Still Processing...

Six months ago, spring hadn't even sprung yet.  We were fresh off Jacob's high school basketball run through sectionals and a state qualifier.  March had been a relatively quiet month otherwise, the calm before the storm.  Well, event-wise it was calm.  My brain, on the other hand, was a swirling mess of stress and most of that "free" time was spent planning and pondering the insane travel we had coming up. And as such, the first bit of April was a complete blur:

Fly to Springfield, MO.  Two days of basketball, but only one game played due to injury.  Drive back to Rochester 15-1/2 hours over two days.  Fly to Oklahoma City three days later.  Drive to and from Tulsa while we're there.  Two days of basketball, another injury.  See the Chihuly exhibit and Oklahoma City bombing memorial to salvage something positive from the trip.  Fly home, find out the injury is a broken leg bone, cancel the trip in two weeks.

To think we almost added a third trip (to Wichita, of all places) to that mess boggles my mind a bit.  Instead we had about a six-week break while spring actually sprung at home, and then we had our epic Indiana-St. Louis trip.  By then we were in the stretch run of the school year and dealing with Jacob's school transfer and assorted injuries.  That distracted us for a solid couple weeks, then suddenly school was over, July arrived, and we were off to Pittsburgh for another mini-adventure.  And we all know how summer goes after the 4th of July hits...blink and it's over.  My brother's family came into town, Carter and I did some Darien Lake, Zoomagination, and a bunch of playgrounds, we had two family reunions, baseball started, Carter had two weeks of soccer camp, I had a concert, and then it was our last-minute Cedar Point weekend.  After that it was supposed to be full-on Disney time...until COVID hit and everything went into complete disarray for a few days.  And then it was back to full-speed-ahead Disney for a week.  Then it was back home, back to school, and here we are--fall is here and October is just hours away.

To say the last six months have been a whirlwind would be an understatement.  There are times I look at all that we've done, re-read my posts, think about all those moments, and can't believe that all just fit into the last six months.  I spent a couple solid years barely doing anything, and poof...apparently I made up for lost time.  It was great in a lot of ways, but now I feel like I'm looking back on it and still processing the entire experience.  Time went so fast, even though those last couple weeks before Disney dragged in their own weird way.  It's like I had this time warp--ultimately everything felt fast, but April to July happened in a millisecond, and then August felt like a slo-mo slog--not just because we were waiting for Disney, but because things were relatively quiet for a few weeks and my full-time hobby was thinking about the trip.  It's like I had this weird no man's land in the middle of August, an unremarkable couple-week-long dividing line between full-speed-ahead summer and the pure craziness at the end--Cedar Point, COVID, and Disney in rapid succession.  School hit almost immediately upon our return, and everything has been back on fast-forward since.  How is September over?

That series of events at the end of August in particular is hard for me to process.  My feelings on the Cedar Point trip have been so mixed since it likely led to my COVID infection and could have ruined Disney.  It was such a last-minute trip that there was no lead-up, and then it was a whirlwind three days that initially felt like a literal dream come true--something we'd talked about for years and finally, out of the blue, got to do, and it was amazing in so many ways.  But two days later my test came back positive, and since then I've had a hard time looking back at those pictures or figuring out how to feel about that trip in the long run.  I kept looking at my unassembled souvenir (a 2-D metal landscape of Cedar Point's skyline) still in the box on my dresser and had mixed feelings about putting it together.  I finally did last weekend, and it was still a little bittersweet.  

I do love it...even though there were dozens of tiny metal connection points that had to be carefully and awkwardly clipped with nail clippers.  But it captures so much of the fun in one little panorama.

I loved the trip for what it was, but I can't quite forgive it for what happened after.  It reminds me a little of when I went to Pittsburgh just before I found out I was pregnant.  I saw an amazing Chihuly exhibit in the midst of feeling pretty darn awful.  I thought it was from too much food and not enough sleep, but it was actually the early stages of the first trimester blahs.  Even almost 16 years later I have moments where I see those pictures and immediately and intensely recall the ickiness I felt that weekend and weight of the mental and physical challenges that followed for the next month.  They're just forever linked, apparently.  I feel like Cedar Point might suffer the same fate, at least until next year when we go back and can maybe overwrite the memories a bit.  Anyway, add in those few weird COVID days in isolation and a crazy week of Disney, and I just can't quite wrap my brain around those couple weeks at all.  It was such an emotional roller coaster...bookended by lots of actual roller coasters, haha.  I'm super grateful that I managed to squeeze in so many wonderful experiences despite COVID, both in those weeks and the months prior, but wow, it's a lot to look back on.  It's almost overwhelming, and when I try to focus on appreciating it all, I worry that I'm living in the past or something.  How do you savor all those memories without devaluing the present?  Good problem to have, I guess?  I'm definitely overthinking this, I get it, but I guess I haven't had a stretch quite like this one before with so much excitement.

It's funny, because I feel like my phone's photo album from the last six months is a bit deceiving.  I have a hundreds of pictures and every time I want to look at something from earlier this year I feel like I'm scrolling forever.  But in truth, most of it is a handful of significant events.  The in-between stuff is pretty minimal--a game or school event here and there, a couple flowers or sunsets, random little moments in time.  But most of it is those massive photo dumps, which definitely make those in-betweens seem even less significant.  I don't know if that's a problem that the less exciting stuff paled so much in comparison that I didn't properly document it, or if the in-between stuff really was that dull and didn't need documenting.  We do seem to overdocument everything these days, thanks to social media.  But most of our summer felt like low-key busyness--nothing exciting, but not exactly quiet and relaxing either.  Lots of sports, therapy appointments (both Jacob and Craig), lots of work, and much-needed downtime from a busy spring.  Maybe I didn't feel so compelled to go out and make the most of every summer weekend because I had my fill in the spring.  Maybe time at home felt like the exception or even a luxury.  I don't know, but either way the flow this summer felt completely odd to me.  Time flew so fast that there were a lot of things I didn't get around to, and now I'm over here sort of kicking myself and realizing that fall usually goes fast on its own so there isn't a lot of time to make up for it...but at the same time, I'm far more content than usual just hanging at home.  I think I'm just go-go'd out, but I also don't want to regret not taking advantage of good weather while we have it, so fall poses another challenge.

The last couple weeks I've been able to watch the webcams at Oktoberfest in Munich.  It's one of my favorite times of year when I can peek in on that event, listen to the live feeds, and watch the attendees and carnival rides in action.  I long to be there and see it myself in person.  A family friend of ours posted a memory last week from seven years ago (which itself blows my mind) when my parents were there for a glorious-but-too-short hour and a half in the midst of a crazy European bus trip.  I got an amazing gingerbread heart out of the deal, but I was so jealous--and often still am--and while I still really want to be there, part of me is oddly relieved I'm not this year.  I think I've just had too much travel stress--be it from weather, COVID, flights, or all the other planning unknowns that make travel hard.  I have had my fill.  Someday I'm sure that desperate urge will return, but for now, for this one year, I'm happily watching from afar, thankful that particular stress is not part of my life right now.  And incidentally, I know I will blink and it will be time to watch the Christmas market webcams again.  We all know how it goes--October is full of fall-ish things, November drags a tiny bit until Thanksgiving, and then it's full-blast to Christmas.  UGH.  And of course I'm sitting here talking about how fast six months went, and in three months (half that time) we'll be wrapping up the post-Christmas hangover en route to the new year.  Yikes.  But if the past is any indication, we'll fill up these months with some good stuff, too.

