Disney World - Hollywood Studios

Day 4 at Disney World meant our fourth park - Disney's Hollywood Studios. Unfortunately, we were later arriving at the park than we had planned. Chuck mentioned printing the touring plans each morning... Well that meant going into the business center of the hotel each morning with his jump drive. He had left his jump drive in a computer the day before, so when we went this morning to hopefully retrieve it, it was quite an ordeal. Let's just say the lost and found was kept on the complete opposite side of the property and the security personnel where not the brightest or most helpful in finding the correct item. After a 45 minute delay, we finally got his jump drive back and headed to the park.

They have this American Idol Experience where you can go through the process of a trying out for AI. There are even shows throughout the day. Chuck was a good sport and went to tryout because his sisters really wanted him to. He didn't get past the first tryout, and was relieved because it would have wasted his whole day at the park to do all the other parts.

Disney Playhouse was our favorite stop at California Adventure when we were in Disneyland in CA. I don't know if they have changed the one out there yet, but at DHS they used newer characters like Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Little Einsteins, the new Winnie the Pooh, and Handy Manny. It was great. My girls loved it. Afterward, they got to see some of the Little Einstein characters which they both adore.

Leland and Lucy with Leo, June, and Quincy from the Little Einsteins.

During that time, Chuck got to go on some fun adult rides - Tower of Terror and Rock 'n' Roller Coaster. It was nice for him to get to do that since during the entire time we had annual passes to Disneyland, we never road on Space Mountain or Thunder Mountain because we always did kids' things. He loves Tower of Terror and did well at not talking about it in front of me because the pregnant lady couldn't go on them.

Voyage of the Little Mermaid show was a horrible waste of time. It was very disappointing that Chuck described as Disney's worst show ever. On the other hand, The Beauty and the Beast show was very good. We were able to get 2nd row seats due to preggo in the wheelchair, which I thought were great. While waiting for the show to start, Lucy entertained us with her best Daddy impersonation.

Most of our crew booked it out of Beauty and the Beast to make it to the Lights, Motors, Action Extreme Stunt show, which was on the complete opposite side of the park and began 10 minutes after the B&B show ended. I had to stop at the bathroom and, obviously, was not as fast as the others, so arrived a little late. I tried to call people in our group to find out where they were sitting in the huge stadium, but no one was answering their phone due to the crazy amounts of noise. I finally got a hold of Chuck, but couldn't really hear what he said. Luckily an usher who could see that I couldn't find my group told me exactly where the other 17 people wearing the same shirt as I was were sitting. Matching shirts do have benefits.

We also checked out the Studio Backlot Tour which is a guided tour about movie special effects.

Toy Story Mania! was the coolest ride of all week and the only real ride for kids at DHS. It is an interactive 3-D game where you go room to room stopping in front of midway-style games shooting your cannon. Since we were so late, we missed riding Toy Story with the rest of the family in the morning, but came back later to ride. Lucy was asleep in my arms when we got onto the game, then all of sudden woke up and grabbed the gun to start playing.

We went out to Chevy's again for dinner that night. This time with the Hock's and Conley's. They were impressed with Lucy's Mexican food eating skills - the girl can put down some serious chips & salsa and refried beans. We also celebrated Tiffany's birthday again with a sombrero.

Disney World - Magic Kingdom

Our third day at Disney World was spent at the Magic Kingdom. This was Leland's favorite day for two reasons - she got to see the princesses and it was familiar to her because it is very similar to Disneyland.

Before I report on our day, I want to put out a good word for the Unofficial Guide to Disney World. My mother, the world's greatest tourist and tour guide, purchased the book before coming and she read up on all the secrets of having a great trip (even during my law school graduation as documented in this picture). The best part of the book is their "patented, field-tested touring plans that save as much as four hours of standing in line in a single day." Each night, I would get online, put in which park we wanted to visit and the date and it would generate touring plans with instructions of what rides to do and when. We would print them out and and carry them with us each day. Thanks to these guides we hardly ever spent more than 10 minutes in any line all week long. If you are going to Disney, you need to buy this book.

