts.  Some of it has been positive--characters entertaining kids, lots of pool time before the bad weather really got going, cozy movie nights tonight--but apparently getting people food has been an issue and I feel terrible for people who are missing out on park days or facing hundreds of dollars in extra hotel nights and days of delayed flights.  I can't even imagine.  I'd be terrified and sad and panicked.  I think about that cool palm tree outside our window and wonder if it will still be standing tomorrow.  

A month later, Jacob and I are also both sick.  Neither of us have been quite right almost since we got back.  Most of us have been a little extra sneezy and sniffly, which I was figuring might just be allergies and a dusty house, but perhaps it's more.  Jacob was a little under the weather on the trip, and I think we've both had a couple rounds of cold symptoms interspersed with some random sneeziness and general congestion in the past few weeks.  I would take Zicam when it would feel like it was ramping up, have a day or two of worse but tolerable symptoms, then it would retreat and I'd just be a little sniffly.  This week, Jacob really started sneezing again on Sunday, and has missed three days of school since, mostly due to disruptive coughing and some congestion and fatigue.  He went to the doctor this morning but all his tests came back negative.  Apparently there's some mystery virus they're seeing in kids right now, so maybe that's it.  Whether that's what I have, I have no idea.  I had some cold symptoms for a couple days a couple weeks ago after I worked events in-person, but the stuffiness hadn't really gone away entirely.  I felt cruddy later Monday into Tuesday this week, but felt better later Tuesday into today.  But over the course of my drive home from work today, I started noticing some sinus pain, and out of nowhere the congestion hit really bad once I was home.  I even started to get some tooth pain.  It was feeling a lot like my sinus infection from hell a few years ago, with one sinus super blocked up and unable to blow out.  Most of this stuffy couple weeks has been like that--only one side stuffed up--and with the lingering stuffiness, I really did start thinking it had turned into a sinus infection.  Over the course of the evening it has spread into both sides now, so I'm not sure.  I'm still half tempted to call the doctor because antibiotics could be hugely helpful since I need to work all weekend.  I was planning on masking anyway, but if this gets any worse I will struggle to just function.  I'm hoping I make a drastic improvement within the next couple days, but I'm worried.  It's also concerning since the boys are supposed to go to Boston.  Will Jacob get better?  Will Craig or Carter get this?  Craig is expected to drive some extra players, as well, so that would be a concern if he was sick.  All the unknowns are so frustrating and it's causing a lot of stress.

I'm still struggling through housecleaning and the stragglers on my to-do list.  I finally rented Carter's viola, adding something to Carter's gallery wall (we had space for one more photo so he picked Shipwreck Falls at Darien Lake), and got the diamond painting hung in my room (it looks great but I'm still debating if it needs something else flanking it).  Work has been a constant struggle of working through projects I've been putting off, but I've battled through most of those this week.  It always feels like such a relief to get past a major procrastination, but getting myself there can be so hard.  I keep telling Jacob, who inherited my procrastination gene, that the quickest way is through, but I've had a hard time listening to my own advice in recent weeks.

I've decided that my life sort of revolves around endless to-do lists, both at home and at work.  Just when I cross one thing off, I add three more.  It's like a ridiculous version of the "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" books--I will wander around the house starting one thing, getting pulled to another thing, which reminds me of another thing, and five tasks later I might finally be getting back to what I started doing.  It's endless and exhausting, and I lost it a bit on my family over the weekend because I'm so tired of spending so much of my free time wandering around the house cleaning up after them.  Jacob is the worst with leaving dishes, cups, and empty boxes and bottles everywhere.  The problem I have is that I want to try to teach him to be responsible for his own stuff, so I leave it alone for a few days, but it still doesn't move and either Craig or I will get annoyed with waiting so we just do it.  The same thing always happened with chores.  He wouldn't do them, we'd hold off and try to give him the chance, and then we'd be living in filth.  Cleaning up after him is not going to help Jacob form better habits, but otherwise he'd never have things cleaned in the dishwasher and we'd likely lose our minds from the clutter.  Carter is just as bad with school papers and toys.  And in general there's just piles of stuff everywhere and it sends my anxiety through the roof.  

The irony about the to-do lists is that I dread most of what's there most of the time, but I seem to only feel my worth when I'm working through them.  I feel guilty when I'm not doing something, especially when I know I should be cleaning or working out.  It's amazing to me how much better I feel about myself when I get that stuff out of the way on any given day.  I did well over the weekend on both counts, but now being sick has me on the back burner again.  I still managed to close my exercise ring on my watch today, presumably with a few frantic wanders through the office, but some days are harder than others.  In some ways I feel like I'm coming out of the pandemic mental struggle as more things get back to normal, but there are moments I realize that things like workouts and cleaning feel even harder, and I'm not sure why that is or how I'm going to fix them if they're going in the opposite direction than I would expect.  I'm fine, but "just keep swimming" only works for so long.

The other nagging thing lately has been the weather.  It's been garbage--lots of drizzly, cold weather.  The average temperatures are supposed to be up in the high 60s and we've struggled to get out of the 50s for days.  This is supposed to be that time of year with the amazing clear blue skies and perfectly comfortable temperatures, where you can freely pick your wardrobe and have everything be comfortable, at worst with a single layer.  But even hoodies aren't really enough right now.  Sandals are a recipe for cold feet.  I've been wearing jeans almost constantly.  Normally Meliora Weekend is a solid mid-60s guarantee, and even with it being almost a week early this year, we won't hit that.  Our poor boss who just moved here from Maryland is already a bit traumatized, and I had to assure her today that it's not normally like this this early.  We've gone to the pumpkin patch in shorts before!  This stretch has been so frustrating, and this month as a whole almost has to be one of the coolest on record.  I sure hope October has some better plans, because with our limited weekends due to travel we will need good weather for the few pumpkin patch or hike-worthy days we have to choose from.

Sorry that this is probably a bit of a bummer post, but it's been that kind of a week.  Hopefully quick healing, warmer air, and fun weekends are in our future, but right now it's a struggle.  I'm just trying to take comfort in the fact that we're not in the middle of a hurricane and that this week's frustrations really are small potatoes compared to what they could be.  I'm off to bed to keep Florida in my prayers and thank God one more time that we had the trip we had, because those memories are still keeping me sane some days.  We were blessed.

Ambling Toward Autumn

We have officially made it to fall.  Less than three weeks ago we were still soaking up the sun and heat at Disney World, and today was a blah day of work and school where it barely hit 60.  It's been in the 70s for the most part since we got past that cool spell when we got home, but right on schedule, today marked a major downswing and I don't think there's a 70 in the extended forecast at all.  I'm back to feeling burned out at work.  School is well underway.  Activities are ramping up.  There's no denying it--summer is over and fall is starting its inevitable arrival, first according to the calendar, and soon nature will fully follow suit.  Part of me is relieved and eager for the cozy parts of fall, and part of me can't believe summer is over already.  