Last Friday night I was mindlessly scrolling social media.  It had been a long day at the end of a long week.  Jacob had been sick much of the week (we think it was the flu because it was bad but not COVID or strep) and I'd done so much at work that my brain was just sort of done by mid-afternoon Friday, to the point I packed up my computer after I finished my last big project around 3:30pm, picked up Taco Bell happy hour freezes on my way home, and just monitored email for the rest of the day.  That night I randomly saw a meme that said something like, "2024 is in four months.  I'm still processing 2019 and now that will be five years ago."  I recall a lot of people were still managing some things from 2019 when the pandemic hit, and I think for most people it's been a blur ever since.  I don't know what it was, but I barely got through reading that before I burst into tears.  I can't say that I'm still processing 2019, but at the same time, knowing how quickly even just these four years have gone since our pre-pandemic last hurrahs, I think it just overwhelmed me for a minute.  My kids have grown up so much and life has changed (work from home, anyone?), but yet part of me is still stuck back in 2020 before the world went haywire.  Of course, I then proceeded to have an absolute cry-laughing fit from a couple funny videos, so maybe I was having a mini-bipolar episode brought on by subconscious stress.  Or maybe I just have a lot of cooped up emotions that had nowhere else to go.  But clearly the odd passage of time these last four years has left behind a lot of unresolved emotions.  So if I can't get over that, I guess the last six months shouldn't be a surprise either.

Anyway, I really consider my pictures an investment in preserving my memories, be they big ones or small ones.  Admittedly, they truly are overwhelming at times--I probably take as many in two years as my parents' 40 years of photo albums--but I'm grateful for all I've done and seen and appreciate the reminders.  Sometimes I have to rush through moments or there's just too many in a short period, and I have to hope the pictures fill in the blanks or let me appreciate the moment later.  Life moves fast and in my brain I feel like things can get overwritten quickly, especially these days (per my previous ADHD post, but the haze of early parenthood really started that trend).  Sometimes I get discouraged about life--grass is always greener, keeping up with the Joneses, all the things I haven't done--but these pictures serve as very vivid reminders of all the things I do have to be grateful for.  My church growing up always projected a slide show of pictures from the past year on the church walls during the Thanksgiving service and called them "Scenes of Thanks".  I definitely see my pictures like that, too.  And if I'm sitting here talking about having too many memories to process, how is there even any space for the stuff I don't get to do?  If that's the case, I must be doing well and am a pretty blessed girl. 

So, for now I'm going to keep scrolling through them and focus on all the good stuff.  So many moments, such little time.  But hopefully lots more to come...

Pandemic Problem

Over last weekend I cleaned my house.  It desperately needed it.  I honestly can't remember the last time I did a full dusting.  Vacuuming happens more often--though not often enough, as I could vacuum my house daily and it would probably still need it.  On Saturday I vacuumed the top two floors and dusted the entire main floor, the bathroom, and my bedroom.  The kids' rooms desperately need it too, but their rooms are both disasters because ADHD stinks and battles must be chosen, and right now it's more of a priority to have them keep their contributions to the main living area mess under control.  I just don't have the patience at the moment to sift through the piles of stuff to dust their rooms myself.  The basement will get cleaned at some point too, but this was not that moment.  But the rest was desperately in need of cleaning after months of doing the bare minimum.  It's just one of those things that has felt overwhelming to me lately, and I'm not entirely sure why.  I mean, I feel like my life is a constant stream of wiping down, picking up, organizing, and nagging to address the never-ending mess, so it's not like I'm ignoring it completely, but clearly it's still not enough to keep the mess truly at bay.  But doing more than basic maintenance has felt like an extra level of effort I just don't have in me a lot of the time.  But the more I think about it, the more I think the pandemic triggered a touch of ADHD in me.  I have been having more focus issues with work too, but one of the characteristics of ADHD I never really knew about was a paralysis with starting tasks that can feel overwhelming. That is something that has gotten significantly worse for me in the last few years, and I can't help but wonder if the pandemic contributed.

It's entirely possible I've had ADHD since I was a kid and just covered it up well because I was smart.  I was always talkative, my brain liked to wander, I was forever doodling in the margins of notebooks, and I tended to be a procrastinator.  Once I got going, sure, I could generally get the work done pretty easily, which may have been a touch of hyperfocus at play.  But I wasn't necessarily hyperactive or anything too concerning behavior-wise, and as long as my grades were fine, there was likely no reason to suspect anything.  I do think I probably could have qualified for an anxiety diagnosis pretty easily as I can recount a number of times where social anxiety or general life worries were quite all-encompassing.  I dropped out of Brownies because I had some sort of solo role in a ceremony and I didn't want to do it in front of people, and going to my dance studio's Christmas party and not knowing who would be there was overwhelming.  I also backed out of a rather benign school play part because the concept (running back and forth across the stage with a phone number, like we were on TV) was embarrassing to me.  I also had (and still have) intense fears about bad things happening to my family or home.  There are a lot more examples I could share but considering those few above are about 35-40 years old and I still remember the fears they created, I think that gives you an idea.  But because I got good grades and only really got reprimanded for being talkative, no one thought twice.  And no one really considered kids for an anxiety diagnosis back then anyway.

Fast-forward a few decades and I'm sure there were other signs here and there--not the least of which was giving birth to two kids with official ADHD diagnoses.  Haha.  I remember times back in my early 20s where I would get sucked into Rollercoaster Tycoon for entire afternoons until the outside darkness prompted me to look at the clock and realize it was time to eat.  The internet has almost always been a time suck for me, and TV was before that.  Despite my good grades, I was a queen of procrastination in college.  Most of it I probably would have chalked up to a general personality quirk and moved on.  I'm indecisive, I worry, I'm a bit of a perfectionist in many ways, I don't like calling attention to myself or disappointing people.  It all sort of made sense as being a nervous, overly self-aware human who didn't want people to know I wasn't perfect.  Still, I've had a relatively functional life and career, pushing through the challenges when they came. 