For the Magic Kingdom, the Unofficial Guide has a touring plan entitled "Dumbo-or-Die," which is described as follows: "The Dumbo-or-Die Touring Plan for Parents with Small Children is an (in)famous single-day plan designed for parents who will withhold no sacrifice for the children. On the Dumbo-or-Die plans, adults generally stand around, sweat, wipe noses, pay for stuff, and watch the children enjoy themselves. It's great." Because we were going to spend two days in the Magic Kingdom, we were able to take the Dumbo-or-Die plan, add in some adult fun, and do it all in a more relaxed "southern style" as I like to describe it.

In the morning, we finished all of the children attractions in Fantasyland, including Dumbo, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, Cinderella's Carousel, Peter Pan (Lucy's favorite), It's a Small World, and Snow White's Scary Adventures. The favorite to most of us was Mickey's PhilharMagic, a 12-minute 4D movie starring Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. 4D means the movie is in 3D, but then their are different entertaining gags, such as actual water shooting out from the seat in front of you when it happens on the screen.

Then we headed to Mickey's Toontown Fair where we saw Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Belle together. In the last few years, Disney has really figured out how to maximize these character experiences. Our family was part of a group of about 25 that was ushered into a room (come to find out there are three identical rooms) with all three princesses and the door was shut for us to each have time with the princesses.

After finishing the kids' adventures, we headed over to Adventureland. We stopped at one of my usual favorites, The Enchanted Tiki Room. WRONG! In one of Disney's poorer decisions, they have revised the classic great into a excruciating annoyance by giving "control" to Iago from Aladdin and Zazu from The Lion King who "are trying to spruce up the show." The result is poor songs that don't have any resemblance to the traditional perfection I used to love. Tiki Room was Leland's favorite at Disneyland and I think she was even disappointed. (These pictures are from Small World which both the girls loved.)

We then headed on to Splash Mountain. Leland was very excited that she was tall enough to do the big rides. At the very beginning of the ride, your log/boat rides past the big drop to get a good view of what is about to come. When one of the logs come down, Disney adds in some fake splashing for everybody to see. The splashes are completely random and aim in different ways. Well, the first log we saw resulted in a fake splash that got us fairly wet. After we all laughed for 10 seconds saying it was refreshing, the next log came down and their fake splash sent a tidal wave that completely soaked us. Not an inch of my or Leland's clothing was dry. Later, we watched and most logs don't get hit by any of the splashes and some get one splash, but we had two! The splashes prepared Leland and she loved the ride. I had prepared her for the drops throughout, but she was still nervous for the big final one. But she absolutely loved it afterwards. Getting wet was great because it seemed to re-energize Leland, who had been pretty worn out by then.

Next we rode Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. I was amazed at how much Leland loved this one. I started a bit nervous because the lap bar didn't even come close to hitting her legs since she was sitting right next to me, her 260 lb. father. I held one arm around her waist the whole ride. Even though she was loving it and laughing so hard, when I took my arm off her waist at the end, when we were not quite to the station, she said, "Dad, don't let go okay?"

Out last ride before nap time was Pirates of the Caribbean.

That evening, when we came back we rode both Splash and Thunder twice before hitting the Haunted Mansion. We finished the day sitting in front of Cinderella's Castle to watch the fireworks. (Ashley took this picture with her cell phone. It ended up being the best picture we had of the fireworks.)

Disney World - DisneyQuest

After returning from Animal Kingdom to our hotel, we put the girls to bed early, left Grammy and Papa to watch them, and headed to the DisneyQuest Indoor Interactive theme park. Basically, it is a five-floor arcade on steroids with everything inside being free.

We did all sorts of virtual reality games - some lots of fun (the pirate game) and some not at all fun (Aladdin's magic carpet game). Chuck's favorite was the NASCAR racing game. I beat everybody at this weird futuristic bumper-car/hockey game that nobody really understood. I also beat Hock at basketball (35-19). I think he was a little ashamed to get beat by the prego, but he also was wearing his son in a front pack, so I cut him a little slack. It was very loud inside and I was exhausted, but overall a fun night.

Please ignore all the goofy facial expressions. This is what happens when sleep deprived parents get to go out without their kids to an arcade.