I put out the decorations last weekend, at least a few days earlier than usual.  Usually I hold off until almost exactly the first day of fall, but this year I didn't mind jumping in early.  Maybe I got my fill of summer weather in Florida, or maybe the cold weather right when we got back signaled to my brain it was time to start transitioning.  I feel like I'm not fighting it as hard as usual, which I guess is good.  Fall is lovely apart from what comes after it, but I always try to remind myself that even once it arrives we have the better part of a month and a half where it's still pretty tolerable.  Colder, yes.  But the outdoors are still an option, the leaves are lovely, and who doesn't enjoy a solid dose of cider and pumpkin everything for a couple months?  Even Halloween brings up some good memories, but usually that's about where the warm fuzzies end and the hard part of fall really starts for me.  It's cold, snow becomes a real possibility, and those last few weeks before Thanksgiving and the Christmas rush are always a mental challenge for me. 

Oddly, getting through September this year feels a little like getting through November.  All eyes are on a busy weekend coming up at the end of the month--I will be working late Friday and all day Saturday, then hopefully going to the Hilton Apple Fest for the first time since COVID on Sunday.  The boys will be in Boston!  I wish I could go (for the inevitable Wahlburger's trip alone), but my work weekend is mandatory.  Hopefully we'll get to go back there sometime anyway with more time to do the historical, touristy stuff, so maybe they can scout things out a bit!  After that we have a couple weekends off followed by three straight weeks of travel--Syracuse, Albany, and then East-Central PA.  There's a family Oktoberfest in Buffalo one of those off weekends, and hopefully later in November I can make another trip to Binghamton to celebrate my godson's belated birthday and his mother's early birthday.  Add in a pumpkin patch trip somewhere in those home weekends and it's going to be a busy fall!  

This past weekend wasn't very interesting--Jacob's intensive basketball practice schedule dominates a bit right now, along with everyone's need for rest!--but I did do a lot of random stuff at home.  It actually started earlier in the week because Carter needed photos ordered for a school project.  While we were at it, I figured I'd order new pictures for my office desk and for our living room photo collage (both for the first time in probably 3-4 years), and also keep a promise to Carter to print some Florida pictures for his room since he didn't really get a Disney souvenir.  I knew we had an empty four-photo frame at home that he could use, so we printed those pictures as well.  Once I got those pictures into the frame, that brought me to another project I had wanted to do--a gallery wall in Carter's room.  He's had a couple pieces of his artwork sitting on his dresser for over a year (I long ago put them in extra frames I had, just for fun, and leaned them against the wall on his dresser), and I was waiting for some other inspiration to prompt me to put them up.  Carter brought home a bunch of art at the end of the school year, and one was super colorful and fun.  Then he had some texture rubbings from camp, one of which was cool and colorful as well, so I bought one frame and scrounged up another from my leftovers to make those presentable.  He also had a clay wall hanging with an octopus that he did at school that needed a home.  I gave it a shot placing them, and this was the result.

Not bad considering I am usually a symmetry girl.

The clay piece is to the left--hard to see but there's a few sea creatures on it.  To the right is a picture that was colored mostly via tissue paper transfer.  It's a mountain and sun with trees and houses.  I just love the colors.

The one on the left was done at a family picnic with a spray bottle.  Notice that it's his name!  The one on the right was a bunch of texture rubbings in various colors.  I just liked it despite its odd shape and put some construction paper behind it.

The top is another spray painting from the family picnic.  I always really liked that one and the matting really classes it up!  At the bottom is his Disney collage - Expedition Everest, the boys in front of the Millennium Falcon, the EPCOT ball at the moment it wowed Carter, and the water slide at the resort pool.  We stuck a Mickey sticker in the annoying, empty, black middle section of the frame.

While I was buying the frame for Carter's artwork, I took advantage of a deal to get another one for this awkwardly sized photo of Jacob that came from the combine he went to in the spring.  I actually bought it for his team picture from that event which had been sitting on our dining room table, but I forgot this one was hiding behind it!  Obviously this one had to go in the frame instead!

It felt good to get that stuff done and clean off the dining room table a bit.  I also sorted through a bunch of other stuff that piled up from the first couple weeks of school, coupled with a very busy work week for me last week.  I was in-person three straight days with two of those involving events, and it left me more behind than usual at home.  I still have more to do, but I made some progress prior to adding a viola rental to my list the other night after the instrument meeting at Carter's school.  I also managed to do some dusting as I put out the fall decor, but still have more cleaning to do, too.  I finally fit in a workout (and rendered myself nearly unable to walk), did some grocery shopping and a Target run, picked up a few useful things at the dollar store, and placed an Amazon order with a couple things I'd been trying to decide on (Apple Watch bands and a new scale) and one impulse buy (a new ATM-style bank for Carter).  I was just all about solving problems and organizing my life.  Probably compensating for something, or trying to make an uninteresting weekend worthwhile, or just trying to generally fill time before weekends get crazy, but it felt good to get through some of that stuff.  But the cleaning will haunt me until I get up the energy to finish it!

I also finally ordered a custom-sized mat for the diamond painting I did at the beginning of the pandemic.  I inadvertently started it a week or so before the world shut down and it was my "zen" activity for those first few months when we were stuck at home.  I even slowed myself down to make it last a little longer!  It's an odd size, so getting a frame and figuring out the process of ordering the mat took much longer...and then I just got lazy.  But I got that ordered when I bought the other frames, got it back earlier this week and framed it the next morning.  It looks great, but then I had to figure out where to hang it, and now I need to figure out how to hang it without a stud.  It needs to be seen from afar to be most effective given the "pixelated" style of the art, so hanging it over the bed works well since you walk in the room at the foot of the bed and always have a solid three feet or more everywhere in the room except on the bed--and even then, when do you need to look toward the headboard?  We will finally get something over our bed (that's not a window) for the first time ever!  Now to find the right accents...sigh.  But the stud is off center so I think I need to get a monkey hook so I don't have to drill into the wall.  The good news is that once it's hung, I can start on the other diamond painting I ordered over two years ago that I told myself I couldn't start until the other one was framed and hung!

One of the other highlights of my week so far (sad as it may be) is the return of Munich's Oktoberfest for the first time since 2019.  I think I've mentioned here before how much I enjoy watching the webcams and listening to the audio from the Hofbrau tent.  I missed it so much these last couple years.  I can't quite put my finger on why it's so fascinating to me, a person who barely drinks beer and only has a fleeting connection to her German heritage, but it just looks like so much fun and such an adventure.  Singing along in the tents, eating fun foods, riding rides--I mean, in theory it's nothing a good, solid state or county fair couldn't do, but the tradition and the historical and cultural aspects are obviously special, and it just looks so magical to me.  It's definitely on my bucket list (my parents went for a couple hours six years ago today when their European tour passed through Munich), though the thought of actually going, picking a tent (they're all different!), and getting reservations overwhelms me.  The language barrier, the long flight, the endless logistics...ugh.  I need to make it happen, though.  I watch the cameras periodically throughout the day and it's so enjoyable despite this unmistakable tinge of desperate desire to actually be there.  I wonder what it would actually feel like to be there, to take my own pictures, to ride the rides, to eat a giant pretzel, to raise my own glass and sing along.  It seems impossible (and still a little icky in the COVID era), but it just looks so amazing.  I caught these views the other day, at that perfect time of day where the sun is setting, there's still enough daylight to see detail, but the lights are starting to come on.  It's just so beautiful. 

