best. day. ever.

Day 4 was my birthday.

My birthday wish came true.

The Pea woke up, sat up, looked at me with wide eyes, put her hand on her belly, and exclaimed "Mama, I feel bettah!"

Whoo! Hoo! We are off to Epcot!!!

From day one of planning I knew I wanted to spend my birthday in Epcot.  We hadn't spent much time there on our first trip and I felt like there was so much more I wanted to see and do, and that would be the perfect day to do it.  I wanted to see the Candlelight Processional and ride Soarin' and watch the fireworks...and that is exactly what we did.

The Animal Kingdom Lodge gets a bad rap when it comes to their busses, but we never had a problem.  Leaving the resort we never waited more than 15 minutes, and most of the time it was around 5.  On that morning we walked up to the bus stop as the bus pulled up to the stop.  I knew we were off to a good start at that point.  After arriving at the park and getting our rental stroller we headed to The Land for our "tickets" to Soarin. 

We rode Living with the Land one time, just for good measure, and then headed over to The Seas.  We rode Nemo, Talked with Crush again, and then happened upon the dolphin show.  After spending what seemed like an ETERNITY in the gift shop "Mom, can we buy this?" "No."  "How about this?" "No."  "I like this."  "No."  "You never let me get ANYTHING...you are mean."  "I know." "How about this?"  I was able to drag her outside for a snack. 

I wanted to get a free picture and have some character interaction so I took advantage of the Disney Visa Character Spot.  We got there at 12:30 and were the 4th family in line.  I was excited because it gave us an opportunity to sit for a bit and rest, with a guarantee of seeing a few characters at 1pm.  Well at 1pm the line was damn near a mile long and still no CMs, no characters, nothing going on.  I wondered aloud why they hadn't started yet and was told by the family in front of me that it started at 1:30.  Oh.  Dear.  God.  If I had known that I wouldn't have done it, but since we were already there and wouldn't have another chance to come back, we stayed.  It was the longest wait of the entire trip.  I'm not a fan of lines, or waiting in them, and when our time came it was worth it, but never again.  I got a birthday hug from Mickey, and we got some cute pictures out of the deal.

Our reservation for the Candlelight Processional lunch package was at Coral Reef in the Seas Pavilion, at 1:45, so as soon as we were done we headed over and checked in.  Despite getting a lot of bad reviews, I rather liked it.  My steak was good (I know, I know, you don't order steak at a seafood restaurant, but I'm not big on fish and eating them while watching them swim around just seemed weird to me) and while I am sure there are some better values in Epcot that was our only option for the lunch CP so I took it (because again, not a fan of lines, and heard to do the CP without the lunch/dinner package you must stand in one hellava line).  The Pea LOVED it, and made sure everyone in the place knew when the shark was swimming by with her "MOM, MOM, MOM, there's the shark!"  My server was fantastic and the food came out quickly and was hot, so no complaints there, but getting seated was a bit of a cluster f*%k and the bathrooms are WAAAY too small for a restaurant that size.  I had the fried shrimp appetizer, which when I peeled off half the breading was perfect, and the steak.  The Pea had the kids pizza, but only ate her fruit, and half my mashed potatoes.  We took our dessert to go (and it ended up falling off the top of the stroller and exploding all over the sidewalk somewhere near France) because we still had to ride Soarin and get to the American Pavilion for the show.

Very cool atmosphere

A little dark, no flash, but good food.

Shrimp Appetizer.

Candlelight Processional was nice.  I was a little worried the Pea would get antsy and bored, but it was something I really wanted to do and luckily, she seemed to enjoy it.  For me, it would not have been worth waiting in an hour long line (or worse) but the music was amazing and I enjoyed listening to Trace Adkins tell the story.  Trying to navigate the stroller towards Morocco afterwards however, almost made me lose all the happiness and spirit of Christmas I had just filled my heart with.

I didn't take pics during the show, just wanted to relax and enjoy, this is at the end.

Mo'Rockin was on stage as we strolled up and we stopped to enjoy the show.  The musicians are pretty phenomenal, but are upstaged by the belly dancer, so probably don't get the props they deserve.  The Pea and I were mesmerized, and I tried not to gawk like all the guys, but caught myself doing it more than once.  When they were done we wandered through the shops, I got a henna tattoo, and then we went back for another show.  I had wanted to eat at the restaurant in Morocco so we could see the belly dancer (and because I love that kind of food) but we couldn't fit it in.  It was nice to stumble across this show because I hadn't realized they had a dancer, and the music was better than I anticipated.

I have a video but blogger wouldn't let me upload it...I will try again another time.

After Morocco we had some time to kill so we wandered through France and the UK.  Again, we stumbled on a show.  British Revolution was just starting to do their thing and we parked ourselves right in front and enjoyed.  At the end of the set they sang the Beatles Birthday song to me (and the other 3 people celebrating their birthday that day, which I chose to pretend weren't there) and I let the Pea use my camera to take a picture of me with the band.  It came out great, but then she wanted to take pictures of everything and after watching her drop her camera on the pavement 3 times, I wasn't about to hand over mine; and every time I wouldn't let her, she reminded me that she took a picture of me with the band, and didn't drop it then.  Oy.

About this time I started feeling bad...I knew I was coming down with something (the hacking, sneezing, funk nasty that 60% of the park visitors had, and shared with me) and we headed for a gift shop so I could get some cold medicine.  I brought some with me, but of course it was back in the room, and it was still my birthday and I was going to enjoy the rest of it, so there would be no going back to room until we had to.  After our quick pit stop we headed to Mexico to ride Gran Fiesta (twice) and then to the VIP fireworks viewing area. 

Hidden Mickey in Gran Fiesta

It was nice having a place to sit and not have people all up on us, but as far as viewing, I think I had a better spot on our first night.  There was a light pole and some bushes that obstructed our view a bit, but overall, it was lovely.  When it was time to mush with the masses I tried my hardest to just go with the flow and squash my urge to ram people with the stroller.  When we finally were spit out at the exit I had two choices: bus or cab...flashback of our first night: watching two full busses pull away while hearing "but mommmmmy, I wanna gooooooooo nooooooww," the Pea falling asleep in my lap, struggling to carry her off the bus and walk up the hill to the lobby before remembering my backpack (with our room keys, ID, credit cards, cash, APs, camera, etc) was still under my seat on the bus, dropping the Pea and yelling "RUN BABY RUN!" while she stands there half asleep and bewildered, me in a full sprint back to the bus stop, banging on the door of the bus while running along side of it as it pulls out of the bus stop until it finally stops, reaching down between the legs of the man, now sitting in the seat I had been, to grab my bag while he and his wife look at me bewildered, walking the eighteen thousand miles back to my room, still winded from the run...yeah, we took a cab. Pretty sure we were back at the lodge before the first bus, and prett y sure we would have, once again, been on the third.

Upon arriving back at the hotel I had a package waiting for me; Smash had mailed me a birthday present. 

Best. Day. Ever.