And then came the pandemic.  As we all know, it was unprecedented times for almost all living generations, and it was hard.  We were stuck at home.  We were teaching our kids while trying to do our own work.  We had way too much togetherness and rarely left the house or got together with other people.  It was stressful and scary in an entirely different way than most things were previously.  All of these things turned into a perfect storm:

• The house was messy because we were all always there.  More dishes, more toys, more garbage, more paperwork.  
• I wasn't that motivated to clean because it was just going to get messy again right away and no one was coming to the house anyway.  
• The piles and messes that were left to fester were giving me anxiety because while I'm not a neat freak, the constant chaos and ever-present reminders of things that need to be done or cleaned up make me crazy because it feels like my work is never done.  My family is not good at taking care of that, however, so there was a choice between leaving it and making myself nuts, or doing it myself which only reinforces the laziness and makes me resentful.  
• Having the house look like a pigsty all the time made me care even less about the rest of the messes or things needing to be spruced up or fixed because why should I bother putting in the effort if the house is still going to be a mess anyway?  
• At the same time, with stress at an all-time high, there were the constant reminders to give yourself a little grace and practice self-care.  Sometimes that was escaping for a run or an outdoor adventure with Carter, and sometimes that was curling up in a chair with my phone.  I got my first iPhone the fall after the pandemic began, and I definitely got in bad habits with certain apps and games occupying my mind and providing a little escape and relaxation.  The social media doom scrolling got worse, as well.  My phone essentially replaced most of my TV viewing, for reasons I still can't entirely understand.  Sometimes background noise can be helpful, but around the pandemic there was so much noise around all the time that I think I had a backlash against it and stopped defaulting to turning on the TV when the house was quiet.  My phone did the job instead.  But then I'd get totally sucked into my phone, overall productivity went down, and the pile of projects needing to be done got bigger and more overwhelming.  I could only mentally work through a few things at a time, and I wasn't getting through things as fast as they were piling up.
  

At first I chalked that overwhelming feeling up to pandemic stress being the straw that broke the camel's back--just one too many things to process.  But then once the pandemic stress subsided, most things still felt larger than life and overwhelmed me.  Making a dish to pass for picnics...calling someone to get work done around the house or take care of personal tasks...tackling complex problems...making a decision on a big purchase...and yes, cleaning my house.  Even little stuff like choosing dinner feels overwhelming some days.  Analysis paralysis came to be too common in my life.  While I was always a procrastinator, something changed over the pandemic that made certain activities feel completely un-doable.  Some of it was getting out of old routines, and some of it was likely this cycle of feeling overwhelmed, giving myself a break, and getting into a cycle of putting it off repeatedly because the longer I put it off, the more overwhelming it became.  But why?

Carter's ADHD emerged strongest during the pandemic, and I deduced that his overwhelming amount of screen time--which was a near-necessity when Craig and I had to get work done--had gotten him so overstimulated that his brain short-circuited and it left everything else that didn't bring on that rush of dopamine painfully boring to him.  He couldn't stand to run errands and playing with regular toys lasted mere minutes.  When he couldn't focus at all on his school work, that's when we decided it was time to get him evaluated.  His diagnosis was pretty clear, and even clearer when meds helped him almost immediately.  Now he's this amazingly dedicated student, but he still gets bored a little too easily--he rarely wants to play with toys or read a book, but he does his work well and takes pride in it, and has come to enjoy our little adventures, even if errands are still merely tolerated.  

For the last few months I've been following an ADHD meme account in Instagram.  I started following it because I figured it would give me insight into my kids to understand things that ADHD people find challenging.  It has been pretty insightful.  I may still not know how to counteract some of the issues, but it helps me know they're typical for neurodivergent people.  However, as I've been following along, I've seen far too many things that I completely relate to for myself.  I know I should only take these things with a grain of salt--it's not medical advice or anything, just certain slices of life that different people experience--but I have felt some of them deeply.  Knowing a lot of my frustrations and bad habits got worse during the pandemic has made me stop and think about what triggered them and whether I had much the same situation as Carter--a little too much screen time, a bit more stress, and poof--my brain went haywire.  The ADHD might have always been there hiding in the shadows, but one too many triggers and all of a sudden it popped up and made itself known.  In theory, anyway.

I don't think I'm going to try to get a formal diagnosis since I'm not really at the point of needing medication or anything like that.  I guess I'm not ruling it out because maybe one day I will need medication, or maybe it would help my kids to know it's something we share and that I really can empathize with a lot of what they're going through.  But as of now it's not going to change my daily life so I don't see the point of putting myself through countless evaluations just for a piece of paper and/or a little validation.  Maybe down the road if I decide to go the therapy route for any reason, it would make sense to make that part of the process, but for now I'm just trying to be aware of when I'm having those issues and do what I can do to logically think them through and make a plan to counteract what my brain is trying to do.  

I'm glad the house is clean-ish.  It gives me a little bit of satisfaction and peace that certain areas are finally clean--not the least of which is the shelf next to my work-from-home desk that had been completely covered with Jacob's food overflow for months.  Now it's neat, dust-free, and seasonally decorated.  I swear it lowers my blood pressure a couple points on its own.  You'd think the satisfaction alone would be enough to keep up with it, but it's not.  It'll be dusty again soon enough and it will get overwhelming all over again.  Sigh.  But I'll probably have to dust before Christmas decor happens since everything changes and there will be dusty outlines on every surface, so at least that's only a couple months from now.  That's a whole other set of stress, though.  But for now, I will enjoy the fall decor, wait for the real thing outside, and clean up what I can when I can.  One day at a time.

Rocky Re-Entry

Before I get into the post, I apologize it's taken so long to get this posted.  I started writing it more than a week ago, but I have had a heck of a time staying awake in the evenings lately and my workday lunches have been busy so it's been hard to finish.  

I say this every year nowadays, but taking vacation the week before Labor Day is pretty much the dumbest thing ever.  You'd think it would create this nice dividing line between summer and fall, but it just doesn't work that way.  Instead it's a jarring change, where you left and it was summer and get back and it's fall.  Any sort of change while you're "absent" from normal life can be unnerving, so I guess that's sort of what it is, even if you know it's coming.  Pumpkin everything is the rage, Halloween candy is in stores, school is starting, and you're left wondering what just hit you.  

This year was even worse for a few reasons.  As I mentioned, we didn't get home Sunday night as planned because we decided to stay over at my parents' and spend Monday with Craig's parents for his dad's birthday.  Despite not wanting Monday to be a late night, we didn't end up getting back until after 9pm.  Time well spent, as Craig's dad was thrilled to have us there, but I spent the rest of the night unpacking and barely had time to think of anything else before going to bed.  

I woke up Tuesday and realized I probably needed to run to Wegmans because we had no milk and barely anything else, not to mention that I needed to start stocking up on school lunch stuff.  The cashier asked if I was doing back-to-school shopping, and I said yes, but then added it was also back-from-vacation shopping and new fridge replenishment shopping on top of that, since we had tried to empty what we could before the new fridge arrived the Friday before we left.  I left out that I was also sick with COVID the prior week, so I hadn't been to Wegmans in a long time.  I couldn't help but laugh to myself that I had a quadruple whammy scenario for why we were down on groceries.  It was just crazy.  I also hadn't had to cook dinner in two weeks, so I was pretty overwhelmed with the whole food thing in general.