Carter and I also enjoy watching the rides on the streaming cameras.  There are some really interesting ones that I've never seen before, and of course the drop towers and tall swings must have amazing views.  

Another highlight of the week was Carter's back to school bash.  Last year the event really struck me as amazing to see all the kids together and able to play for the first time in a year and a half, and this year it just felt mostly normal.  Unfortunately, Carter's teacher apparently couldn't make it, so meeting her will have to wait a few more weeks until open house.  But he loved seeing his friends, we enjoyed our pizza, and he gave the fun run a solid effort.  For the second year in a row, he and a couple of his friends played until everyone else was gone and it was getting dark!

Lining up for the 4th grade fun run

And they're off...

Crossing the finish line--but not the finish he wanted :(

 

Enjoying his pizza after the race--one of our favorites, Perri's!

As a whole, we're muddling through these early weeks.  Carter is doing well with homework despite the weekly packet making him a bit more disorganized than one day of work at a time did last year.  I think he liked the exactness of it then, so managing timing and tracking of a week's worth is a bit of a learning experience for him.  Our next challenge will be when he starts an instrument and needs to practice daily, but he's been good about daily reading on his own, so we'll see.  Jacob is a bit of a mess right now.  Balancing basketball and school is challenging, especially since he has subjects every day instead of every other day like he did previously.  Math is a struggle once again (probably in part because his last teacher was terrible), and just getting him to buckle down and do his work without distractions is a daily battle.  Add in the usual bedtime and wake-up challenges, and he's still a major work in progress two weeks in (good lord, it's really only been two weeks?!).  We're trying to impart the importance of taking evening medicine because it will help him focus and listen to reason when we remind him to finish his work.  I think it's going to take a while to get him in a groove, but then school basketball will probably start and blast our success to smithereens again.  He's motivated to do well for basketball recruitment purposes, but when it comes time to do the work, his oppositional-defiant, ADHD brain tends to take over.  It's going to be a constant effort to teach him how to be aware of that and fight it off.  The teen years are such a struggle, and this is just the beginning.

Anyway, hopefully we can spice up this weekend a little and try to make the most of our home time before busy season begins.  It's been quite the downshift since Disney--if not in activity, then definitely in fun--so I'm eager to start making some memories again soon.

Back to Life, Back to Reality...and Back to School

Going on vacation the last week of summer break really messes with your head.  I knew that was a risk, but we did it last year and survived, so how bad could it be?  I think we had a little more time before the end of vacation and the start of school, though.  This year we had one full day and one work day, which was not really enough.  I sort of panicked over the course of those two days that there were big things I was forgetting, even if I knew that we took care of the school supplies before we left.  I did realize we were a little short on lunch snacks, but I managed.  Still, mentally it was a huge shift to go from dreamy vacation mode (and the resulting exhaustion) to work and school in a matter of days.  

The first day was predictably hectic, made worse by me going into the office as well.  I felt like I needed a nap by about 9:30, mostly due to Jacob stress.  Despite going to a school that's half the distance away of his old one, he probably only picked up about five minutes because his new school starts five minutes earlier.  He's annoyed with his uniform shirts because he thinks the sleeves are too long.  I felt like he would have outgrown the extra small pretty quickly so I encouraged him to go up a size, but he made a big deal about it that first day.  He was also slow as usual and ended up a couple minutes late.  Ugh.  Not ideal for the first day at a new school.  But at least he gets to wear polos all year and can wear whatever shoes he wants.  

Here are the official photos:

The first days were pretty mediocre all around.  Jacob had homework the first day and was not jazzed about the cell phone policy, but it sounds like most schools have the same strictness these days (although he heard through the grapevine that his old school gave up enforcing theirs by the end of the first week).  Carter doesn't have any good friends in his class and the jury's still out on his teacher.  Both seemed to think the subsequent two days were a bit better, but the summer laziness is biting us in the butt a bit because homework has been a struggle.  I think we're going to have a lot of work to do with both kids to get them organized and in good homework habits.  Jacob needs to adjust to daily homework in all classes instead of just half of them.  Carter apparently has homework packets, which were a godsend with Jacob but complicate things with Carter because he was really good about doing daily homework and might suffer from the inexactness of a packet and how much he needs to do each day.  He's coming directly home every day this year instead of going to the after school program, so that's a change as well.  Hopefully both kids can motivate themselves to do their work, even when we're not home to direct them.  

As for me, my in-office status has changed three times in the past two weeks.  While we were in Florida, the University's COVID status changed to "yellow", which meant in the office any two days per week.  That's what we were doing all summer anyway, but we were set to go back to three set days per week after Labor Day and suddenly that was back off.  My first day back on Tuesday it went back to green, which meant the set three days per week was back on, but given the holiday week we were holding off starting until Monday.  Then on Friday it went back to yellow.  I only made it in one day out of the four last week anyway because I got sniffly Thursday night and felt pretty crappy by bedtime, and it was no better in the morning so I stayed home.  It never really got significantly worse and is mostly better now, just a little lingering congestion.  My initial COVID test was negative.  The status change doesn't matter for me for the coming week because I have to go in Monday to print some cards for events I'm working in-person on Tuesday and Wednesday, so I'll do three days no matter what.  Last year we were supposed to go back after Labor Day, too, and when it didn't work out because COVID spiked, I was frustrated because I just wanted to confront our new normal and get it over with.  This year we're basically continuing half-normal and I'm relieved we're only taking on school as a new addition right now.  I don't mind in-person but it is a ton easier to be home...and I love having my quiet house back!

Wednesday night after the first day, Jacob had training and Carter and I needed to get to the library to return a book and finally check out some new ones, so I figured we'd find a library that had more of the books we wanted (two of which were next in a series and our library didn't have them).  We went out to the Chili library a couple towns over.  I knew there was a small playground near the entrance so we stopped there as the sun was setting.   

It wasn't a big one, but we still had some fun.  Carter also enjoyed teaching a little guy (no older than two) his tips for climbing the slide.  He's such a goof.  

He somehow managed to climb all the way up the swing pole.  I don't know how he does it!

I realized around midweek that I never checked my garden for cucumbers when we got home.  I checked the garden in general but forgot to search for hidden cukes.  When I did, I found four fat ones, but none more interesting than these two:

One is the size of my forearm, the other got caught in the garden fencing.

Adventures in late summer vacationing, I guess, when the garden is already a bit out of hand and absence only makes it worse.  I have an overload of tomatoes still waiting to be picked, too.  My plethora of zinnias are alive but a losing their luster a bit, and my porch dahlia finally has a couple buds despite being in the pot that fell over and didn't get rain while we were gone.  Oh, and my two late bloomer hydrangeas are fully flowered now.  So strange.   

Craig left for two days in Toronto on Friday and got back late last night.  I was mostly too tired from my cold and getting up early to get Jacob to practice to worry about him being gone.  Two days is easy, anyway.  I guess we should get used to it since lacrosse season is just around the corner, although one of his first working weekends we'll be spending on the road for basketball without him.  On Saturday I did have to do some grocery shopping (x3) and get a new pair of (cheap) sunglasses since mine got really scratched in my bag on the trip, so that kept me awake in the afternoon after napping most of the morning.  Sunday was pretty low-key, too--church/practice, a haircut for Carter, lawn mowing for Craig, homework for Jacob, and dealing with some house clutter for me.  That first week of school pile of paperwork sucks!

