July and October reports...and in December, the end of this era

[bumbershoot]

I got my very own pictures of this. And, of course, got to see it for myself.

Yay.

By the way, see the shirt? Pew pew. Saw 'em. Bought 'em. Two sizes.

Fun theming.

Dreary!

teehee.

We managed to just barely catch, for the first time, the Just Add Water show. It was really cute. And at the end there was this big "clump" of mist/fog that went floating across the water.

And that's when I saw the control booth for it.

I don't remember Santa Flik being up there.

E pretending that the decoration is the Indy boulder.

Once again, E got to ride the "bumper cars" while Robert and I sat in comfort outside.

Sniffle.

Am I leaning, or is it the tree?

Some days the Hollywood area backdrop looks REALLY real. The sky is the same color as the backdrop, and it's nearly seamless.

This day was NOT that sort of day.

Made the facade for Monsters really pop, though!

Helpful fashion hint thought of while in line. If your "yoga pants" have a run in them, they aren't yoga pants, they are TIGHTS. And you should be wearing a skirt over them. Just so ya know, oh stranger in front of us.


At some point, Robert needed to take a break. We were also hungry, and having serious issues deciding what we wanted to eat. I finally snagged a veggie burger to go from Taste Pilots, and they got pizzas from Pizza Press on our way out. It was all most delicious.

I think maybe the Ramada Maingate had some other theme going on at some point, since this is on one of the buildings.

Eamon swam, I knitted while sitting on a lounge chair, Robert napped.


I have no pictures (unless they are on my phone), but we did go back later on. We had thoughts about the fireworks, but ultimately decided to not do that. And actually they might have been canceled, we're not sure, since we were in the Star Tours building at that time.

We had dinner at Hungry Bear, snarfing down fried green tomato sandwiches. Alas, I'm still dealing with something that happened with my very first bite. They have these little green stick things in the sandwiches (same things they put the fruit on for the Mint Juleps). The cook put it in diagonally, and I didn't know it, so I bit straight down onto it. I *swear* it moved my tooth. It hurt SO MUCH. Oh man did it hurt. What IS it with us and damaging ourselves? The food was still really good, but OUCH.


There were other rides ridden, I just don't have a record of them. Splash, Pooh, etc etc, we did a lot. Didn't get to small world, but that's OK. I'm not a fan of the Jingle Bells version AND the lines were awful every time we got back there during our trip.

 

[bumbershoot]

12/2. (I was confused earlier)

Now I remember...we got up a little later this day, and it's definitely busier when you do that.

A little tiny detail.

Pretty decorations up high.

A very cropped picture because there was so much else going on in the picture.

Even drearier!

And then, suddenly, as a Seattle-friend of ours puts it, the bright yellow fear-ball appeared in the sky!

I am madly in love with this.

If anyone out there knows the Almaden area of San Jose, CA, and if you know that I grew up there with some friends living in OLD Almaden, then you know that this feels just a bit like home to me.

Just a crazy-weird quality of light in the sky.

We saw McQueen moving!

Decorations.

 

[bumbershoot]

Cuteness.

Themed decorations in Ramone's (?) shop.

Last minute decision to ride the Jamboree. I got a little focused on one part of the line while in the holding area.

All of that stuff above reminds me of my own back yard growing up. Tiny little house, with a BIG amount of land around it. Used to be orchard and farmland until the developments went up around it. When my mom remarried, it turned out the stepdad was a collector of...things. So we had old stuff all over the backyard and he was always doing *something* with old radios, etc.



The padding isn't really seamless, LOL, but Eamon felt MUCH safer.

Later on....

This was, supposedly, a 50 minute wait for Space. (hint: it was NOT)

Dramatic clouds, though!

Where are the people?

This backdrop made me want to see the movie. Or be in the movie? Something, it made me yearn for...something.

Ever since playing the Indiana Jones pinball game last October, I've become a fan of photographing pinball games. They are so intricate! This is the POTC pinball game in the arcade.

 

[bumbershoot]

Eamon really wanted to see Captain Eo. Alas, by that time, the theater was closed so the CP people could rehearse. That was a bummer; the guys were going to see it while I did ANYTHING else. (I can't imagine ever sitting through Eo again...I found it to be atrocious)

And so we went into Innoventions. Where we experienced the ASIMO exhibit for the first time.

It's possible I was in a discontented mood, because I found it to be extremely difficult to enjoy. The CM was working so hard to be entertaining and to keep the story going, but I just wanted to see an exhibit.

The set, however, was cool. A friend of mine just bought a house in the mid-20th century style of design, and I bet she would LOVE the design.

How bored to I have to be to notice this in the middle of a presentation?

The guys liked it, though. So that's good. Maybe I was just discontented. Not sure.


E did some dancing along with MJ.

Got outside, saw another 5 minute wait for Autopia. Hey now, what?

He was fully hitting the stick. He was fully OVER that mark that day. Same shoes, not that much earlier than it was the day before. Well, OK, he had been on a flight the day before, but still, WEIRD. However, the CM who could see his physique, agreed that he probably would still need to be taller to reach the pedals. And it was true. So sometimes, just because you are tall enough doesn't mean you are tall enough.

And about a week after we got home, he grew ANOTHER half inch. I have the marks on the wall to prove it.



I think that from there we went to get places in line for the parade. It's the only parade I like.

By this time, however, I was hungry. Felt like I was starving, really. I was trying to be careful with food, since I didn't want to backslide and, quite frankly, the two big sandwiches we had had the day before had made me feel far too stuffed, along with popcorn, etc. So anyway, I hadn't really had enough food. Innoventions meant that our plans for more fried green tomato sandwiches before the parade wasn't possible.

So anyway, we found spots (which is really unusual for us...we waited about 40 minutes...seriously unusual), and I nearly had a tantrum, and Robert ran off to get me popcorn and a Vitamin Water to save my blood sugar from plummeting. My hero. I ate ALL the popcorn in record time. I did, however, control myself with the Vitamin Water, and only had a third, then shared with the guys. They shared a pretzel.

Before the food, I was whining about the crowds and the wait and the rain and everything, and was trying to ruin our plans to see the parade. Robert stayed firm, knowing that it's my fave, that I had planned it, and that we really did have to stay for it. Thank goodness he did that.

Sure, it was the rainy-day version of the parade..no one was really dancing, they didn't do any stops, Mickey and Minnie weren't skating...but they sang the song (over and over and OVER again) and looked happy and it made me happy and I was very very VERY glad. Again, my hero.


Then we moved along and went to Hungry Bear for us, then French Market for Eamon, and moved along towards the end of our trip.






And here is our LAST picture of the trip.

It's a blurry one of the CP setup. Turns out it wasn't used, as it was canceled that night because of the rain. That's a bummer.

We, however, moved along and went to the airport and went on home. Sniffle.

 

[bumbershoot]

You know, I just remembered that I completely forgot something. On the last trip, I saw Maynard. He was working crowd control and I passed right by him. He's a semi-famous CM who can engage you in conversation and silliness like no one else can. I was glad to see that he was still around.

And also, I got a refund for that purse I bought which broke the first day I used it. The cash went straight to my souvenir fund for WDW/Universal.


And THAT is the end of the story

 

[kaoden39]

Hi Molly!

I would love to meet Maynard!! You lucky bug!

I am glad to hear that you got your money back.


Do you have a pre-trip report?