Disney Day 5

Morning Swim

Finally, our last day at the parks. It's been a pretty eventful week. A bit tiring, but definitely memorable. Today we had reservations at EPCOT early, 4:45, so we planned on spending the day there again. There was a lot at this park that we haven't yet done. Also, mom and dad really like the world showcase, so there seemed plenty to do for the entire family.

We woke up late again today. It was a bit of a rough night with Quin. He had been very good all week up until, and for the most part including tonight. This time, though, he was up a little bit in the night, not awake, but fussing. It made it a bit difficult to get really good sleep. Ethan didn't have any troubles, though, which was all that really mattered.

Since we got up later anyway, Ethan and I decided to go for a quick swim when there was nobody in the pool. We had some fun playing Marco-Polo and Leech, but also got to do some aerial stunts. Specifically, I threw Ethan in the air and he did flips. He was surprisingly good at them, so that was pretty enjoyable. Of course you can only do that if nobody else is in the pool with you, especially a life guard. This morning, all of those conditions were met.

After a quick serve breakfast, we caught the bus to EPCOT. Quin and I got to ride with a woman and her grandchild who were from Menominee Falls and Slinger respectively. They were very nice people. The grandmother was only 54 years old and was there with her daughter and granddaughter only. Grandpa had stayed home to run the family business that they had just sold the year prior. He had a two year contract to continue working there until he was going to retire at 55. They had a house in Arizona and one up by Wisconsin Rapids where they planned to spend their retirement. I envy them...

Epcot Take III – Ethan, Jenny, and Brandon

We got to EPCOT around 11:00 and decided to split up. Jenny, Ethan, and I were going to try to get on some rides in Futureworld while Grandma, Grandpa, and Quin were going to take in the World Showcase. After splitting up, I took all of our passes and Fast Passed Soarin'. Even though I was early, our Fast Pass tickets didn't come due until after 3:00. No problem. We were planning on meeting mom and dad around 1:00, so we could all go and check it out. The bad part was that there were 2 hours until we could Fast Pass again.

Knowing that, we headed over to the other side of the park to see if we could get on Mission: Space or Test Track. The line for Mission: Space was only 20 minutes long, but Ethan didn't really want to go on that. Instead, we got into line for Test Track, which was 60 minutes long, but we didn't have anywhere to go anyway. GM sponsored this ride, and the line decorations were pretty neat. They had different stations that explained different stages of actual test tracks. They also had some literature of one of their actual test track centers in Michigan where they had over 100 miles of specifically designed roads in which to test their cars. While in line, we got to see how Disney measures the length of their lines. It appears to be an automated system. At the front of the line is a box. When that box beeps, an attendant goes over and grabs one of may red lanyards and scans it at the box. They then give this lanyard to the next person that gets into line. When that person gets to the front, another attendant takes the lanyard and scans it again, and viola, line time is determined. It is really very accurate.

The ride was very cool. Six of us got into a car that took us through several test courses. Of course they had the mandatory orientation video with a famous person giving the talk. I think this person was the guy from A Mighty Wind and Best in Show. Anyway, the different agility and brake tests were all fine, but the real fun started when they took us on the outdoor track and sped up to somewhere around 100 MPH. I'm just guessing on the time, I don't really know how fast we were going, but it seemed very fast and was very fun.

After Test Track, our Fast Pass was available to use again, so we fast passed Mission: Space under the guise that there is a kids and and adult version of the ride, which there is. We had about 40 minutes to wait for that, so we tried to get on the Universe of Energy ride which was 40 minutes long and we walked right onto. After an 8 minute introductory video, they opened the doors to reveal an area with many church-pew looking benches. After getting about half way into that area, Ethan decided we weren't going to go on that ride and tried to leave. After getting about half way out the exit, he decided we could go on it, and we went back in. Half-way in again, he decided finally that this wasn't the ride for us, and we left for good. Oh well.

Instead, we spent some time in a playground and in the Walt Disney Flower and Garden Exhibit Pavilion, which had a bunch of flower and garden stuff. While there we saw a video that detailed the making of some of the various topiaries around the park. These things are amazingly detailed as you have seen in some of our pictures. All of the matter that goes into these topiaries is organic and they don't use any paint as far as I can tell. It also underscored just how many people work for this company as there were dozens that worked on these topiaries alone, not to mention the greenhouse, modeling, and welding people that all coordinate to make these structures. These things are so complex that they have their own internal irrigation systems!