It's a bit of a bummer to be back to work without a vacation to look forward to, even though we do have a lot of weekend trips coming up for basketball.  I'm sure it will make fall go very quickly, which isn't necessarily a good thing since fall is the only thing separating us from winter.  Hopefully we'll get some decent fall foliage views on our trips since our hiking time may be limited.  It's been odd since we got back from Florida--the weather has been mostly cool and I'm half tempted to pull out my fall stuff way earlier than usual.  It's like I got my fill of summer down in Florida and the weather here has my brain fooled.  I'm still in denial that it's already September.  Having my birthday be a bit of a non-event in the middle of our trip probably didn't help with those summer-ending mental cues.  I'm a little sad that summer is ending--school or otherwise--but I guess anything would be a bit of a letdown after the trip we had, so summer ending is only a minor bummer in comparison.  I feel very lucky that we were able to do the trip we did, with very few issues, so I guess my gratefulness probably softens the blow, too.  

Full reality hits this week, though--a full five days of work and school.  Let's see how we fare by next weekend...

Disney Day 7 - Coming Home and Parting Thoughts

I neglected to mention that the on the last night of our trip I got a bit cranky with the family because we never got a full family picture during the trip.  I mean, we got a couple selfies, but the best options we had got screwed up because various unnamed family members chose not to smile or look at the camera.  Disney does have a Memory Maker package that costs $200, where you can stop all over the parks and get your photos taken.  I considered it, but then realized our family would not be into the silly pictures they have you pose for (holding Tinkerbell in your hands and that sort of thing), nor would they have the patience to wait in photographer lines or smile endlessly.  I just wasn't sure they'd cooperate given the heat and long days, and it was one extra battle I didn't want to fight, especially at that price.  I thought about finding another mom taking her family's picture and switching off, but honestly none jumped out at me and most of the time I just didn't want to bother given the hot and sweaty state we were in.  But I still hoped it would magically happen at some point.  And when our last good chance at Animal Kingdom got ruined twice, by different family members, I was really annoyed.  The whole vacation sort of proved we have a hard time operating as a complete family since we're usually split into duos at home and the second half of our Disney days were no different.  The lack of a good picture from a week-long trip sort of affirmed it, and I was sad and frustrated.  How do you go on the trip of a lifetime and not have one good Christmas card photo?!  As we headed back to the resort that last night and I expressed my annoyance, everyone was like, "Oh, let's take one back at the resort," but I refused because I didn't really want another selfie and I doubted it would turn out in the darkness anyway.  Too little, too late, folks...should have smiled when I told you to.

The next morning was predictably hectic.  My alarm went off at 4:30am, with a 5:45 golf cart pickup and a 6:15 airport shuttle.  I just did a quick rinse-off shower and had braided my hair the night before so it was a quick fix in the morning.  We roused the kids before 5am and started working through getting ready, breakfast, and final packing.  It was a bit of a scramble near the end, but we were only about five minutes late for our golf cart ride to the main shuttle stop.  We had about 20 minutes to kill after that, and the photo topic came up again.  I relented and we tried to take one looking back down the lighted walkway to the Hospitality House.   

It was nice, I guess--we were all smiling and not super sweaty, but it was uneven and yet another selfie.  When we got back to our bench, Craig took a picture of me and the boys.  Despite it being totally dark outside, it came out well.

So, I finally said Craig could ask the bellman who had driven our golf cart to take our picture.  Not half bad, eh?

And after all of Carter's and my selfies, here's one of him with Craig.

We stopped at a few resorts on our way to the airport, including one Carter and I took the Skyliner over the previous day, and the sunrise on the ride to the airport was once again lovely (darn bus wrap made a picture impossible).  The boys all slept on the ride, but I sat there uncomfortably awake due to a hastily drunk morning bottle of water that apparently was a quick mover through my system!  Luckily the ride was shorter than the driver said, and the bathroom was an easy first stop at the airport.  We got through security quickly, grabbed some breakfast, arranged an earlier boarding group so Carter and I didn't get separated, and finally boarded the plane to Chicago.

On our way out, Carter and I eagerly looked for any signs of Disney World from the air.  Sure enough, Carter thought he spotted EPCOT, and when I looked closer from my spot, I could see Space Mountain!  Zoom in on the pic below and you can see all of Magic Kingdom!  The castle is really hard to make out but Space Mountain and Tron are quite obvious.  You can also see the resorts across the water.

Unfortunately, our flights were almost entirely cloud covered, but we did see this really interesting shelf cloud out in the distance. 

I had never been to Chicago Midway before.  I thought O'Hare was bad, but no...this one took the cake.  It was crazy busy, from the food lines to the bathroom lines to the gates.  There were no chain restaurants for Jacob to safely eat at, so he got a snack from the overpriced, self-serve Hudson News stand (enter with a credit card and they somehow scan what you leave with).  We got in line for the Dunkin' kiosk, but they had no plain bagels and did not toast.  I got a cold multigrain bagel, and Craig and Carter got donuts, just to get us through.  It was...underwhelming.  

Then we got to the gate, which was overrun with people.  It was so uncomfortable, and our flight was delayed a bit because the crew was just landing in another terminal.  

Pre-COVID this was inconvenient; in the COVID era, YUCK.

Fortunately we still landed in Rochester approximately on time, but we came back to a chilly, drizzly Rochester.  The house and yard were mostly intact.  The rafts were blown around, likely from a stormy day early in the week, and one of my plants blew over but has since recovered.  My watering system (lots of upside-down bottles stuffed in the soil) seemed to work well enough along with the rain we had.  The few days after we got back were equally blah, which was hard coming from so much sun and heat.  Monday was super lazy but Tuesday I had the double-whammy of work and needing to get ready for school the following day.  I'll get into that in another post, but for now, a bunch of random final thoughts on this trip:

1) If you've made it to this point in these trip posts, kudos!  I know these were exhaustively detailed posts, but the whole trip was such a whirlwind and I wanted to remember it.  I really appreciated the details in our last Disney posts that I had forgotten over the years, so I wanted to take the same care here.  The only way I could do it was to purposely take a lot of pictures to prompt myself.  If there was a detail I was worried I would forget, I took a picture that was just enough to remind me.  That's the only way I remembered the many stops during Carter's and my late-night wanderings at Magic Kingdom and EPCOT or how we spent times that were far less photogenic.  It worked even better than I expected, and I'm thankful to have these memories recorded here now.

2) Disney never ceases to amaze me with its size, its attention to detail, and how well it all functions.  I will say that we were there at a down time so it was all probably much better than usual, but it just amazes me to think of all the shuttle buses in operation at any given time, how many people move from place to place on any given day, and how many people need to be employed to make it all work.  The parks are so clean and so well-manicured.  The ride lines move as efficiently as possible, even to the point of there being multiple different cars or theaters or simulators for certain attractions.  Other amusement parks can't be bothered to run more than one roller coaster train, but Disney is running multiple trains and loading in multiple areas.  It's amazing what money can do.  The efficiencies and sheer amount of people movement made me marvel daily.  That said, I looked at 2/3 empty parking lots and short lines and cringed at the thought of how much busier Disney could be and usually is.  

