Our last day in the World. But we sucked every last bit of fun out of it that we could. Breakfast at Crystal Palace and visits with Pooh and friends (this time we got to see everyone). We went on Jungle Cruise hoping that when we got off the dream team would be there waiting for us to award us another night in Cinderella Castle. Didn’t happen this year unfortunately. We all kinda just stood there after getting off the ride waiting. I think we all said "okay, we’re ready. where are you?"

But we did go visit Daniel in City Hall. Daniel was our 2nd shift castle/park guide when we won last year. He’s very nice and so fun and gave us lots of tricks/tips on the rides (like how to get a high score on Buzz, that the last row on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad is the best/fastest, twirled us like crazy on the teacups, gave us all the turns and drops on Space Mountain before they happened so the boys wouldn’t be scared on their first ride on it). He had been on a Disney cruise when we first arrived in the world this trip so we were happy we got to see him before we left. Not to be outdone by Jeff’s gift of 10 fastpasses, Daniel gave us 15 more!! So we rode everything that whole day without waiting. It made for a super special last day. 

We had our last dinner at Tony’s Town Square (love that Pesto and bread) and left the park around 7pm. It was another Pirate and Princess party that night so that meant there was no Wishes that night. Which was sad but probably for the best cause I always tear up watching/listening to it– and being our last night, I woulda definitely lost it.  

Did all the souvenir shopping that day in the MK and then again later that night in the POP gift shop. Packed up and got ready to leave. We tried to see Camie and family on the trip, but it just didn’t work out. Hopefully next year- if we go back that is. The magical express was really great and our luggage made it home fine (unlike last year, where they put our luggage on a different flight). And while it was good to be going home I would’ve much rather stayed at Cinderella Castle instead.

Hoping we’ll be back next year. Bye, Disney. 

Another late start to the day, but we managed to get ourselves over to Epcot in the early afternoon. Went on the Finding Nemo ride first thing, followed by Turtle Talk with Crush. The Nemo ride was cute but not really a whole lot to it- I thought the beach theming in the que area was better than the ride itself. Turtle talk was so great- very interactive. The boys all sat on the floor up front and Patrick got picked to ask Crush a question (the dude in the green and white shell. He asked Crush if he ate any species in the ocean.) and they really dug it. We visited the little aquarium set up they had and saw some cool fish.

At Jack’s request we ate lunch at the cantina in Mexico- and it was really, really good. Even Timmy liked the chicken and chips. While Timmy napped by the lake with Daddy, the big boys and I braved the 75 minute wait for Soarin’. They did have good games to play on the screens while waiting, but it was still a loooooooong wait. The ride itself was really good (Jack didn’t even mind the orange smell wafting in while we were flying over the California citrus farm), but we will definitely have to fast pass that one next time. There were no fast passes left by the time we got there. Live and learn. We also went to the "Honey, I shrunk the audience" show, where the boys had freaked out when they were little. Timmy did pretty well but didn’t like the "mice"- neither did the big boys this time either- or the snake. But we went over to the cool jumping water fountain thing right after the ride and that was so fun. Timmy got a little wet, but not too much. 

We went to Teppan Edo (habachi style) for dinner in Japan. The food was good and Timmy liked the steak with dip. Inatome here is much better, though. Heard Off Kilter playing on our way around the world showcase- they were really good. Picked up a pin from Norway for Jack’s assistant teacher and did some sightseeing before going back to "Epcot" (which is what Timmy calls the big ball that is spaceship earth) and finding the sparkling streets and the fiberoptic designs in the sidewalks. If we had gotten there earlier, we would have hit more of the attractions, but we were tired and done. Had some fun taking some shots in the numbers back at the hotel. One more day to go….

Even though we celebrated Timmy’s birthday every single day we were at Disney, this was his actual birthday. Still cannot believe he’s three! Spent today back in the Magic Kingdom which is really all of our favorite park out of all of the World. We ran into Jacque again on Main Street in the morning and she gave us a private meeting with Cinderbrella for Timmy’s birthday. Timmy was very excited to see her again (the big boys…not so much) and had lots to tell her about what we had been up to so far on our trip.

We went back to all of our favorite rides, especially Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin. On the way to Tommorrowland we met Push- the talking, moving garbage can. Definitely one of the hightlights of the trip! We had so much fun talking to him and listening to him burp everytime someone threw some garbage away in him. He was a real kick!

Patrick was really brave this year, all gung-ho about the big rides, and even riding things like the speedway all by himself and always going "arms up" on all the coasters. And as I’m sure you’ve noticed, the kid will not smile with his mouth open cause of his 4 missing teeth in the front (all across the top). But, I finally caught one shot with his mouth open cause he was laughing so hard in the teacups.  

It was a great low-key kinda day but we thoroughly enjoyed it. Had to have some Mickey birthday ice cream, of course. The boys bought Timmy some "pirate guys" action figures which he opened that night in the room after we sang happy birthday to him. And some birthday pixie dust from Tinkerbelle herself.  

Since the night before was so super late (everyone didn’t get to bed until around 1am) we took it kind of slow and went over to Hollywood Studios, aka MGM on Wednesday, February 6th for a not so jam packed kinda day. We can usually do HS in half a day, so this was perfect. 

