Day 4 - Epcot

Hindsight is always 20/20, and today my hindsight tells me we should have switched our touring strategy with the Animal Kingdom day.  Yesterday we got to the park by 11:30 and wanted to die from heat exhaustion.  We wanted to learn from that experience and decided to get to Epcot after the heat and crowds were over.  When got to Epcot at 4 p.m., we found that almost everything we wanted to do was indoors.  I've been kicking myself for so many hours that it's starting to really hurt.  

Since we were planning a late start, today ended up being mostly a pool day for the kids.  I have to say, it's been absolutely fabulous to have the pool connected to the living room.  The boys got in at 9 in the morning and didn't get out until about 3, and still were asking to swim again after we got home tonight.  We had been advised to stay on Disney property by a well-traveled friend, but I have to say that the pool has made it worth the inconvenience of being off property.  I can't say enough good things about renting this townhouse.

I took a trip to the local Target to stock up on groceries, bottled water, swim goggles for the boys, etc.  I also bought a cheap umbrella stroller for Zack - he is 1000 times less whiny now that he's not walking.  Although in true childlike form, he had the audacity to complain that the foot rest on the new stroller was hurting his feet.  Yes, the child who was carted around all day like a king in a chariot was complaining that his feet hurt.  I'm sorry, sir, does your bottom hurt from sitting all day, too?  

Darcey found a Mickey Mouse doll at Target that she loved playing with.  I had to buy it for her, not only because she made it clap its hands and dance, but also because I found her chewing on its foot in the cereal aisle.  This Target knows its market - it has an entire section devoted to Disney merchandise and park survival items, such as the water bottle fans that were an outrageous $16 each at the park but only $6 here.  I bought 3 for the boys and proceeded to watch Brad spray himself in the face for five hours straight, lapping up the water as it came out of the bottle like a deranged puppy.  But it made him incredibly happy, and that's what this trip is about, right?

After my store trip, I made lunch for the family then watched Darcey destroy the house.  While I was cleaning up her spilled juice on the table, she was writing on the glass doors with peanut butter.  Which led to her dumping a bag of cereal on the couch, and later throwing grapes randomly around the room.  This all happened in the time period when she would normally be taking a nap, so I'm attributing her behavior to some kind of slap-happy, so-tired-she's-wired kind of mood.  Whatever the cause, it nearly drove me to the very edge of sanity.  I always get extra cranky when I have to be a parent instead of a person enjoying a vacation; doing the dishes and the laundry and cleaning up other people's messes (people who asked me IN ALL SERIOUSNESS why they had to clean the house when it doesn't belong to them - because living in filth for a week is apparently just fine with them), while said people are cavorting in the pool and waiting for their lunch to be carried out to them.   I've realized, not happily, that moms don't get to go on vacation, they just get to be moms with different scenery.

Epcot, when we finally got there, was great.  Yes, it's the largest of the Disney parks so yes, there's a lot of walking, but once you get where you're going, everything is inside which means... AIR CONDITIONING!!  Maybe Disney is closer to the Orlando dome idea than I thought!  We did Mission: Space (the non-spinning version for me, spinning for the rest of the fam) and I really enjoyed it.  Too short - I could have done several more minutes of that ride.  Ryan and the boys did Test Track.  We saw Living With The Land and Ellen's Energy Adventure shows.  The kids amaze me with their attention span - all four of them sat quietly and watched all of the energy show, which was 45 minutes long!  Maybe if church were done with audio-animatronics, they'd sit through that a lot better, too.

While Darcey and I waited for Test Track to be done, I let her play in a splash area.  I had learned from Animal Kingdom, when she played in some dirt and got absolutely filthy, to bring a change of clothes, so I didn't mind if she got wet.  Streams of water popped out of the ground and most of the kids were jumping around and splashing each other.  Darcey, however, decided to test the limits of her digestive system by drinking the water out of the puddles.  Gross!!  I kept stopping her, but then it just turned into a game, so I dragged her away to her stroller to get changed.  Which is when I discovered that the pj's apparently did not make it into my backpack.  Sigh.  

It didn't seem like a lot of rides, but it sure ate up our time in a flash.  We headed back to World Showcase to grab a spot for IllumiNations, the fireworks/laser show.  While Ryan held down the pavement for 30 minutes, I took the kids to a show called Impressions de France.  IllumiNations was good - we had a decent spot right on the lake and near the exit, but there was a banner that happened to be just exactly positioned to cover where the spinning globe thingy stopped.  Three feet to the left and we would have been perfect - in fact, Zack's view from his stroller was perfect, but by the time we realized that we couldn't see, there were people 4 deep behind us.  So I'm guessing that cool stuff happens on the spinning globe thing, but I wouldn't know.  That's okay - we were right above a little pavilion where a wedding reception was taking place, and that was fun to watch, too.  

Saturday's plan is Epcot again, although I want to do all the shows in Future World that we haven't seen yet, and Ryan wants to explore World Showcase.  We might have to spend three days here, which is just fine because, as I may have mentioned before, AIR CONDITIONING!!