At last, it was time for us to go into Mission: Space. At the beginning of the Fast Pass line, one of the “Cast” asked us if we wanted the Green or Orange experience. Green was for “babies,” he said, or orange for “big boys.” I said, “I think he can handle it,” referring to Ethan. He said it wasn't Ethan he was worried about. An astute observation. Under the guise of color-blindness, I told him we would go on the orange, while still convincing Jenny and Ethan we were going on the beginners ride. When we finally got in, Jenny caught on to the fact that we were on the adult ride, but Ethan still didn't know. It didn't matter. He loved it. The ride itself was pretty amazing. They put you in this spaceship in astronaut couches. You are strapped in so that you can see a screen and some controls in front of you. On the screen they show a movie. It starts on the launch pad and simulates G-force for takeoff that was very realistic. As far as I could tell, they rotated the cabins and spun them to do the simulation. Very cool. This went on for another 5 minutes or so when we finally landed on Mars with a dramatic landing on the edge of a cliff. After getting off, I explained to Ethan that it was the adult ride. It turned out to be his favorite ride in any park! Jenny, on the other hand, was not so impressed.

We still had an hour or so before our Fast Pass for Soarin' came available. We had long since called mom and dad to coordinate a later meeting time, so we went to the Journey into Imagination with Figment. This was a pretty lame ride that had a dragon in it and was hosted by Eric Idle. Nothing too great here. Outside of this building were the dancing fountains that Ethan was so fond of, so we messed around there for awhile.

At last it was time for Soarin'. Jenny wasn't feeling too well from Mission: Space, so Ethan and I went in alone. This time he wasn't scared at all! Hopefully something on Mission: Space convinced him that these rides weren't that scary. The ride itself was pretty cool. They put you in this seat with a harness and raised you up in front of this mammoth circular screen where they showed different aerial views of California. There was an ocean fly-by, a golf course, complete with a ball just narrowly missing us, a hang glider, climbers, etc. It all ended flying over Walt Disneyland in California during the fireworks. Pretty cool ride, but Jenny probably wouldn't have liked it.

Now it was time to meet Grandpa and Grandma, so we headed over t our predesignated meeting spot, the pub in England.

Epcot Take III – Grandma, Grandpa, and Quin

Though details are sketchy on what Quin, Grandpa, and Grandma did for the 5 or so hours while we were separated, I do know they they had a good time doing what grandparents do with 6 week old (yes, he is 6 weeks old today!) grandchildren. They walked from country to country, sometimes taking in a show or 360 degree movie, sometimes just watching people, sometimes getting a beer from Germany (they have good beer). They seemed more relaxed than we did when we met up with them just before 4:00 in front of the pub in England. Off Kilter was playing on the border of Canada and England again, as we started our combined adventure for the evening.

Epcot Take III – Combined Adventures

After meeting in England, we grabbed a Bass from the pub and started walking the world. If you've never been to EPCOT, the world showcase is a small representation of many different countries throughout the world. Basically they have shopping, food, and maybe a ride at each of them. They are put together very well, even though they are pretty much aimed at shopping. We traveled the long way around which took us through France, Morocco, Japan, Italy, Germany (where we got more beer), Kenya, China, and finally Mexico where we were going to eat for the night.

Our dinner this evening was at the San Angeles Resaurante in Mexico, which was traditional Mexican food. The food itself wasn't too bad if not a little too traditional for our tastes. We could have used a few more tortillas and rice and beans. The atmosphere was very cool, though. It was set at dusk near the Aztec Pyramids. Very cool.

We ended our stay at the park in a shop trying to find presents for all those that we hadn't bought for yet. We got Jenny a shirt and Quin a stuffed Micky. Finally we boarded the bus and went back to our rooms where we could make final arrangements for the trip home tomorrow. On the way to the buses we spotted an apparently unused building. We walked over by it and found people guarding the doors. My dad asked what the buildings were, and was told that they were for conventions and meetings. Just like Disney. They have so many people that they can pay people to watch empty buildings!!!

Nightcap

At the hotel for our last night, Ethan wanted to go swimming one last time. He also wanted to show off his high flying acrobatics to Jenny, who I'm sure was quite as impressed as she sounded. After depositing him back in the room, I walked the property to get some essentials that we just couldn't do without until the next night. I was struck at how nice this resort actually was and immediately regretted not having more opportunity to spend time here. There was a cheesy old guy band playing at the bar, kids were walking on the running path, a beach party was going on in the middle of the lake, it was a hopping place and looked very fun. Next time we'll spend more time relaxing (yeah, right).