Disney World - Animal Kingdom

On Tuesday, May 12 (Tiffany's birthday!), we went to Animal Kingdom.

Out of all the parks we went to I think Animal Kingdom was my favorite. Despite the massive amounts of walking that it required because it is the largest acreage of all the parks. There were a few specific things that made it stand out to me - sitting right next to a giraffe, seeing 4 tigers very close up, and the Lion King show.

The first thing we did was Kilimanjaro Safaris, which "provides the chance to see African animals including giraffes, black rhinos and lions, as they roam the 100-acre savannah in the Africa area" of the park. We say plenty of animals, but we got very personal with a giraffe who stood right next to our vehicle.

Unfortunately, we have no pictures of the tiger experience because it happened all of sudden and then we were too mesmerized to remember to take pictures. We were just in the right place at the right time. For some reason, the Maharajah Jungle Trek was nearly empty when we went in the afternoon. After stopping at the first overlook of the tiger area, which was empty, we overheard a park worker talking to a little boy and his family that the tigers were getting ready to be moved from one area to another and will be passing by the window at any minute. He asked the boy to count to make sure all 4 tigers came through the tunnel. It was really neat to see the 4 tigers slowly walk right in front of us because you usually just see them sleeping in the distance. If there was no glass between us we could have reached out and touched all of them.

There were these great maps that showed you what animals to look for in each area. Leland was quite the tour guide (just like her dad) and would tell us what we were trying to find and where to go next. It was so cute.

The other highlight was the Festival of the Lion King show. It was part musical, part parade, and part circus. We had front row seats due to me being pushed in a wheel chair (there were some perks to it).

At the beginning of the show, a few people were pulled from the crowd to participate - Leland being one of them! Each of the 4 sections of the audience was assigned an animal and had to practice making their animal's sound. Our section was the giraffe. Check out the video.


In case you couldn't catch the dialogue, it went something like this:
Woman: "Leland is going to demonstrate the sound that a giraffe makes. Okay, giraffe, go"
Leland: "I don't know what it makes?"
Woman: "I didn't know either, so I looked it up. A low bleating sound, like a sheep. Okay, giraffe, go
Leland: "Baaaa."

As the show continued there was all sorts of acrobatics, musical numbers, huge parade floats, and amazing costumes (like the Broadway musical). We have seen Lion King on stage and I felt it was just as amazing, only shorter.

The Lion King show was our last adventure of a very long day. Animal Kingdom closed at 5 PM, so we did not have time to go back to the resort for naps, but the girls were really good that day and loved every minute.

Other highlights from the day was the dinosaur ride and the kids meeting Tigger, Pooh, and Eeyore. (notice Lucy's sitting, silly girl)

Disney World - Epcot

We had the wonderful pleasure of going on a week long vacation to Disney World with some of Chuck's family. Chuck and 2 of his brothers-in-law graduated this year and we decided to celebrate big. We had 10 adults and 8 kids (all 5 years and under), fun times. We were quite a sight with all of our 6 strollers (and 1 wheelchair for the prego), especially on the days that we wore matching shirts.

The favorite thing for both of our girls all week was meeting all the characters. Lucy wasn't so sure she wanted to get close to them, so Chuck had her sit down next to the first few until she got comfortable with it. For the rest of the week, she would just walk up and sit next to them instead of standing close to them for pictures. We noticed in most of the pictures she is just sitting by them on the ground.

Mickey was the first character we met and Leland saai afterward, "He's just a really big puppet, not real." Check out her skepticism in her facial expression.

At Disney (all parks in FL and CA) there are photographers everywhere wanting to take your pictures. You carry a little card that tracks all the pictures taken of your family. We combined all of our pictures and you can order a CD of them all (no limit) for relatively cheap (if you get lots of pictures taken). Until I get the CD the blog will just have to contain our blurry, not as good pictures from our own camera.

Leland is now tall enough to ride a lot of the bigger roller coaster rides. I could not ride most of them since I was 34 weeks pregnant, but we both got to ride my favorite ride Soarin. It's a simulated ride complete with feeling the wind, rain, and even smells. You "fly" over different parts of California. It made me miss CA. I remember that Chuck and I rode it the day before we moved away from CA and it made me cry a little.