The COVID thing really complicated re-entry a lot because I was already a week behind on most house things from being stuck in my room for the four days before we left, not to mention being gone the weekend prior.  I had played catch-up on Sunday post-isolation with dishes, wiping down the kitchen, some laundry, and a few other things, but packing had to be the priority.  I still had piles of things to tackle post-vacation--sorting through the fridge manual and paperwork, a couple school prep things, mail, and more laundry.  I also had to check on the yard--mostly dead pots (boo), a too-lively garden that was completely overgrown, tons of weeds elsewhere in the yard, and a couple pool things blown out of place.  I just felt completely out of sorts as a result of all the things that needed to be tackled, and having to jump back into work on Tuesday as well (particularly without the free Monday I was expecting) complicated things further.  Even more annoying was that staying an extra day meant we went a day without our usual medications (I only packed the full 7-day supply which wrapped up Sunday morning), so we went without allergy meds for a day, and Carter and I were both sniffly again.  Carter started on Sunday, though, so I think his might have been a touch of a cold, and I got a very dry nose on the plane Sunday that remained in place on Monday.  By Tuesday the congestion felt a little more pronounced, but not a big deal.  Still, it was unnerving.  By mid-week Craig was also sniffling and ended up with a negative COVID test.  Just this week I read comments on a Disney social media post about a bunch of people who were there around when we were that had at least a few people from their groups come home with COVID--and like me, a couple of the people posting figured they only avoided it because they had just had COVID before their trip.  So, honestly, who knows what we might have been exposed to there.  Everyone else recovered quickly except me.   stayed a little extra sniffly with nagging throat congestion up through about the middle of this week.  Nothing terrible, just nagging.  I think it's starting to improve, finally, two weeks later, but maybe it's just remaining inflammation from COVID?  Or maybe it's fall allergies, which have been tougher for me in recent years?  Or maybe I just keep getting exposed to stuff.  Add that to just being generally tired the last couple weeks (walking 50 miles in a week, particularly after a lot of laying around the previous week, will do that, then getting up an hour earlier every day for school made it worse), and it wasn't the most comforting way to get back to normal.  

As a whole I just felt so out of my groove already because I was cooped up with COVID for days, and then I had a whole week of vacation on top of it.  You'd think it would be easy to start scheduling dinners to cook again since we hadn't had any home-cooked meals in weeks, but no, I was so out of the groove I wasn't even sure what I needed to re-stock from Wegmans.  My memory of what I habitually buy or what we had finished up in the fridge prior to getting the new one had faded already so I felt a little lost there.  I did know I had to go to Aldi and restock because we were totally out of cookies and one type of gluten-free bread and I'd missed two whole weeks of special buys.  I spent most of the first week back looking around the house feeling like there were a million things I should be doing, but I wasn't sure what they were.  In some cases I was making a mental list of tasks reserved for the weekend--taking back uniform pants to two stores (because Jacob is now a 34"L in pants(!)) and ordering new ones, repairing frayed strap seams on my my Disney backpack and my work briefcase, sorting further through the paperwork piles, and making Jacob's long-awaited Chex Mix.  That list was still running and then I got to add house cleaning and fall decorating to it for this weekend.  In the end I also threw in another round of Chex Mix and a batch of meatballs.  The kids have also recently requested either homemade churros or donuts, but that will have to wait for another weekend.  Pumpkin muffin season is almost here, too!

Adding to the fun that first week was that Wednesday was the first day of school.  By some miracle, both kids got out the door on time and we got pictures.  Jacob is likely going to be an even bigger challenge this year because his school starts 10 minutes earlier than his old school and is about five minutes farther away.  But so far so good.  He's taken to showering at night after basketball training, so that has helped.

Remember when he was so little he was barely taller than the door knob?  Geez.

 
He hasn't had much homework, which is good since he's had an absurd amount of basketball stuff almost every day from when he gets out of school until late into the evening, but no real complaints about school itself.  He even found out one of his teachers is the mom of a kid he knew from two schools ago.  I figured out a while back that his principal is the dad of a kid that was in Carter's first daycare room that was born a couple weeks before him and had the best head of hair I'd ever seen on a baby.  I'm hoping we brings his family out to a basketball game or something this year so we could reunite the boys!

Speaking of Carter, he seems to be doing well, too.  He likes his teacher--not as much as the one two years ago, but that would be tough to match.  He has a couple friends in his class, not much homework so far, and is loving being a safety monitor this year.  He was specially picked for the job and it's good to see him wanting to be involved.  I hope that means he will get an award at the end of the year for being a good community member, if nothing else, unlike his big brother who struck out at the moving up ceremony awards despite being pretty good on the academic side.

Wednesday night he mentioned that there was a new 4th grade playground at the school and wanted us to walk over to check it out.  It was a nice, warm night and I needed to get in a little exercise anyway, so we did just that.  The clouds were pretty interesting along the way.

I was sad to see that the school had cut down a bunch of trees lining the one side of the building.  I hadn't done any running this summer where I cut through the school property, so I missed that happening.  There was this gorgeous tree near the Buddy Bench in particular, and now it'll just be out in the blazing sun.  All I can figure is they thought they were a hazard on windy days.  There used to be so many trees back there, and little by little they disappeared and are all gone now.  But sure enough, behind the school near one of the basketball courts, there was this:

School view

Side view

We figured out it was still under construction, but it looked close.  It opened up this past week, so hopefully we can check it out again soon.  I realized it was very similar in spots to the city playground we checked out near the Memorial Art Gallery last fall.  It has the same really cool and challenging climbing structure of that one, at least, but a lot of the other elements are different.  It's a cool addition to the school yard, for sure!

Now we start getting into the full schedule of school stuff.  Carter's music meeting is this week (although I may skip it since we have his instrument already and know the drill).  Viola lessons and chorus should start next month.  His back to school bash is coming this week as well.  We also have Thursday soccer practice and Saturday games for four more weeks.  As I mentioned, Jacob's basketball stuff--between casual school stuff and his travel team--has been nearly non-stop and we're just trying to keep him afloat because it's been a lot physically.  We don't want him at a point where he was in the spring where he was completely exhausted and his body was falling apart, but thankfully his injuries have mostly subsided for now.  He did bruise his tailbone a little last week when he was trying to get up from a stretch and didn't quite make it, so I guess there's never a dull moment with him.  Add in a couple busy weeks of work for me catching up, trying to hit another set of deadlines, and doing two days of on-site events, and it's been a lot to coordinate since we got back.

As I mentioned in my last post, leaving the Disney bubble is hard.  There's something to be said for every day holding the possibility of being a positive core memory.  Every day feels like a new adventure.  It's nice to be away from the usual stresses of cleaning and meal planning and schedules and work.  It's not like it's without its own set of stresses--physical exhaustion, planning well to make the most of opportunities, finding meals, keeping everyone happy, weather, expenses--but I guess different stresses for a week still makes for a nice break.  It's lovely to be in a tropical setting (most of the time), sitting by a pool, eating Dole Whip regularly, and being chauffeured around by a fleet of buses.  I love exploring places and taking pretty pictures, so it's really nice to live like that for a full week.  I'm super grateful for it, but reality hits hard after living the dream, quite literally.

