Tales From the Minivan

They’re the ones sporting a Sobey’s bag as a fashion accessory! (You may recognize this knee slapper of a joke…I think the older version was “How do you spot a Maritimer in the Toronto Airport? They’re the ones with a Sobey’s bag as their carry-on luggage!)

I know…GROAN! I just had to do it! This bag has come in so handy today! I’ve used it to carry all of our frozen water bottles, and it’s fits perfect in the basket of our Joovy Caboose. I was a little panicked as I realized this morning that I forgot the canopy to the stroller, but there is so many shaded areas at Disney, I made sure when Finn was in the stroller he was in a shaded spot. Otherwise he rode on my back in the Ergo.

We had a fabulous time at the Magic Kingdom! The boys got to meet a couple of characters, but it seemed like we were always arriving just as the characters were leaving. We did manage to get a few shots of the boys with Jiminy Cricket. He was always my favourite to get my photo taken with, since he was always around my size.

We split up a few times as Katelyn and Andrew wanted to ride some of the bigger rides, one being Space Mountain. Liam was adamant that he was going to ride it too and did to my amazement! While they were on Space Mountain we took a back pathway to Mickey’s Toontown Fair. I was hoping that the boys would get to meet Mickey Mouse. Ciaran went into his house, but didn’t want to wait in line, and once the others got back from Space Mountain everyone was hungry, so we forgot to go back and get that Mickey shot! I’m still really disappointed, and I’m hoping we’ll get to see him on our next day at the parks! Finn got to play in a nice little area for toddlers and made friends with a little girl from Ohio.

We grabbed some Fast Passes for Peter’s Pan’s Flight then headed to the Columbia Harbour House for some lunch. Chicken and Fish & Chips were on the menu and hit the spot! We refilled our water bottles before heading back out to Liberty Square to the Haunted Mansion. Just as we were about to park the stroller, we were told that the Haunted Mansion was temporarily unavailable. Liam had a bit of a meltdown, but it was quickly diverted with a duck outside “It’s a Small World” back in Fantasyland. No Disney trip would be complete without a ride on It’s a Small World, so off we went! The kids loved it, but I think Andrew’s Mom loved it the most! Once we got off, we went back to Liberty Square and The Haunted Mansion just reopened as we arrived, so we had no wait at all!! Liam wasn’t impressed and Ciaran held my hand tightly for the entire ride. Supposedly it’s “New and Enhanced”, but it’s the same old HM that I remember! Finn didn’t let the ghosts bother him and he took advantage of the lack of light and fell fast asleep.

We still had a few minutes left before it was time to use our Fast Passes for Peter Pan, so we stopped for a cool treat. I was a little excited to use our Drip Stiks! These things are so great! I really don’t like the mess that icecream and popsicles make, so normally I avoid them at all costs. If anyone watches the show on TLC, “John & Kate plus Eight” last season they took all of the kids to Disney for the first time, there was a scene in the episode where Kate kind of freaks out when the little kids are getting all sticky and the icecream was melting all over them. I could totally relate with her, and probably have reacted the same way. Anyway after seeing that, I said, I will definitely bring our Drip Stiks with us on vacation. They are really lightweight and fit into our backpack, so when it was time to have an icecream, or popsicle, I would be prepared!

Here’s a shot of the boys enjoying their cool treats, mess free, and a shot of the rest of us with our icecream (you can see Finn asleep on my back).

After a few more rides including Splash Mountain for Andrew and Katelyn and Big Thunder Railroad with myself Liam and Ciaran, and Pirates of the Caribbean for all of us we were off to Epcot and a Monorail ride.

Epcot Center is my old stomping ground. I worked in this “Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow” for over a year in 1992-1992. Epcot is divided into 2 separate sections, Future World and the World Showcase represented by 11 different countries including Canada. This is where I worked and it was great to be able to bring my kids to see this. Ciaran however fell asleep on the way over and missed the new version of the “O Canada 360 circle vision” movie. It was finally updated last fall, well overdue, seeing it was outdated back when I worked there! We then walked around the World Showcase Lagoon and got to watch the nightly Fireworks and laser light show called “Illuminations”. I sat down and nursed Finn during the show, and munched on a Turkey Leg, while the kids enjoyed some popcorn and smoothies. We took our time leaving the park, knowing that traffic can be quite heavy and it worked out perfectly as our cars were easy to spot when we arrived at “Daisy row 28″.

Here’s a shot of a sleepy Ciaran and Epcot’s infamous “Spaceship Earth”.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 16th, 2008 at 8:51 pm and is filed under Family Travels. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.