3) Speaking of which, I never want to be there when it's busy.  We picked this time specifically because most of the country was already back to school, and lower prices confirmed it was a down time.  We had success with a similar time period last time, but after this I genuinely feel like if we ever go back we're going to have to pull the kids out of school.  I don't think we can go back during this time of year because of the heat and weather, but I also don't want to go during breaks because it's super expensive and the busyness can be very uncomfortable, particularly while COVID is still active.  The heat definitely impacted what we were able to do, and the rain was quite frustrating.  I can't adequately express how hot it was.  The heat index was routinely around 100, and all but maybe one day I put my hair up the second we walked outside because it was so hot and sticky even at 9am.  We drank a lot of water, used cooling towels and fans, and tried to get into A/C whenever possible, but even with that we were all pretty drained.  Last trip it only rained 2-3 times, only one of which was significant in duration.  This time it rained every single day and at least half were significant.  Whether it was bad luck or nine additional years of subtle climate change, I don't know, but the forecast was like that for weeks before and after.  We mostly worked around the storms due to being efficient in other ways, but it was frustrating to have a chunk of the day off limits, every day.  I much preferred the weather Craig and I had on our trip in December, which was all 70s, one rainstorm, and one crappy day as we left.  But I'm not sure that time now would even work because the popularity of the holiday parties has left most of November and December busier and more expensive.  If you're going to spend the money, you want to maximize your experience, but that seems to be getting harder, particularly as people are still catching up from a couple years away from traveling due to COVID.

4) The savior of the whole trip was probably Genie+.  Going in it was probably among my biggest frustrations, and a prime example of the ways that Disney is now sucking every dollar out of people and pricing themselves out of the middle class.  But I have to admit, it was probably the best $240 we spent.  Being able to skip the line 95% of the time was hugely helpful.  I felt guilty about it most of the time as we walked past everyone knowing we were making their wait longer, but it was such a huge help in getting through the parks more quickly and with less frustration.  There was definitely a learning curve and a different brand of stress associated with maximizing its use, but it enabled us to not get up crazy early or have to stay all day until late or waste our day sitting in long lines.  And I think our MagicBands ($40 total) were totally worth it to not have to keep track of cards or pull things out every time we used Genie+ or got back to our room.  But knowing something like that was free in the past is annoying, and that's about where my comfort with extra costs ends.  We had to pay for the airport shuttle this time, food was horribly expensive, and souvenirs were worse.  We didn't have to pay for our accommodations and it was still a terribly pricey trip.  Worth it for a one-time big trip, I guess, but we probably could have also done something pretty awesome somewhere else for less.

 

5) So, given that expense, what are our plans for the future?  Would we go back?  What will vacations look like moving forward?  The good news is that if we go back, we have now covered a lot of the basics.  We've done the attractions you do just to do them, the ones we wanted Carter to experience or just wanted to check out, so if we went back, we could likely have less overall park time and enjoy more resort time.  We could do 2-3 days of park hopper passes and just hit up the important stuff, the new stuff, or things we really want to do again.  Maybe we could stay at an off-site hotel with good amenities for cheaper and get a car to do other things in the area, or check out something different like a water park.  There's a possibility we could get in on Craig's parents' DVC membership for relatively cheap at some point, but before we'd commit we'd need to see what that would earn us.  That's a longshot, though, as I'm not sure I want to commit to going back anytime soon.  We have other fun trips to take and basketball trips to afford in the meantime, so I think we need to turn our focus elsewhere for a bit.  That said, when we do vacation, we need to change how we do it.  Jacob desperately wanted more resort time.  I can't say I blame him, but I tried to make him understand that when you go to Disney specifically, generally you do everything you can to make your (very expensive) park admission worth it.  Spending $100 to do a couple things isn't really a great use of money, so we tried to make the most of the experience this time.  If we really want more resort time, now that we've accomplished all we did, we can either build in more resort time next time or go somewhere else with similar amenities that costs way less.  I do still feel like I have a few things left there to accomplish--I still didn't ride The Little Mermaid, I want to ride Tron when it opens, Cosmic Rewind needs to happen again, and I really want to see the darn Magic Kingdom fireworks without rain.  There are more foods I'd like to try, the World Showcase needs more exploring, and I need to get my ornament.  I'd also like to resort hop a bit more.  We accomplished more than I expected--even if it was only half of us part of the time--but I need to reset my expectations (and try to reset Jacob's as well) for future trips to maintain a bit more balance.

6) On that note, what else can we do better?  I'd really like to do more for my feet, but I feel like I really tried to be careful and wear comfortable shoes, yet I still failed miserably.  So back to the drawing board there.  The biggest other things are researching food way better and having a much better grocery order immediately upon arrival.  We completely failed on both counts.  We definitely could have used more snacks, both for in the room and in the parks, in the event we couldn't get to real food soon enough.  We probably could have done a bit better with breakfast, too, but the snacks were a huge shortcoming.  If we ever go back, I really need to have Jacob look at every menu--especially quick service--to find things he wants.  He tried to rely on "top ten gluten-free" lists and things like that, but they tended to include lots of sit-down places which we couldn't afford or didn't want to waste park time on, and also which tended to skew toward the writer's fancy tastes rather than the broader (and simpler) menu.  Jacob will absolutely need to take the lead on that next time.

 

7) The whole COVID element of this trip still boggles my mind a bit.  As I mentioned, crowded airports and crowded ride areas certainly felt more uncomfortable than I liked.  We masked on the planes, and I will probably continue to do that for the foreseeable future--assuming it doesn't take me another four years to get back on a plane.  But for the most part it was too hot to do it anywhere else.  Even in air conditioning I mostly felt like I was still recovering from the overwhelming heat outside, and the last thing I wanted to do was wear a mask.  I'd say there were still maybe 10% of people wearing them at any given time.  More on transportation or in lines, but some on rides and walking around, too.  There was a lot of outside time, fortunately, but I will say that all of the rides that crowd the queue (we heard "Move up and use all available space" more times than I can count) or put a group of 30 people into a tiny room (i.e., Haunted Mansion or any of the newer rides with "pre-boarding" sequences) felt pretty risky.  Crowded buses were concerning, and even sharing a Skyliner car felt a bit odd.  I felt a little better by the second half of the trip that if we were going to get sick it likely wouldn't ruin the trip at that point, but it was definitely a set of risks I wouldn't take at home.  I feel very lucky we seem to have emerged without COVID, but I definitely have a cold now so we clearly couldn't avoid everything.    

8) One funny little sidenote of this trip was my new Apple Watch.  It was definitely interesting to watch the steps and miles add up, and I appreciated the instant notification when there was incoming rain or when I had calls or messages that I might not have seen or heard via the phone in my fanny pack.  It worked out really well for that and probably also saved me a little bit of phone battery at times.  I changed my watch face over to a cute Mickey Mouse one while we were there--sort of like the old analog Mickey watches, moving arms and all--and that was a cute little reminder that what we were doing was special.  I'm not one of those all-out Disney people so it felt like one small thing I could do to "fit in" while we were there.  My watch probably thinks I'm dead now because I blew all of my fitness goals out of the water every day and am now just sucking badly at all except my stand goal.  Hopefully once my cold subsides I can start working out a bit more, but I wanted to give my body parts (feet especially) a little more time to recover once we got home.  In the end the week featured more than 151,000 steps and nearly 69 miles.  Who knows how close that was, but wow.  This whole week combined has been lower than almost every single day was.  Oops.

