Life as a Leach

One fun place in Epcot is The Sea.  They have lots of rescued animals, and this is also where you will find the Finding Nemo ride.  Caleb got a "Mine! Mine! Mine!" shirt here, if you know that quote from Finding Nemo! This dolphin did some pretty cool tricks.  He could match pictures his trainer held up with pictures across the tank.  The audience was able to cheer whenever he got one right--which was all of them! After much searching and deliberation while planning for our trip, Caleb decided that he really didn't want a character meal.  He finally chose The Coral Reef, which is a seafood restaurant known for its huge fish tanks, divers, and the occasional underwater visit from Mickey! Sadly, we were as far away from the fish tanks as we could possibly be in the restaurant and there really isn't a place where you can walk up and look at them.  The divers stop being in the tank at 6:00 and our reservation was at 7:30. ...

One of the "must dos" of Disney World is a character meal.  Yes, they are ridiculously overpriced.  Yes, the food is usually mediocre at best.  Yes, children often scream in terror at the sight of their "favorite" Disney character up close and personal.  But it's the experience ...or something like that.  :) We had done two character meals last time we were in Disney World, but this time we just did one that Abby chose (Caleb chose a different kind of meal, which I'll share in another post).  We visited Akershus in Epcot's Norway for a late breakfast/early lunch.  The food was surprisingly pretty good (it's hard to ruin breakfast food), but we felt very rushed.  Nevertheless, Abby got to visit her princesses and there were no characters with heads for her to panic over. Snow White was definitely Abby's favorite.  She was very personable and spent much more time with her than any of the other princesses. Caleb enjo...

While a lot of people on the Disney Facebook groups I'm a part of suggested that Epcot might not be very interesting for kids our age, it was actually our favorite park overall!  Everyone really enjoyed visiting the countries, and Soarin was the #1 favorite ride of the entire trip, with Test Track being a very close second! One fun activity they have at Epcot is a bear decorating section.  You can color the bear, who is the mascot for Epcot.  Then you can get a stamp at each country you visit.  All of the people who work in that country are actually from it, so they also usually tell you something interesting about the country.  The girl in Japan wrote their names in Japanese characters, which they thought was pretty cool. One of Abby's special souvenirs was picking a pearl in Japan.  We had heard that the uglier the oyster, the more beautiful the pearl.   The theory holds true, because Abby got a beautiful silver pe...

Photo Dump Alert!!! Minnie was dressed up as Elsa! This picture does not do the decorations justice.  Everything was beautifully decorated for Christmas!  I highly recommend going in the beginning of December.  It wasn't crowded and it was gorgeous! Goofing off at Tinkerbell's house Main Street Another Memory Maker Magic Shot.  I love their expressions! This was our best family photo--I just wish it had been in front of a prettier backdrop than The Mine Train!

Caleb's treat for the day at our second day at Magic Kingdom?? \ A cookie the size of his face!   After this, we put stipulations on what the treat could be!  This monster was nibbled away at even after we got home.  It stayed fresh in a Lock and Lock container, of course. :)