* Disclaimer - This may quite possibly be my longest entry to date.
The second part of our September vacation was another trip to Disney World.
The lines were longer then we had experienced in April, but we spent our days with a more relaxed pace then our previous trip, so we weren't too bothered by it. I was really nervous about taking Tyler this time around, since he is now completely mobile and has his own ideas of what he would like to be doing. I should have known better though, he is such a good boy! He rode happily in the stroller and was content to be held in the lines. He was obviously more aware of what was going on this trip and he really enjoyed going on the rides and looking around.
Timmy remembered where everything was and knew exactly what he wanted to do. We went straight towards Buzz Lightyear and rode it multiple times the first day. On one of the later trips, Tyler got all excited and started moving his arm around in a weird way that looked like he was hurt. But when following his gaze, we realized he was staring at Buzz Lightyear himself, and mimicking the holograms arm position. This Buzz imitation was done on his own whenever he saw Buzz, and about half of the time when someone requested he "Do Buzz".
We spent a lot of time in Tomorrow Land. Another highlight besides Buzz was Stitch. We took Timmy on the Stitch Adventure, which he didn't particularly enjoy, but he did decide he liked Stitch and kept talking about meeting him. We figured out where he would be and went to wait for him to show up. Timmy was so excited to see him and talked about him for the rest of our trip. When it was time to pick out a toy, he knew he wanted a Stitch stuffed animal, and he is still sleeping with it!
We eventually made our way to Adventure Land and my parents met us there around dinner time. The boys were so excited to see them! We all walked around a little more after dinner but we were pretty worn out so we called it an early evening. You can see that the boys were wiped!
The next day we went to Epcot. It was Sunday, so there was a Redskins game to watch later in the day, so we stuck to the front part of the park.
Timmy was very excited to meet the characters this time around. He was still very diplomatic, the only character he wanted to see him with his Donald hat on, was Donald!
Tyler cracked me up when meeting the characters. He would get so excited before it was our turn to meet someone, pointing, smiling, and waving. One of the photographers got a picture that perfectly captured his reaction! But when it was our turn he would cling to me and not let me out of reach. He would wave, give high fives, and even kisses when prompted, but he'd be clinging to me the whole time. Then as soon as it was time to go, he would be crying and pointing and trying to go back to the character again!
When Tim, his dad, and Susan headed out to watch the football game, my parents and I took the boys to be secret spies! They have a really cool interactive game that you use a cell phone to get instructions and you foil the plans of the evil scientist from Phineaus and Ferb. First we saved the day in Mexico, meeting a few characters along the way (who I had to tell Timmy had secret spy clues to get him to be interested). Then Tyler and I rested while they saved the day in France. After a delicious dinner, Dad and I watched Tyler enjoy a British Band Cover Band while Mom and Timmy saved the day again in England!
The next day we went to MGM, which we especially enjoyed this time around. We were able to sign Timmy up for Jedi training classes.
I asked Timmy repeatedly if he needed to go to the bathroom before his training started, but he insisted that he didn't. As soon as the training started, so did his potty dance. I picked him up on his way off the stage, ran him to the closest bathroom, and carried him back, arriving moments before Darth Vader appeared. Timmy still managed to defeat him, even without the proper training, once he had some help turning his light saber on.
Later, we were taking a snack break by the Honey I Shrunk the Kids playground, when Timmy said, "Hey, I just saw the Wicked Queen." I looked up just in time to see her skirt go out of view through an archway. I asked him if he wanted her autograph, and he said yes, so I grabbed the book, camera, him, and we ran through the opening. When we came out on Main Street USA, we were suddenly surrounded by characters! It was awesome, because it was not a scheduled thing, so there were actually very few other people around. We ran from one character to the next getting autographs and a quick picture. The best part was they were characters that don't have regular locations, so they are unusual autographs to have. There were so many that we were forced to double up autographs on pages and to buy a new book the next day!
We lucked out that our only truly rainy day was the day we went to the Animal Kingdom. We also lucked out there, arriving to shows or being ready to sit and eat right before down pours. This severely limited photo-ops for the day though (maybe luckily!) but we were still able to do everything we wanted to do there. We did go straight to the safari and we really lucked out with how active the giraffe's were.
Back at Epcot the next day, we spent most of our time touring the countries. Even though Timmy enjoyed meeting the characters this trip, he still wasn't sure about meeting princesses, or anyone that could actually talk to him. While walking back to the countries we suddenly saw Rapunzel and Wendy Darling signing autographs. I was able to talk Timmy into getting their signatures. Rapunzel tried her hardest to get him to talk but he was completely silent. Wendy told Tyler that he had a lovely hat, so he handed it to her, and she admired it accordingly. Tyler was much happier meeting them then the other characters.
On our second day at the Magic Kingdom we managed to fit in everything we had missed the first day.
Timmy had a new challenge to face, Daddy wanting him to go on all the big boy rides! He was excited to go on Thunder Mountain, which he called the run away train, but he did get pretty nervous during the ride. Splash Mountain was harder to get him to agree to. I'm sure it was because of how he could see the mountain itself. There was one false start at getting in line before Tim bribed him with earning a Pirate's Gun. Timmy parlayed that by adding two Pirate Swords before agreeing to go on the ride! He said he liked the rides but never wanted to ride them again. He was quite proud of himself, and his new toys, though.
For our last day we went back to MGM. Because Timmy had missed half of his Jedi training, we signed him up for it again, and he was able to complete the whole thing. We also managed to get him onto Woody's Round Up five times that day, which is just about physically impossible, because it is the most popular ride in all the parks and the one ride in all of Disney World that they don't like to give out child swaps for. I felt like an excellent parent for getting him that many turns!
Also on our last day, Tyler met Piglet. I had actually left Tyler in the stroller and was just planning to have Timmy get Piglet's autograph, but when it was almost our turn Tyler started fussing and pointing. We got him out, and he walked right up to Piglet, turned, and sat on his lap! He was perfectly happy to be there and I had to tell him multiple times to say byebye and come on! Interestingly, Piglet is the character that Timmy first felt comfortable with on our trip in April!
We also met Buzz and Woody, and Tyler was just as excited as Timmy.
Tim had one more ride in mind for Timmy, the Tower of Terror. I thought he was crazy, but Timmy was tall enough, and we saw other kids his size getting into the line. We asked Timmy if he wanted to go on an elevator ride, and he looked at us like were were weird. I explained that the elevator would go up and down super fast, and he got excited and started bouncing around saying he wanted to go. He actually did really well with it... I never heard a scream, but he held both of our hands, and he shook terribly with each drop, but then he was fine on the way back up and the pauses. Afterwards he bounded out of the ride saying how awesome it was repeatedly, and when we showed him the ride again from the outside, he was in disbelief that he had just been up that high. Five minutes later his chorus changed from "That was awesome!" to "That was so scary!" But he was very proud when he told everyone else about riding it!
My parents joined us for our last afternoon in the park so they were in on all the excitement too.
After Tyler's comfort level with Piglet was so high, I was determined to get him one more visit with Mickey Mouse, and I was so glad that I did. It was the last stop we made before shopping our way out of the park!
On our way out of town the next morning we stopped to see the model home of my parents new house. It is going to be really nice, and I was glad to see it in person while we were there. It was such a great vacation, I am looking forward to sneaking in one more Disney World trip before our passes expire, next spring!