Even since before the trip, we've bantered back and forth about going back--both joking and seriously.  We've discussed repeatedly when that could be and what that could look like.  Jacob still really wants to go with Craig's parents, which could involve going back sooner than we'd otherwise consider, but would be worth thinking about for obvious reasons.  Barring that, I'd be fine considering another trip in about 2-3 years, before the kids are too much older but allowing enough time to recover from two straight trips and to maybe explore some other travel in the meantime.  Once we were there this time, Jacob started talking about a trip with no park days, though I think I would feel like I was missing out on the fun upon seeing people going to and from parks.  There would also be some new things and things we'd definitely want to do again, so I don't think we can avoid it completely, but I could see a trip with a bit less.  In fact, I just saw an article talking about a trip with no park days and what that could entail.  Most of it was resort hopping for photo ops, fireworks viewing, and restaurants, riding all the transportation options, exploring Disney Springs and some of the paid experiences like the balloon ride there, trying out the mini golf courses, finding characters and other free activities around the resort, and just spending relaxing time at the pool.  I could get on board with all of that, with a bit of park time added in.  I still don't feel like we've covered everything, so there will always be a list of things I still want to do, but I'm thankful we crossed off a bunch of new stuff this time to shorten that list a bit more.  I do think I could get more selective with my must-dos, but maybe in a few years I'll want to ride everything all over again!  I do feel like we definitely solidified our love of Old Key West after our Saratoga Springs experience.  Not that it was bad or we can't do both or try something new, but it was good to know that where we've been actually was a great fit for us.  It really has started to feel like home, which is entirely the point of the Disney Vacation Club concept.  Third time was a charm, for sure.  Anyway, give me a few years and we'll see what's next.

Now we've officially been back two weeks.  I just switched my watch back to its normal face from my Mickey/Minnie face because it's time to officially move forward and fully embrace our return to real life.  While I'd like to think we're settling into the new school year and all that comes with it, I feel like we're still in adjustment mode.  Like I said, I'm not entirely sure my body has adjusted to the earlier wake up, and part of me is still in denial that summer is over.  The fall decor went up over the weekend, and in many ways it's nice and comforting, but I keep having moments where I'm regretting the things we didn't get to do over the summer.  At the same time I'm chastising myself because, hello, we did so many good things from spring on--Springfield, Oklahoma City, Indiana, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Cedar Point, and finally Disney--so I should just be thankful for what we've done, even if we missed out on little things in between.  We didn't get much pool time, never went mini golfing as a family, and Carter and I didn't get as many adventures as I feel like we used to.  Not to mention that there were house things I wanted to conquer and my window is closing to get proper outside time to do that.  Fall fills up so fast, too.  We have to fit in a pumpkin patch day, I need to see my godson and his mama, I have a busy work weekend coming up, I need to get to our art gallery for a new exhibit and Buffalo's newly reopened art gallery, and hit up some new playgrounds with Carter before he's too big.  Oh, and I sort of wanted to do one more Darien Lake run to wrap up our first season pass year--though we did get another for next year because the price was unbeatable, so unless the weather is perfect and all the good rides are open, that might have to wait.

Fall is great and I'm trying to embrace it.  I can't wait for leaves and I hope some of those planned adventures pan out.  It's hard to leave summer behind, but I guess it's time.

The Little Trip That Could - Disney Night 6 and Day 7

When I left off, Carter and I were stuck standing up on a very full bus heading to Saratoga Springs from EPCOT.  I had to do a quick look at the resort map we got texted with our room assignment because I realized I wasn't even sure where we needed to get off the bus!  I found our stop on the map, and then we had to keep an eye out every time the bus stopped to see if that was our stop, as this particular bus didn't seem to have the automated voice that usually tells you where you are.  When we got off, we just sort of wandered toward the building that appeared to be ours.  It seemed like this was where we needed to go...

These rooms were set up differently than our other resort, where all the villas had essentially an open-air entrance.  These were set up much more like a hotel with full corridors, although the corridors were technically still outdoors, just much more sheltered.  We found our number and thankfully our Magic Bands worked as our key.  The big boys were already quite settled in the room.  And yes, this was much more like an actual room.  Everything was just smaller and more compact.  Old Key West always had so much extra space--far more than we needed, I suppose, but after being in that smaller room, I truly appreciated that we weren't crunched into a small space like that all week.  There was a small kitchen, a dining area, a tiny laundry closet (rather than a full room), a living room with pull-outs for the boys, and a full king bedroom.  There was still a full bathroom with two sinks and a separate toilet/shower room, but no more jacuzzi tub.  The tub that was there wasn't too shabby, though--it was a nice deep one, just no jets.  The look was way more modern, which was nice, and the artwork was super cute with little Disney elements, but it was definitely more cramped.  I noticed some social media posts that sound like you're supposed to unpack your suitcase into the dressers and keep your suitcases under the bed, which is essentially a platform with ample space underneath.  That might work for us, but I don't exactly want the kids' stuff there, too.  

Carter's bed folded out of the wall under the TV.  He didn't end up sleeping there, though, because we were terrified he'd bang his head on the cut-out.  He's a thrasher sometimes, and almost half the bed was in the cubby.  Fortunately he was able to sleep on a pull-out chair instead, much like he did at our old resort.

This was our bedroom, which was really nice.  All those older photos over the bed had Disney characters in color popping into the various scenes. 

This was the kitchen.  We had a full size, free to move kitchen with an island at the other resort, so this felt...cramped.

This dinette was behind me in the picture above.  It was nice, but for most of our time there the table was completely full of stuff because there was nowhere else to put it!

This was Jacob's bed folded down out of the wall.  I love Murphy beds and I think they're more comfortable and practical than fold-out couches (his bed stayed out the entire week which left me without a spot to sit most of the time unless someone shared the bed).

This is how it looked folded up.  It's pretty slick, actually.

On the bright side, we did still have a balcony, although it was smaller and only had a couple chairs instead of the full table of four we had.  But I couldn't complain about our view!  Disney Springs was right across the water!

Funny that we've ridden a boat past this a dozen times and never imagined we'd stay here.  It was actually a bit of a bummer we didn't have more time to take advantage of the location, because we could have walked to Disney Springs from here!  I will say I was a little annoyed that the patio chair height wasn't ideal for the railing height.  You couldn't see much when you were sitting because the top of the railing was right at head level.  But I was happy to see that we had Mickey head railings because I enjoyed those our last two trips and this year's Old Key West room didn't have them.  But this room did and it made for a fun picture!
   

We tried to settle in and get reorganized as best we could that night.  Everything felt a little crowded, especially in the living room with both boys' beds out and Jacob's ever-present pile of clothes around his suitcase.  I was also trying to think through how our morning was going to go as far as packing up and having our luggage picked up, while also trying to make the most of our time and explore the resort pools before it was time to grab our airport shuttle.  It was just hard to wrap my brain around at that point--what needed to go in which bag, and whether everything would fit since we were tight on the way there and had picked up some souvenirs on the way back.  We wouldn't be coming back to the room after the pool, so we had to have everything we'd need with us before being reunited with our luggage for the shuttle.  I didn't want to do a ton of reorganizing at the airport, so I was trying to be thoughtful about it all. 