The big boys and I rode Star Tours after watching the Jedi Training Academy show. We tried to get Timmy picked for the show, but I think he was still too little. But I know that he is a real pro with the lightsaber after all that practice at home whacking his brothers and he could’ve handled Darth Vader no problem. But since then we have been practicing the moves at home (activate. cut to the shoulder. step back and duck. cut to the other leg. cut to the head. deactivate.) and he’s got it all except the activate part. He’ll be ready next year for sure.  

We also caught a few characters while John and the big boys went to the artist academy to draw. Mater and Lightning McQueen were big hits with Timmy- this was his first time seeing them in person. It’s hard to hug a car, but he managed. We also saw Woody and Buzz- TOGETHER! He was sooooo happy about that. And I made it a point to thank them both for 2 great movies that we watch almost daily.

The big boys caught up with the Incredibles (aka Uncle George) and here is a picture of Jack discussing the fact that Uncle George looks just like Mr. Incredible and how I did the pictures of the two of them together. Mr. Incredible seemed to find it quite amusing. 

We all went over to the Indiana Jones Stunt show which was so much fun. Everyone was pretty rivited and they really enjoyed it. The boys cracked up quite a bit, and Timmy was doing that "heh, heh, heh" laugh when things blew up or people got shot. He really enjoyed "Indiana JOOOOOnes". It’s too bad he’s still too young for all of these movies (star wars, indy, pirates of the carribean) cause he would love them. We had dinner at Prime Time Cafe where I had the BEST chocolate milk shake. Ever. It was delicious. And the man at the table next to us was very, very funny and very misbehaved, so they made him wear a "Mr. Trouble" dunce cap. Hysterical. And John got a "clean plate" sticker since he was a good boy and ate all his food.

We got back to the hotel at a reasonable hour this night and I took a few shots of Timmy in the 0’s of the years outside the main building and some by the 3 of the jukebox to celebrate his birthday which was coming up the next day. Stay tuned for day 5’s report tommorrow.

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In other news, I worked my butt off today at home. I set up some goals/projects for myself around here cause things are driving me crazy being out of place and messy. So over the last two days I have: cleaned out the big boys room (including under their beds, cleaning out their nightstand, removing the firehouse and tons of stuffed animals), cleaned out and organized all of the upstairs bathroom’s double vanity, medicine cabinet, and 3 vanity drawers, cleaned out Timmy’s closet, cleaned out the closet/stairway up to the attic, and started the big switchover in Timmy’s room to his new "superman big boy" room. I bought the big boys a new dresser for their room which should be here next Friday- so I will clean out their closet then. And tommorrow I’m planning on taking down the crib and putting up Timmy’s new bed. I will post pictures on that asap. Changing his room over was really kinda sad. With the big boys, I couldn’t wait. But with Timmy, I’m missing the baby that he was. He’s getting so big! No more baby stuff. Sad. 

I think possibly our favorite day on our trip. We had breakfast at the POP food court (yummy Mickey waffles and omlets) and spent a good deal of the morning at the "bowling pin pool". So cute, the whole thing looks like a bowling alley, complete with "lanes" on the sides of the pool. In the early afternoon we took the bus over to the Magic Kingdom- no rush today since we had tickets to the pirate and princess party that night- where the park would be open until 12am. On the bus, we met three super sweet Japanese girls who we ran into in the park later in the day a few times. Even got our picture with them (on their camera). There was an obvious language barrier, but we made ourselves understood- especially discussing sushi. Met a few characters on Main Street and ran into Jacque who was one of our dream team members from last year (I think this was actually the 3rd time we ran into her on the trip so far!). She was as sweet as ever. The boys and I rode Big Thunder a bunch of times. We were squished in the same row so these were the best pictures I could get. But I really love them- they just show the whole spirit of that ride!

We spent some time hitting a few rides, the boys took some pictures of me, dodged the water spitting tiki heads, had some more laughs on the teacups (the big boys used to call them the "teapups" so that’s what they still are in our family) and went to Cinderella’s Royal Table for dinner. Before going in, Patrick and Timmy got pirated-up. Timmy LOVED his mustache and beard! And you gotta admit he was the cutest pirate ever. Jack didn’t want to participate. He scammed Patrick’s eyepatch later in the night though once he found his "inner pirate". The wait was looooong to both see Cinderella and to get seated. None of us were particularly pleased with that- especially since it made us miss the Pirate/Princess parade. We met the "new Nelson"- the chef from the restaurant who holds a strong resembelance to our chef. Even got him to pose for a quick picture with John (who is smiling because he had recently taken a Percoset).

There were virtually no lines for any of the rides and we rode everything all night long- including Big Thunder 4 times in a row while John took Timmy on Buzz 8 times in a row. Of course, we did Pirates of the Carribean a bunch of times too along with Peter Pan. We were even lucky enough to see Peter and Wendy for pictures. We caught some singing cowboys on the way back from Big Thunder and they were really good! The boys loved their songs.

The original plan was to have John take Timmy back to the hotel after the Pirate fireworks (which are the BEST fireworks show ever)at around 10pm, but we were all having soooo much fun, that we just kept going. We hit the last showing of Captain Jack Sparrow’s Pirate Tutorial- that was so funny and cute. Patrick got picked as a pirate and got a certificate and everything.  All the boys were huge troopers and we were out in the park until closing at midnight. By the time we caught a bus and made it back to the hotel it was close to 1am. Timmy only just fell asleep on the bus 5 minutes away from the hotel. Maybe he really is a pirate at heart!