9) I probably far downplayed a lot of the issues we had on this trip.  Jacob, in particular, had a lot of opinions on how this trip should go, what we should be doing, and what we were doing wrong.  A lot of it revolved around food, but the constant activity and lack of down time contributed as well.  Obviously the closed basketball court didn't help matters, and the time-intensive process to get him to a hoop was a bit challenging given the limited free time we had.  As I mentioned, he just didn't seem to understand the importance of doing Disney while we were at Disney.  He felt like the resort was more important than the rides, but if that's your opinion, you probably should have picked a different resort location.  Also, contrary to what he claimed, the bickering and put-downs that he said would go away when we had family togetherness at Disney followed us right down to Florida.  We still had a lot of that to work through on a daily basis.  Carter was a fantastic ride buddy and for the most part handled the long days and random wanderings really well.  He was almost always up for another adventure or ride.  It really only waned when his feet were sore (like mine, from walking in the rain in blister-creating slides) or when we were having trouble getting food.  He did have a few moments where he would repeatedly bring up the same ride that was at the top of his agenda, even if it didn't fit with ours at the moment.  I think both kids struggled with the understanding of trying to find the most efficient way to do things without adding a ton of extra time or effort.  For example, you may be hungry or want to ride this ride, but it's better to spend a few minutes now finishing off this section of the park and THEN heading where you want to go, so that we're not crisscrossing the park multiple times just because you want it NOW.  A little bit of waiting could save us a lot of energy, but sometimes the kids got a little too into "instant gratification" mode and couldn't understand the larger process.  Still, all things considered, I think the hard parts were way easier than last time, and the good memories will still rise far above the problems.

10) It's amazing to me how quickly the week went and how quickly the week after has gone.  To think we've almost been back a week already is mind-boggling.  We were looking forward to it so much (despite the worries) and I can't believe it's over.  It still feels a little miraculous we were there.  I can't say the magic felt quite as strong this time--going back to reality was so much harder last time--but the change of scenery (particularly with palm trees) was very much needed.  Jacob is already planning our next vacation (ugh), but I'll admit I'm dying to get on a plane (probably sans kids) and go somewhere else.  I almost forgot how fulfilling it is to get out into the world and live a little...and not clean my kitchen 10 times a day.  It wasn't idyllic, but we made a lot of memories.  It was fun and a much-needed post-pandemic feast for the eyes, in case all the pictures didn't make that obvious.  I'm thrilled it went as well as it did, and sad (but relieved) it's over.    

 

To wrap this up with a smile, let's look at one more set of photos.  Since I didn't buy them and it took me a while to take screen shots of them, I didn't get around to getting these in the park posts that they belonged to, but I still wanted to share some of my favorite on-ride photos from the trip:

This is from Dinosaur.  While our faces are expressive, the funnier part is the girls behind us freaking out.  They screamed like crazy the whole ride!

This one from Frozen would have been a good one had the woman not waved...at nothing.  

This is from Guardians of the Galaxy, and you can see how much fun I'm having, though Carter looks a bit surprised!

This Haunted Mansion one cracked me up because I'm enjoying the fake ghosts and Carter is (as usual) analytically pointing something out and explaining it to me.

This is probably the best one, from Splash Mountain.  We all have varying degrees of fun terror and real terror on the way down the big hill.

Space Mountain was another where I was just enjoying the ride and Carter was surprised by every twist and turn...

We were loving the funv twists and turns on the Seven Dwarfs Mine Ride!

Yet another one with me having fun and Carter looking slightly freaked out...but rest assured, he loved it!

This was our first one and one of the more telling ones.  Carter had his arms in the air, I look slightly pained but was actually just enjoying the fun, Craig was holding on for dear life, and Jacob was just trying to wish it away.

The funniest part of Expedition Everest was that on our first ride, the guy in front of us had his hands in the air and perfectly blocked our faces completely!  But this time we were in the front of the car and all smiles!

What a trip.

Disney Day 6 - Animal Kingdom and Beyond

Our last full day was a bit bittersweet.  On one hand, our long-awaited trip was almost over.  On the other, I was completely exhausted and wasn't sure my body would have held out another day.  I probably could have done another resort day, mind you, although the thought of walking up those waterslide steps again was daunting!  

Both times we've been there, I've found myself at the end regretting not spending more time on the patio.  I went out that morning for our last resort sunrise (we'd be on the airport shuttle the next morning) and took it all in.

Looking through the Mickey cutout in the railing

That patio was really nice, but would probably be better when the morning humidity wasn't already quite so oppressive.  But it was fun waking up to palm trees and a golf course for a week. 

I'll elaborate more on this in my final trip post, but we've definitely come to the conclusion that family vacations will need to look a little different in the future--mostly for Jacob's sake--but I'll admit a little more resort time would have been preferable.  It was really beautiful, after all.  This was the view from the stairs outside our villa, looking toward our morning bus stop.  

The agenda for that last day was Animal Kingdom, and the goal was to start early (ha) and end early.  We did get out slightly earlier than usual, but still only just on time for general admission, rather than the half-hour-early resort admission.  Animal Kingdom is such a different feel, and it always seems so much more humid to me, probably due to all the vegetation.  The Tree of Life is a pretty cool centerpiece that fits right in.

Originally I hoped we could skip Genie+ that day, but in the end we wanted to do this one fast so I bought it early on, as well as our Individual Lightning Lanes for Avatar Flight of Passage.  In the end it was probably only useful for a few things, but the peace of mind was helpful and I felt like I was doing all I could to honor the plan to make it a short day, which was extra important to Jacob by this point.  

We checked out some animal exhibits on the way to our first official ride, the Kilimanjaro Safari.  

The safari is always fun because you never know what animals will be out or what they'll be doing.  I'm not sure we've ever seen this giant bird before!
 

Over the course of the ride we saw hippos, pelicans, crocodiles, mandrills, lions, rhinos, warthogs, and more.  I always loved these big horned cattle after I got an awesome up-close pic of one on one of our earlier trips.  Their horns are so huge!

We saw a bunch of giraffes, as well.  Ironic we can actually see the same breed at our home zoo now!  But it's neat seeing them more in the wild here.

And after seeing a fake elephant at Magic Kingdom earlier in the week, finally a real one!

This view cracked me up--it looked like the ostrich was having a chat with the truck.

Jacob fell asleep on the safari last time, but it was a pretty successful ride this time around.  After that, we did a nature trail nearby to check out more animals.  This creepy snake was almost completely hiding under the sand in his tank!

Look at that pretty bird!

This might have been one of my favorite views of the day, and I almost didn't see it at first.  I noticed all the fish but didn't see the hippo until a few seconds later.  At first it was completely submerged but I liked this view of it going up for air a bit!  The fish almost appeared to be eating something off the hippo's skin.

I love a good iridescent fish photo!