The next morning was a lovely one.  I drank my last grocery-order Starbucks Frappucino on the patio and tried to soak in the view.

Hard to see, but the Cirque du Soleil theater is hiding behind that pink flowered tree.

We got in our suits, packed up our backpacks with a change of clothes and whatever other carry-on items we needed, and headed off to pool #1, hitching a ride with the bellman who was taking our luggage to be held for our departure.  The waterslide wasn't quite as cool as the sandcastle, but it looked fun and this pool was pretty quiet!

The water was a bit colder (even compared to the cooler water post-hurricane rain at Old Key West) and the slide was a bit slower than the sandcastle.  Carter practically stopped at the end. 

 

I still flew in pretty good, so go figure.  The lifeguard said that bathing suit materials seem to have an impact on speed, but it was odd that it was so much different at this one since we both flew on the Old Key West one.  We had a good time riding this one with no lines for probably 20-30 minutes before Carter decided he was ready to go to the other pool.  It was a pretty easy, less-than-10-minute walk across the lake in the middle of the resort.

I will say the resort was pretty.  It didn't really have the same vibe as Old Key West, though.  I get enough of upstate New York at home.  When I'm in Florida, I want full-on Florida, which Old Key West is--tropical plants, palm trees everywhere, Jimmy Buffet playing at the pool (RIP--sad and ironic he passed away when we were at Old Key West listening to his music daily).  This was nice, but it didn't have the same tropical spark.

The main pool was really nice.  There was a zero-entry spot (on the right) with little knee-level fountains shooting out, a splash pad, and two hot tubs. 

And of course, one big water slide hidden in the rocks!

That slide was better for Carter but super slow for me.  I don't get it!  But we did that a bunch of times and tried to enjoy our last bit of warm water pool time.  We knew ours back home was long past being warm enough to swim in, so this was likely our last hurrah for the year.  Oh, and did I mention it was an absolutely lovely day?  It wasn't even super hot.  Granted, we spent most of the morning in and out of pools, but it didn't feel oppressive at all.  Made me wish we were staying an extra day!  The good news about this pool was that it had a good amount of shade, which the Old Key West pool didn't most of the time.  We regrouped in our shaded chairs and dried off about an hour and a half before we were set to get our shuttle, which by the way was way earlier than we were hoping for.  Our flight wasn't until 4pm and our shuttle was coming at 12:50.  Between other resort stops, other passengers' departing flights that were likely earlier, and getting through long security lines, I suppose that's just how it had to be, but count that as one other time I wished we had a rental car!  We wrapped up at the pool and got changed, and thankfully all the wet stuff fit in our carry-on backpacks in plastic bags, so it looked like we'd be good to go for fitting everything despite our souvenirs.  As I sat on a bench waiting for the boys to return from the changing room, I took a photo to post displaying the very "Disney" behavior of fitting in every last bit of fun and going to the airport with hair still wet from the pool!

Happy, thankful, and--for the moment--relaxed!

We were a little torn on what to do about food.  We'd have time to eat at the airport and given that we were flying through dinner time, it seemed better to eat later, but we knew the Chick-fil-A we ate at on our way in was closed as it was Sunday and we weren't sure what else might work for Jacob.  We went to the quick service restaurant at the resort, which was actually combined with their store where we bought a souvenir for Craig's mom, and grabbed snacks.  I got a chocolate croissant I'd been eyeing up all week, Carter got the most amazing cupcake, and Jacob and Craig got a couple snacks.  In retrospect, we just should have eaten there, or at least Jacob should have.

We headed toward the shuttle pick-up area, but of course had to take this photo op on the way.

At the shuttle pick-up spot, I decided we should just make the departure photo like we did last year a tradition, and we asked the bellman (who we tipped handsomely earlier because no one had change) if he could take our picture.  He wasn't the best photographer, but he did get a good one.

 
I might need to brighten it up for use on our Christmas card or something, but at least we have one full family photo that's not a selfie!

We loaded up on the shuttle and headed off to the airport.  I thought it was fitting that we were essentially racing a monorail down the highway along the way.

It will never cease to fascinate me how people that live in that area co-exist with Disney World.  From the monorail tracks along the road and the Skyliner going overhead, to the constant presence of tens of thousands of tourists and signs of Disney everywhere (not to mention Universal and other tourist traps), it just amazes me when I see all of the houses along the roads and realize how many people live there--and actually have to because Disney is a massive place to staff--and just live around the "magic" every day...although I'm sure it doesn't feel very magical most of the time.  Disney really does amaze me with its efficiency and how it really is its own little functional community.  When you think about how many people have to move here or there in a day, how many buses are running at any given moment, how so many things appear seamless and simple, and how they easily run multiple coaster trains, often on multiple loading platforms, when Six Flags can't be bothered to run more than one...it just amazes me how they've got so much of it figured out.  It really is a bit magical and does feel like a world away.  I don't blame Jacob for not wanting to leave the Disney bubble--I get it, it's actually super sad to leave that little piece of utopia no matter how frustrating it can be at times or how exhausted you are--but I do think there are times when staying in it can be a different kind of challenge, hence why I think we're ready for a rental next time around!

The airport was not without its share of annoyances.  Carter's and my bags got put through extra security checks--mine because I forgot to take out my laptop, and Carter's because his bag had a bunch of little electronic stuff in it, including our mini fans.  Then we realized there was no way to get from our terminal to the other terminal with all the restaurants, so Jacob was sort of out of luck with food.  Carter and I ended up grabbing Shake Shack while Craig and Jacob wandered around to find him some snacks to get him through.  Starbucks to the rescue, again.  The boys left me alone across the aisle so they could all sit together and play trivia on the plane screens.  I watched "Something's Gotta Give", which is an old favorite I haven't seen in a while, and then switched over to trivia near the end of the flight.  I almost beat them in a head-to-head, but I didn't make it into the tournament for the first question and got the last one wrong, but they only got it right because they'd already had it before.  No fair!  The flight was a bit rough because there was a crying baby for at least the last half hour, and then the jet bridge malfunctioned when we got over to the gate, so we were stuck on board for another 10-15 minutes.  But we were back.

We ended up grabbing Mighty Taco on the way back to my parents', then stayed the night so we could spend Labor Day with Craig's parents, since the day we got back was Craig's dad's birthday.  I had really wanted that extra day to unpack and get my bearings before heading back to work on Tuesday, but I know we made Craig's dad's day.  I also got a new Bills' shirt and two bottles of wine for my own birthday.  It was a lovely day outside and I should mention that we were greeted with a few hot, Florida-like days when we returned, unlike last year when the weather was cold and crappy when we got back.  That weather came later in the week, just in time for Carter's first fall soccer game.  We finally got home around 9pm Monday night, and I spent the next two hours unpacking.  I'll get more into the challenges of our return in my next post.

It had been a pretty crazy trip, one I wasn't sure was actually going to happen, which ended up being pretty darn great against all odds.  It was a trip that wasn't supposed to be a thing at all, managed to become a thing, and then was almost ruined by COVID and a hurricane.  Yet it still chugged along and overcame everything, and now it was over.  Back to reality we went...