If you are wondering about Leland's blue arm, we wrote our cell number on the girls in case they got lost. The first day we did it when they were already sweaty so it bled. We had the system down - before going out and well before sunscreen - by the end of our week. It made me feel less panicked.

One thing that is worth hauling around every day is, a change of clothes for the kids. That way we had no problem letting them get soaked head to toe and have a blast playing in the water fountain areas. It was a great way to entertain the little ones while all the "big kids" take turns riding all the big rides. Lucy kept trying to catch water in her mouth, to the extent of laying down on her belly over top a fountain with her mouth over the water spout waiting for it to shoot water. I never got a picture of her doing it, because I kept trying to stop her. I thought she was going to get her tongue stuck in one of the holes.

After going back to our hotel for naps we returned to Epcot for the fireworks and water show. The show was really neat and Leland was mesmerized, but Lucy was a little weary of the loud explosion sounds and soon found her way into my arms. I was exhausted from walking all day and found a nice place to rest in the stroller. The rest of the week Chuck rented a wheelchair for me to be pushed around in. I didn't really like the idea of it, but he was pretty adamant about not wanting this baby born in Florida 6 weeks early.

Day 1 done, now 8 more to go.

Graduation

Our 3 years of Law School finally came to an end when Chuck graduated on May 9 (now he's onto passing the Bar Exam and finding a job). I am so proud of Chuck and all the hard work he put into his law school education. Our time at Chapman University and Washington & Lee University have been wonderful. We have sacrificed a lot, but have had a lot of fun, and have made some lifelong friends.

I had mixed feelings during all the graduation festivities. I was so excited for Chuck's accomplishments, but also sad that it was all coming to an end, having to say goodbye to friends and the reality of leaving Lex is approaching.

The first event of the weekend was the Awards ceremony and presentation of the walking sticks. (Read about the history of the walking sticks here.)


Afterward, we had a BBQ at our house for all that came to celebrate with us. We had Chuck's mom and dad, his niece Denim, my sister Christine and her family, my sister Suzanne and her family, my mom and her husband, The Croft family (Chuck's good friends from Stanford), and our friends the Rufeners. We had a lot of fun, all the kids (13 of them) ran around inside and out and we had lots of yummy food.

After the BBQ, we headed to the school for fireworks and dancing. Rain had been on the verge all day long, but had been holding off. The moment after the first shot of fireworks went off, the sky opened up and the rain poured down. There was a huge party tent set up, so everyone scrambled to get under it. The fireworks show continued and soon after they ended, the rain stopped. We danced and the kids enjoyed playing in the puddles and trying to catch the rain on their tongues.

Some of the pictures include - Chuck and his Mom and Dad - Chuck (& Lucy) and one of Chuck's best friends from Stanford, Tyler Croft (& Pierce). Also notice Chuck's crazy dad jumping in the picture in the background. He gave me a hard time about wanting to 'Photoshop' him out, I decided to leave him in for the blog. Hale, Leland, and Emily dancing. Leland trying to catch the rain in her mouth. Chuck, Lucy, and I dancing.

Unfortunately, because of the forecasted rain for the morning, the graduation ceremonies were moved indoors. So instead of graduation on the historic colonnade and Lee Chapel lawn (picture to the left), it was here in the stuffy, non-air conditioned gym. Needless to say, we were very upset about the move especially since it was actually a gorgeous day, with no rain and the clouds clearing about the time the ceremonies started.

The ceremony was nice and the commencement speaker was actually pretty interesting. We are so grateful for all those that came to support Chuck in his accomplishments. It was a wonderful weekend.

My mom brought little graduation caps for all the kids. I love this picture of Leland and Chuck.


Chuck and I with my Aunt Barbara and Uncle Rick who have been our pseudo-parents and grandparents for our girls while we have been in VA. The rest of the graduation party. Thank you to all who came to celebrate with us. It meant a lot to us both to have your love and support.

Just hours after graduation ended we started our celebration week, by packing up our family to head to Orlando for our 10 day Disney World and Florida vacation. Several more posts to come regarding all the fun we had once I take a nap and do several loads of laundry.