We caught a view of the gorillas.  This one was eating breakfast out of a metal pitcher with a stick.  It was neat to see them use it as a utensil.

Next we moved on to Asia, where Carter was super excited to ride Expedition Everest!  It was actually still a pretty short line so we just hopped on the standby line.

We loved it!  It's such a fun coaster with all of its little surprises, from the broken track and the backward ride, to the Yeti and having the big hill near the end.  We both really enjoyed it!

Such a cool view.

As we headed over to Kali River Rapids to meet up with Craig and Jacob, we caught a glimpse of the kite show over the water.  It was a Lion King theme.

As I mentioned, our next stop was Kali River Rapids, the raft ride that I was most dreading on this trip, and the one Carter kept talking about excitedly.  Sigh.  I don't enjoy raft rides, I didn't like having to worry about wearing or carrying bathing suits, and I didn't really want to have to replace all of the moleskin on my feet again.  At least I was prepared this time, for all of the above, so I was hopeful it wouldn't be a repeat of the Canada's Wonderland debacle that started this raft ride aversion in the first place!  We all had suits on except Craig who wore quick drying stuff. 

It was only a five minute wait, probably since it was still early in the day.  We loaded into a boat with another family of four, and we were off.  In the end there were two surprises for me: 1) The ride had very little in the way of the big pounding waterfalls most of these rides have; and 2) There was a giant hill!  We mostly got a couple splashes as the boat sloshed through the rapids and one big splash at the bottom of the 20-30-foot hill.  There was one easily avoidable set of arched water streams, plus elephants at the end that shot little fountains out of their trunks (courtesy of passers-by pressing buttons on the bridge nearby).  We got reasonably wet in spots but not completely soaked, which was a bit of a relief.  As we got off, knowing the wait was short, we figured we might as well go right back on again and make the most of our wetness!  It turned out the family we rode with asked a cast member on the way out if they could just jump back into line again (rather than going all the way out of the winding exit), and they could, so we joined them!  We got right on another boat, with the same family, plus a father and young son.  The ride went pretty similarly, except after our first splash the little boy started sobbing!  I felt his pain, believe me!  His dad did get him chilled out by the end of the ride, thankfully.  We had a really good time with the other family, just laughing throughout and watching people near the end of the ride as they got surprised by the elephants.  It was one of my favorite memories from the trip, ironically.  Carter wanted to ride yet again but I think we were all ready to move on.  We did spend some time on the bridge so the boys could shower the rafts coming through.  I think they could have spent all day there because surprising people was pretty entertaining!

We headed back to get changed, and on the way to the bathrooms I saw this butterfly fluttering around and was lucky enough to capture it landing on a plant!

We did one more trail to see animals, this time in the Asian section.  There were monkeys and a komodo dragon, and we saw this funky lizard with a rather long tail.

There was also a section of bats.  This one was SO huge.  Like probably over a foot long, and I don't want to know what the wingspan was!  Creepy!

There were no tigers to be found this trip, but we did go back into the bird area and saw a couple cool ones.

Cool green one just left and above center

This bird was so big, and its tail feather was equally huge!  It hung way down and we almost missed it blending into the tree branches, but it was impressive...and imposing!

It was time for our Avatar-based Na'vi River Journey Genie+ reservation, so we headed back toward the front of the park to go to Pandora.  That was quite the new land that wasn't there last time.  They hadn't even started building it at our last visit, and having never seen the movie (oops--that has since been rectified), I had very little idea what to expect.  It was quite impressive.  

The rock structures were huge and the unique vegetation was very creative.  I guess Pandora is pretty stunning at night but both our planned early exit and a close time prior to significant darkness meant we wouldn't be able to check that out.  But the Na'vi River Journey ride gave us a pretty good idea.  It was a standard dark boat ride, but featured a ton of bio-luminescent plants and lots of blacklit, glow-in-the-dark everything.  The characters' appearances were actually slightly unnerving--they're almost human but huge and blue with some odd facial structure--but it was neat to see and I'm glad we did it.  

We still had some time to wait before our Flight of Passage reservation so we grabbed lunch just outside Pandora at Pizzafari (we ate there last time, too) and then headed back.  Even with our reservation it was still a bit of a line, but nothing too terrible.  And based on what I had heard, it would be worth it.  We knew very little about the ride other than it being a "flight", but I was crossing my fingers for Craig's and Jacob's sakes that it was more like Soarin' than anything.  In many ways it was, with the big screen and multi-tiered viewing, but it was definitely more intense!  

The concept is that you're riding on a winged creature called an ikran, otherwise known as a banshee.  The seat was very similar to the seats on the Motocoaster at Darien Lake, straddling your own cycle-shaped seat complete with the back pad that flips up and smacks you in the back to hold you in place.   There were probably 8-10 in each grouping, and I noticed during the ride there were probably nine total groups set up in three tiers and going three across.  I didn't notice that setup until probably halfway through the ride in my peripheral vision, but that setup was quite the sight by itself!

The ride was pretty amazing, just flying through the air with simulated drops and swoops, enhanced with a simulator and 3-D glasses.  The seats also had their own effects to mimic how the banshee's movements might feel on your legs.  The ride was probably a little too realistic for Craig and Jacob, and I honestly spent the second half of the ride and the entire walk out laughing hysterically (until I cried!) because of Craig's reactions alone!  It was so funny hearing him overreact to every movement, but thankfully he took it like a champ and came out of it okay.  So much of that was completely unexpected for all of us, but what a ride it was!

I took this picture of Carter when we came out, and now know after watching the movie at home that this was sort of the "bad guy armor" in the movie--a moving robot suit where the person hid out in the cockpit up top.

At that point, the big boys departed yet again!  They were ready to go play basketball again and get some resort time.  Carter and I actually didn't have too much more to do, but it was worth sticking around for a bit longer.  On our way to Dinoland U.S.A. we came across this flower.  I thought it looked like it belonged back in Pandora.  I love the colors!

Carter and I first went to explore Discovery Island and get a close-up view of the Tree of Life.  There were a few more animals over there--including a creepy vulture!

I don't remember going right up near the tree before, but looking at my old pictures it's tough to tell if we ever did--I used a lot of zoom back then!  But this was pretty neat.

Our next stop was the Dinosaur ride.  This was another one we missed in the past, and after we were done I was relieved not only that we missed it before, but that Craig and Jacob didn't stick around to ride it.  It was fun, I swear, but it was a rather chaotic ride!  It would not have been good when I was pregnant and I think it would have freaked out Jacob nine years ago.  It was like the safari ride except indoors with animatronic dinosaurs, and it was a lot rougher!  We had to flee (fast) from other dinosaurs in a Jeep-type truck in a quest to find one specific dinosaur before a meteor shower hit.  It definitely had some crazy moments and a couple surprises, but overall we really enjoyed it!

View from the lobby--thank goodness for Genie+!

Outside the ride, I had Carter stand with the dinosaur...

...and then he asked for this picture, too!

Such a goof!

The last thing on our agenda was to go back to Expedition Everest and use Genie+ to ride it one more time.  Why not, right?  It was right around the corner and we could get on right away.  It was a great way to end our day and our time in the parks!