The Little Trip That Could - Disney Day 6

Saturday morning was a bit hectic.  I had to get up early to get Carter and me set up for our virtual queue for Guardians of the Galaxy at 7am.  In retrospect, I should have bought Genie+ right off the bat as well, but we'll get to why that was a mistake later.  The other complication that morning was that we had to completely pack up to have our bags moved over to Saratoga Springs around 10am.  That meant packing up everything, running the dishwasher, sorting through our remaining food and fridge items, and having it all ready to go when we left.  Carter and I got out the door a little before 9am.  I'm happy I remembered to take a picture of our villa on the way out.  We were in the upstairs one to the left of the palm tree and stairs, tucked in there where the one porch light is just visible around the corner.  Looks lovely, doesn't it?

While we were starting to explore EPCOT, Jacob finally got his waffles:

The boys opted not to go to EPCOT because there wasn't as much there that they enjoyed, and preferred to use that day as an extra resort day.  They split the rest of the day between Disney Springs and our new resort, giving us a couple previews over the course of the day--including a picture of a snake they saw on the sidewalk!  

Carter and I got to EPCOT and as usual, I couldn't go by Spaceship Earth without taking a million pictures.  The way the light bounces off the angles is so amazing, day and night.  

Our first stop was Club Cool.  We had missed this last time, and I discovered after our trip that you can get free samples of Coke products from other countries...including one completely awful one.  I had clued Carter in that I had a surprise for him here, but didn't tell him what.  I figured going early would help us avoid the crowds, and we had a fountain all to ourselves.  We worked our way from right to left.

We loved the Sprite Cucumber from Russia, and Country Club from the Dominican Republic was really good, too.  Carter didn't like the Sour Plum Tea one from China.  Then we got to the end...it was time for Beverly.  Beverly is an aperitif from Italy.  It is super bitter, and it's a tradition for parents to trick their kids with it.  At the last minute I had a change of heart and figured we'd suffer together, though he had no idea what to expect.  

We were endlessly amused by how bad it was.  Even with my taste issues I could tell it was really, really bad.  Carter kept burping it back up, even though we tried to chase it with some of the better flavors.  

Our first ride stop was Mission Space.  We did the crazy G-force orange mission first, which was so intense, maybe even more so after a bunch of bubbly beverages.  We played some of the games at the end and then went right back around and walked right on the green mission.  I do love the more chill float above earth in that one, but orange is definitely more exciting.  I still wish there was a way to skip all the pre-ride stuff once you've already done it.

On the way out of the ride, we found this funny Chewbacca backpack in the store.  We didn't buy it, but considering Craig's big Chewy find on this trip, we thought it was fun!

We wanted to ride Test Track next door, but the line was too long.  I really should have just bought Genie+ at that point, but I didn't...and by the time I wanted to, most of the good rides were done and had no slots left.  Next time, note to self: just get Genie+ first thing and be done with it.  

We wandered back around and headed toward the pavilions on the other side of the park.  One more pic (or five) as we passed by.

When we headed toward the Journey into Imagination pavilion, we saw Pooh!

Inside, I finally got a good picture of Figment!  With all the movement on the ride, it's hard to not have blurred ones.

We played with some of the activities after the ride and made our own Figment, one of the few emailable things we actually did get.  I was a bit bummed that the upward fountains outside weren't on this time.  But I still caught a nice picture anyway.

As usual, we had some fun with the jumping fountains!  The sun had emerged after an overcast morning so Carter took it as a chance to cool off and let himself get a couple direct hits!

We decided it was time to start working our way through the World Showcase, although we knew we'd probably get called for Guardians of the Galaxy before we got too far, much like last year.  We started in Canada, where the Chateau Frontenac-style building is under refurbishment.  I had seen that was happening a while back but I was hoping it would be done by now.  Oh well.  Yay for another different picture...ha.

We checked out the store, which was home to Jacob's giant, beloved bear from 10 years ago.  The  store selection was a little disappointing this time, actually, not that we could have fit the adorable mountie stuffed animals in our luggage anyway.  I decided we should try something different and do the 360 Circle Vision movie.  I thought Carter might like the round screen (it's like one step short of IMAX or the amusement park dome films from 30+ years ago--you almost feel like you're moving) and figured he would recognize a few things between Niagara Falls and Toronto.  We actually had a lot of fun talking about the various places in the movie, from the cities that Craig has traveled to, to stadiums that Carter is aware of from video games, to the places we've been.  And there was a cameo from the 2019 NBA Champion Raptors, which was extra cool!  And at the end they played the song that I remembered from the Disney World soundtrack, probably from the original version of the movie, which made me smile.

Next it was on to England and it was Carter's turn to get pictures in the phone booth.  

He also liked taking a picture with this guard, and also had one where he was making faces at the guard to "distract" him!

Then it was time for France and Ratatouille.  Once again, this would have been a good time to buy Genie+, but I didn't.  Even still, we only waited about 45 minutes or so, most of it air conditioned, which I think was similar to last year.  

We love the ride and didn't have to worry about it making Craig or Jacob dizzy this time!  It's so cute.

We walked through Japan and saw the drum show...

...and then got to Germany where we bought a giant pretzel to share.  I was hoping to make up for my miss last year by finally buying the blown glass Mickey ornament at the Christmas store in Germany, but alas...they only had ones with Santa hats and I wanted one of the generic colored ones so I could display it all year.  That was a bummer, but at least I didn't have to worry about getting it through the park or home in one piece.  

It was around that time that we got our Guardians virtual queue call, so we rushed through all of the other countries as we ate and headed right to the ride.  We were pleasantly surprised that the indoor line was considerably shorter than it was last year.  We got to skip a couple full sections that we previously had to wait in.  About 15 minutes into the wait, the older guy behind us asked if we had ridden the ride before.  We said yes, and that we loved it.  It turned out he was a Philadelphia native who moved to Florida, lives an hour away by the beach, and has an annual pass.  He said that he will often take a meeting in the car, come to a park, ride a couple things, and go home.  That particular day he brought his significant other with him, as she had never ridden Guardians and he said she needed to!  We had a really nice chat with them as we found out he went to the same college as my dad and therefore had some knowledge of Western New York, and when I told him about our sports connections we talked about hockey, lacrosse, and baseball.  We had a really nice chat until we got to the two parts near the end of the queue where you're in big rooms and it's easy to get separated.  I lost track of them once we got into the final line where they send you off to the trains, but by some miracle, not only did we end up on the same ride, but we were also in the same car--and the front one no less!  Earlier in the line he asked Carter if he wanted to know where the on-ride camera was so he could do something silly, and Carter declined, but he said he'd do something funny for us.  We had also talked about the best song to get on the ride--we had "September" last year, which he said was one of the best but he barely gets it.  I wasn't sure if I wanted to try one of the other ones or just add to my love of "September" from last year, so it was a big moment near the start of the ride when the music started.  And sure enough, it was "September" again!  The ride was just as awesome as we remembered it.  It just makes you smile so much!  And this time I knew who the characters were and how it worked with the storyline of the original movie.  It was so great!  I wished there would have been Lightning Lanes available by that point because I probably would have bought them on the spot.  This was our on ride photo:

It was a nice way to remember our fun chat in line to have them in our picture.

