December 2008
December was busy - a lot. We each finished classes with good results (yays for A's!). We visited all of our families across New York and Connecticut. We ice skated with James - lots of fun and no falling :-) Jess finished up making a photo calendar with a bunch of cousins for my grandma - she did a really good job. We finished off our Christmas shopping with a little time to spare before...vacation at Disney!We spent almost a week at Disney World visiting, riding, seeing, and eating all over the place. We started off in EPCOT, riding Spaceship Earth, Living with the Land, The seas with nemo and friends, Turtle talk with crush, The seas aquarium, and had dinner at Teppan edo with delicious food (shrimp/steak/mushroom stir-fry, filet mignon/mushroom stir-fry, udon noodles/vegetables, ginger chocolate cake, and green tea pudding).
Day 2 was Magic Kingdom where we rode Space ranger spin, Stitch's great escape, Space mountain of death, Wave of american flavor with creative great food (berry smoothie, angus chuck bacon/cheddar burger on oat bun, crispy spiced chicken salad with apples and grapes, and vanilla glazed pinapple/raisin baklava/zucchini carrot cake and chocolate mousse/lemon corn breas/blueberries with vanilla frozen yogurt dessert flights), Train, Haunted mansion, Splash mountain, Philharmagic, snack at the Main Street Bakery (frozen latte...mmm), Swiss family treehouse, Jungle cruise, Carousel of progress, Spectromagic parade, Wishes fireworks, Big thunder, Pecos bill's (chicken wrap), and Peter pan.
On day 3, we returned to EPCOT after starting the day with mini golf at Blizzard Beach. Se walked through the country pavilions, sampling along the way: margarita from san angel cantina in Mexico, a Spaten beer in Germany, riding Maelstrom in Norway, watching fife and drum carols and the American adventure in the USA. We kept going out of the countries to see some more, Test track and Journey into imagination with figment, then dinner at Chefs de france (duck with honey sauce, sweet potato mash, and beans, grilled shrimp and scallops with cooked vegetables and rice mix, cooked apple cinnamon crepe with vanilla ice cream, cream filled pastry puff with ice cream). After dinner, we rode Soarin', stopped for a drink at Coke club cool samples, and topped the night off with the Illuminations fireworks show.
Day 4 was for Animal Kingdom, where we rode the Kilimanjaro safari, watched the Festival of the lion king, rode Dinosaur!, had lunch at Yak and yeti counter (kung pao chicken and frozen lemonade), watched the Finding nemo show, rode Kali river rapids, had dinner at Cap'n jacks on the water, cocktails at the new T-rex restaurant, watched the Yoyoshow.com performers, and capped the night with Cirque de Soleil La Nouba (blew my mind).
Our last day was at MGM/Disney Hollywood Studios and started off with breakfast at Starring rolls cafe (big coffee roll and bagel). We rode the Great movie ride, watched Beauty and the beast live, and I had my first frozen Coke. Next, we hopped on the Backlot tour and we got chosen for the crew in the Pearl Harbor preshow! Captain Andrew and his brave crew, Des and Anton from Essex, England manned a patrol ship through the attack while Jessica the mechanic, keeping us moving until a torpedo
breached the hull and doused her with 1000 gallons of water. After that adventure, we returned to one of our favorites, Star Tours, and then on to lunch at the Sci-fi Dine-In (excellent plentiful ribs, a great burger, vanilla milk shake, chocolate and peanut butter cake, apple crisp). We then watched Muppet vision 3D, played the new Toy Story Midway Mania twice (thanks to a generous Fast Pass collector who gave us 10 used tickets to share aound), then watched Fantasmic, the Osborne Festival of Dancing Lights (amazing - 3,000,000 lights over 2 blocks timed to music), then back to the hotel for some swimming and rest for our trip home.
The trip back was a bit of adventure too, as we got snowed in to Newark Liberty Airport and spent the night in the terminal, but we finally made it.
