Thursday we got up and told the kids the big surprise for the day. We were having breakfast with Mickey at Chef Mickey's. Hunter was...psyched! Our brunch was scheduled at 11am so we had a quick pre-breakfast and got to the park for early open hours (yet another perk of staying on property- you get extra hours). Our goal for the day was the entire left side of the park- Adventure land, Frontier land, and Liberty Square. We hopped on the train that goes around the park and went straight to the back to the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. Coleson and I had a blast on that. I don't think I'd written about our big trip to Space Mountain on Monday. Coleson, Hunter, and I hit that together. It was Hunter's first real encounter with a roller coaster. He loved the Star Wars-ish feel to the interior. But the farther we got on our walk to the center, and the deeper enveloped in darkness we became, the more nervous he got. He was NOT impressed with the speed, dips, or dives of the roller coaster and left there firmly set on never doing a roller coaster again. (Now that I look back at it, I'm really surprised he even got on the coaster to begin with instead of making me take him back out to the safety of the sunlight). So Coleson and I did Big Thunder Mountain and then when we went out to catch up with the rest of the family, we saw the Woody (from Toy Story) was just arriving at his location for autographs and we were going to be second in line!!
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| There's Coleson and me- the red and blue blurs in the second train car. |
We had snagged a photo op with Buzz earlier in the week and now the gang was complete. By then it was getting close to breakfast time, so we rounded everyone up and headed out. We got on the monorail and rode the 5 seconds over to the Contemporary Resort where Chef Mickey's is located. We got our picture taken while we were waiting and, being total suckers that we are, we bought the pictures when they brought them around to show us at breakfast (a total marketing gimick- that worked). But the picture came in this cute folder with info about Chef Mickey's and it included 2 recipes from the restaurant- making it totally a good deal now that we got a folder with it :)
Breakfast was DE-LI-CIOUS. It seems like I've written about my love of excellent breakfast buffets before, and this one ranked among the best. Lots of variety, excellent quality, all freshly made (not sitting under a heat lamp for untold hours). We had just finished filling everyone's plates when Minnie came out to start the show. She, Donald, Goofy, and Pluto got everyone excited and cheering for Mickey.
The characters came around as we ate breakfast and we got to spend a few minutes with each of them. They talked with the kids and asked questions and said funny things. The kids loved it. 
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| Mickey was especially concerned about Ethan sucking on Coleson's sharpie- which was really funny :) |
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| Goofy was especially silly!! |
When we got back over to the Magic Kingdom, we stopped in some shops on Main Street and heard some whispers about Ariel (ironically) appearing at a location very nearby in like 5 minutes (she was the only princess Katie hadn't seen yet and really really wanted to see). So I did some asking around and we did some scurrying over there and we were the FIRST people in line. Turns out that was because it was an hour and 5 minutes- not just 5 minutes. But oh well.
We didn't tell Katie what we were waiting for because we wanted to see her surprise. It was awesome!!
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| This was her telling Ariel that she can sing just like her :) |
As we started off again, we came to Frontier Land and a little theatrical show with Captain Jack Sparrow and they were asking for children volunteers just about the time we stopped and Coleson got called up on stage. He loved it! Hunter didn't want to go, but he was having fun watching Coleson do it.
We went through the rest of the areas we wanted to see and enjoyed those. We went over on the big paddle wheel boat in Liberty Square which was really more for Jared, but we all enjoyed it. While in Liberty Square we found a cute little Christmas shop and bought a few souvenirs for our trip. We got a Christmas tree ornament and a cute little Mickey Santa cookie plate and mug set. Next it was over to the Haunted Mansion which everyone thought was pretty spooky from the outside, but ended up thinking was pretty funny once we got inside. As the day was winding down, we had to decide what we wanted to do last. All week Hunter had been talking about going back over to see Buzz Lightyear again and do the space shooting game again. Good thing there was no line, so we did it twice more. Happy Hunter.
We really hadn't planned on staying until 8pm that night when the park closed and it was time for the closing parade, but we were having so much fun and didn't want it to end. We didn't have any jackets with us and when the sun went down, it got quite chilly. But the mood was so exciting and we just couldn't leave yet. The parade was pretty fun and everyone really liked it.
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| Ethan spent about half of the vacation right here in this spot and the other half on daddy's shoulders. He would grab hold of Jared's ears or eyes and use them as reigns to hold on. |
The ride back across the lake on the ferry boat was just plain cold. When the boat docked we ran to get warmed up again. We had been so busy the last part of the day seeing all the things we wanted to see that we hadn't eaten any dinner (plus we'd had a huge late breakfast so we hadn't been too hungry), so we stopped and had dinner at the lodge of our resort. Everyone climbed in bed happy and tired and a little bit sad to see our vacation coming to an end because we'd been blessed with another perfect day.
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