At that point we decided to bite the bullet and ride Test Track despite a 50 minute wait.  We hopped in line and it moved nicely, and then all of a sudden we just didn't move for about 10 minutes.  There had been announcements while we waited about possible weather in the area, and this is one of the first things to close when there's rain.  It was extra annoying because for once there wasn't a high chance for rain, and yet the moment we got in this line, all of a sudden there was imminent rain?!  Ugh.  Once they announced an official delay (though I'm not sure if it was weather or something else, because we continued to hear the cars on the test track outside), some people did get out of line, but unfortunately not many of the people in front of us.  Fortunately it didn't last long, and we moved again a few minutes later.  I was still worried about weather hitting before we got to the front of the line, but fortunately all went well.  We designed our car and once again felt rushed to get it done on time.  And we still don't know what works best!  We always feel like we need about two more minutes to do it justice.  

Our car actually didn't perform quite as well as last year's, but we had a fun ride and I was thankful to get that one done.  

We were hungry again so we worked our way back through Mexico and got ourselves some churros!  They were so good!

I decided we should make it a goal to get a good picture in every country, something different than before.  This was Norway.

Sadly the line for the Frozen ride never really went down, so we ended up having to skip it.  That was a bummer as it's a cute ride and I would have liked to do it again, but my Genie+ lesson has officially been learned!

Next up was China...

We wandered through the shop there, grabbed lemonade slushies at the Outpost after that, and constantly kept an eye out for a bunch of little Remy (the rat from Ratatouille) statues that were scattered around the countries.  Apparently it's some sort of scavenger hunt, maybe for the Food and Wine Festival.  We didn't find them all, but we did see a bunch.  

We took this picture in Germany...

...and this one in Italy.

I finally did a better job getting the ball in the center in Japan.

This was in the Japanese garden.  If you zoom in, guess who's in the background?

We briefly heard the Baha Men do "Who Let the Dogs Out" as they were performing live near the American area, and then moved on to Morocco.  Since I had been taking so many pictures of Carter, I had him take one of me near this beautiful fountain. 

We worked our way back through the other countries we'd already been through and popped ourselves back out closer to The Land.  We grabbed this picture on the way, and I just thought it was cute how Carter was mimicking Groot!

And I wanted my picture with Figment, my favorite from way back!

And of course, the final picture in our Disney 100 series!

We headed to The Land to ride Soarin', which was delightful as always.  I will always be grateful to that ride for being my one adrenaline rush from the trip where I was pregnant and couldn't ride any of the good rides!  I suggested we ride the Livin' with the Land boat ride just to give our feet a little more rest.  I know it's not the most exciting thing, but I do like seeing all of the crops, like these weird things--I think they're melons?

Next up was The Seas.  Of course we needed a picture in the shark's mouth!

I always love seeing what's in all the tanks.  This was a creepy but cool lionfish.

I loved this pink fish with the pink coral in the background.  The pattern on the fish was so cool.

The manatee top viewing was closed and this might have been the first time I hadn't seen them getting fed.  This one was just hanging out on the bottom, which was also something I don't remember seeing.

The dolphins were pretty active in the big tank.  Imagine our surprise when this happened.  The guy next to us was pretty shocked, too!

We moved around the corner and I got this shot.

 

I was also intrigued by this mostly black clownfish!

We saw the usual creepy eels and devil rays and sharks.  I always love looking at the tanks.  I wish we would have had a little more time for Turtle Talk with Crush, but we had a few more things to do.  On our way back around to grab some dinner, I snuck this picture of the new Moana Journey of Water exhibit.  You could just get glimpses through the fake shrubbery walls they had up.  You could see some of the water features and little bits like this.  Days after we got home I started seeing lots of videos from annual passholders getting their previews.  

It was starting to get dark outside, and I was eager to get a bunch of pictures of the lighted ball.  This little bit of uplighting they had looked so pretty.

I think it was around this time that we rode Spaceship Earth.  It's not the most exciting ride, but we enjoyed watching our little on-ride video of our vision of the future based on a quiz we took.  I don't think we ever got our emailed version, unfortunately.  Carter and I each took a turn on the car driving game at the exit, too.  We decided at that point that we needed to eat some dinner.  We only snacked all day, and while I think we were mostly over the big meals by this point, we wanted something more than a snack.  We opted to get pizza since two slices came in an order and it looked like one would be enough for each of us.  It was really good and definitely hit the spot, as did the endless refills of pop.  I tried not to spend a lot on drinks during the trip, but I really wanted one for that meal, and it was perfect.  Unfortunately, the timing of dinner meant we missed any possible sunset shots, but we did come out to this!

And this...

... and this.

We moved around the ball as they put on a light show, and I couldn't stop taking shots.  This was a fun one, with the old EPCOT logo.

We had mostly only seen the light show from a distance last year because we were doing other things, which meant I mostly only got pictures of one color scheme after the fireworks, so I wanted to make sure I got my fill this year.  I did...though I could have sat there all night.

We brought our drinks around to another spot farther away to get a different view, and found a bench right across from Moana, which looked really pretty lit up. 

I also caught this sort of artsy shot of the Monorail passing above our heads.

This one ended up being a screen shot off my phone because I loved this color palette and how it sparkled, but only accidentally caught it for half a second at the start of a video I didn't mean to take, and it ended too quickly in real life for me to get a photo.  

It was such a pleasant evening to just relax on the bench to kill time until fireworks.  I took the opportunity to change into my sandals as we sat, because I've decided my feet must swell by the end of the day and my sneakers get uncomfortable.  The sandals were great, but either way I was ready to wrap up the night.  I think we did somehow save ourselves five miles off last year's EPCOT day, but I still doubled my Move goal and ended up with a perfect week of closing all three rings on my watch every day we were there!  One more video before we walked:

We ended up walking back over to the big souvenir shop because Carter was still looking for something.  We wandered around for a few minutes and could hear the fireworks starting.  He quickly settled on a Star Wars toy that was pretty cool--a spaceship with Luke and Yoda that was surprisingly reasonable--and we quickly paid and headed back outside to get a glimpse of the show.

We wandered back out front before it was over to get a few more pictures before we had to leave.  If you look close on this one you can see the ball lights reflecting off the blue.

We walked out to the same color palette I caught a ton of pictures of last year, so I didn't belabor it.  I caught a few and we headed out.  

Despite our best efforts, we ended up on a super full bus and had to stand, but at least we didn't have to wait for another one.  It felt so odd that for the first time ever we were not on an Old Key West bus--we were on our way back to Saratoga Springs!  It was a little weird going back to a resort and not knowing where we were going, but I was interested to see our new digs for the night.  And since our last day was a little shorter, I'll leave you in suspense and save that for the last post!