I was looking just a bit sweaty and exhausted.  I think you can also see the tiny goose egg I got when a metal toilet paper dispenser front flopped down on me at EPCOT when I was trying to fish the paper out.  It wasn't locked right and BOOM...square in the forehead!

Rather than head back to the resort, I had another plan in mind.  We left the park and hopped a bus to Hollywood Studios.  It was time to ride the Skyliner!  The Skyliner didn't exist the last time we were there--it's actually only about three years old.  We took the quick bus ride and went to the Skyliner station right in front of the park.  I had been waiting the whole trip to do this because it looked so fun and peaceful, and in case you haven't guessed by now, I'm into things in the same futuristic transportation vein as the People Mover...so I had to experience it!

Most of them actually had different colors and really cute wraps where various characters were looking out the windows.  They were so cute but the wraps did make looking out of some windows difficult, which was a complaint of mine on the buses too! 

We got on pretty quickly and were paired with a young couple from Scotland!  We had a nice chat about being completely confounded by Florida weather--how they live with the thunderstorms and practically ignore them, when most people from other places are so conditioned to take cover immediately when thunder rumbles.  Our ride ended at the station at Caribbean Beach, which had transfers to two different lines.  One went to the Pop Century and Art of Animation Resorts, and the other went to the Riviera Resort and on to EPCOT.  We opted to do the Pop Century and Art of Animation leg because I've seen cute pictures of those resorts and sort of wanted to eye them up in case we ever need a value resort.  It was a pretty quick trip there.

The theming is so fun there!  Pop Century celebrates five decades of fads.  Here you can see the giant bowling pins in the 50s section.
 

Across the way, we could see giant notebooks flanking the Art of Animation buildings, each featuring a drawing for each movie section at that resort.  We hopped off the Skyliner and took a quick walk to Art of Animation first.  Had it not felt like we were walking on the sun I probably would have walked the length of the resort because each section was so cutely themed and the pools looked really fun, too.  This giant Crush was in the Finding Nemo section.

Hard to capture the scale, but those are four story buildings and he was probably up near the third floor!  If you look to the right, you can see how there were fish and water plants all over the building.

Then we walked back across, past the Skyliner station, to Pop Century.  We were in the 60s, where yo-yos flanked the buildings.  If you look down the way, there's a giant 60s-era container of Play-doh!

It was really cool and while I know those resorts have their drawbacks, they looked like way more fun to explore than ours, even though our resort was completely lovely and upscale.  Sometimes a little kitsch is cool!  

That ended up being such a quick ride that I figured we could take the time to go on the other branch over to EPCOT.  That one actually ended up being a bit longer than I expected.  The first leg to Riviera was about the same as the others, but the leg after that was lengthy.  On the way to Riviera we ended up with a couple maybe a little younger than my parents.  The woman was wearing Minnie ears and right off the bat, Carter said, "So what park were you at today?"  That kid is something else.  I'm happy to chat with people if the mood seems right in lines and on transportation, but for him to pop out with that right away, to two adults, really cracked me up.  We had a nice chat about some of the rides we liked and being sad about leaving.

On the leg to EPCOT, we ended up on a gondola with a family of four women--two older ones and two 20-somethings.  One of the 20-somethings was actually a little rude when they got on.  In the shuffle of boarding, an older woman's water mug got knocked on the ground and splashed, and the one 20-something's MagicBand came off in the scramble to rectify it.  The 20-something actually blamed Carter for it under her breath--though the older woman shot that down quickly because she knew it wasn't true.  Then the cranky one then insisted her MagicBand was broken because she couldn't get it back on.  I initially thought she was autistic or something because of how she was acting--illogical, self-centered, sort of withdrawn--but then she seemed pretty normal by the end of the trip, so who knows.  

We finally got around to EPCOT and there was the view I saw the previous day!  Sure enough, it was a cool ride in past the World Showcase.    

Above France, looking toward the Ratatouille ride in the distance!

After that, we slowly but surely worked our way back...to Riviera, to Caribbean Beach, to Hollywood Studios, and then back on a bus to our resort.  We got off at the Hospitality House because I had been promising Carter a Dole Whip back at the resort.  We found out on our resort day that the snack bar had a Key Lime treat with lime Dole Whip swirled with vanilla soft serve and covered with graham cracker crumbs.  We both got one for the walk back to the resort and it was SO good and refreshing.  

Craig and Jacob had long ago gone to Saratoga Springs (again) to play basketball, and were ready to go to the pool when we got back.  The weather was getting threatening, but we figured we'd settle for the pool near our villa instead and make it quick if we had to.  It was just a few buildings away, no frills like the main pool, but a nice size with a hot tub.  I dipped my sore feet in the hot tub for a while (it's honestly too hot outside to go all the way in, but my feet needed help!) and then hopped in the pool with the family.  The thunder started rumbling pretty good about five minutes later, so we were probably only there for a half hour or less.  But it was just enough to refresh ourselves!
  

I couldn't help but take one more picture of a lizard!

The pool...I wish we had more time there.

It poured pretty good by the time we were back to our villa.  Thankfully this one didn't last super long, but the clouds lingered in other directions and the thunder hung in there.  But then I saw this outside!  Almost no better way to end a trip!
   

We did still have dinner to work out, however.  We decided to go back to Port Orleans, not only for their food court, but also for more beignets!  We figured the boats might still be shut down due to the thunderstorms in the area, so we hopped the bus and headed to Disney Springs that way, then grabbed a bus to Port Orleans from there.  We had another delicious dinner--Jacob loved his chicken fingers, I finally had mac and cheese (I'd been eyeing it up everywhere all trip but it never worked out to get it), and Craig and Carter had the same meals they had the other day.  Then it was back to the cafe to get beignets all around!  We each had one of the regular ones and Jacob ate his three (they're smaller).  We all just loved them so much and it will definitely be a priority again if we ever go back.

We went back to Disney Springs and made a couple stops in the stores to look for souvenirs.  No luck with my ornament at the Christmas store, and none of us ended up with a real souvenir.  We had our MagicBands, I had my birthday button, Carter got a Disney Transportation wooden coin for ditching his drink before getting on the bus (their lack of lids was frustrating), and we brought home our Star Wars popcorn bucket, but none of us really found anything bigger that resonated...although Craig (not Carter, contrary to the picture) really wanted this stuffed Chewbacca!  I have banned additional stuffed animals at this stage, however--we need to somehow get rid of the ones we have, and we mostly just have sentimental ones left so that is hard enough!

I loved the shirt I got last time but I had a really hard time spending $37 on a basic t-shirt this time (even if I was directed to spoil myself).  As it was, there was only one that vaguely interested me and I honestly wasn't in the mood to think about it at that point.  Nothing else really struck me this time except that darn elusive ornament.  I guess we're not souvenir people, but my pictures are really my souvenir, in case you couldn't tell!  

We took one last boat ride back from Disney Springs and frantically organized our luggage, so it was close to ready to go in the morning.  It was already later than would have been ideal and we had a very early morning coming up with a very specific departure time.  We needed to get to sleep ASAP, and we couldn't afford any slowpokes or packing problems in the morning, so we did everything we could to prepare before dropping into bed.  And with that, our vacation was basically over.  Almost, anyway...