Knowing that we had to get up by 6:30 or earlier for our checkout and shuttle to the airport, we called it a night one last time in Walt Disney World.

Disney Day 4

Late Start

Quin was up during the night and we were getting tired, so we slept in a little bit this morning. Jenny and I got out for a run around the 1.4 mile running path that goes around the resort (we went twice around), we gave the kids baths, then we grabbed a leisurely breakfast at the Shutters food court at our resort. It was a good jumping off point for the rest of the day, which we planned on spending at Animal Kingdom.

Animal Kingdom

Disney's Animal Kingdom is their newest theme park. Mom and dad had been at the park once before, right after it opened in 2001 when they chaperoned my Brother Brett's high school choir trip to Disney world. Our expectations were low as my dad said the park wasn't very big and there wasn't much to do at it. Apparently they have done some building since then, because we had a full day of fun and excitement at this park.

Our first inclination was to Fast Pass everything, so my dad and I sprinted towards the rides we wanted to go on while Jenny, mom, and Ethan tended to Quin, who was ready to eat already when we got there. We first Fast Passed the Jungle Safari, then went and tried to do the same to Kali Rapids. There, however, we were met with an invalid ticket. The woman behind the kiosks explained that we could only Fast Pass once within a period of time, and that period of time changed depending on park conditions. Another Fast Pass was not available to me for 2 hours, for example. I noticed later in the day after Fast Passing another ride that the wait was only 35 minutes, so the length of time must have something to do with the number of people using them or in the park.

We went back to gather the family and headed to the Tree of Life, the centerpiece of the Animal Kingdom. Underneath the tree was It's Tough Being a Bug, a 3-d interactive movie about bugs. It was pretty good, and a little scary. At one point they called an attack on the audience and some bees stung us from behind our chairs.

After our bug adventure, it was time already to go on our safari. First, dad and I traveled to the Dinosaur area to Fast Pass Dinosaur. On the way back, we were waylaid by two people who wanted to talk about Quin, "how old is he," "boy is he adorable," same old stuff. We got a lot of attention during this trip. Anyway, back to the safari. It was awesome, many of our party's favorite attraction of the trip. It took us on a rugged Jeep-like vehicle through the animal reserve where Disney keeps an entire savanah of African animals, elephants, giraffes, zebras, ostrichs, there were a lot of animals. At one point our truck got stopped briefly while an ostrich decided to stand in the road.

Back to Dinosaur, we had heard from one of Ethan's teachers that he would love this ride. Well, we'll never know because he wouldn't go on it. No amount of bribery was getting him on this ride, for some reason. Well, after Jenny, dad, and I actually went on the ride, it turns out he was probably right, he would have been very scared. It was a pretty neat ride, on a roller-coaster like vehicle called a "time machine" that took us back to the Cretaceous period. There were dinosaurs all over the place and the sky was starting to fall (the asteroid was about to hit). Yeah, Ethan would have probably wet himself on this one!

For a change of pace, and to get off our feet, we went to the Birds of Prey show, which was basically a bunch of birds flying in and out of scene. It was OK, nothing to write home about. Before we went to that, though, we Fast Passed Primeval Whirl, a twister-like roller coaster that Ethan actually wanted to go on. He wasn't scared at all to go on it, so Jenny and I went on it with him. I can't believe this was the same kid, because he just loved this ride. Jenny and I, not so much. We don't really like spinning rides. On the way off the ride Ethan noticed a pile of vomit along the boardwalk returning us to the earth. He thought that was pretty cool.

At this point, we had finally timed it just right to see a Disney parade. Ethan and Jenny had decent seats, though they were looking right into the sun. Apparently it was a pretty good parade. I stayed back with Quin and got to glimpse some old guy that was so tired that he sat in the rented stroller for what I assume was his grandchild. We also struck up a conversation with a woman that I can only describe as a "Disney Freak." She told us all about this Pirates and Princesses breakfast that we should have sent Ethan to. They get to dress up and eat breakfast with a character, oh and it costs like $250. Sorry, not for me.

We had to burn a little more time before dinner in Africa, so we caught the Lion King circus show, which was excellent. There were acrobats dressed up like Monkeys and suspended rope artists dressed up like birds. We passed the rest of the time taking a walking tour of the animal reserve that we had previously driven through earlier in the day.

At last, we went to the Tusker House, a restaurant in the Africa area of the park. This was a buffet with African flavored foods, and I think most of us agreed that it was the best food we had the entire trip. Cous-cous, curry chicken, breads, it was all good. Of course, we were very hungry, so that might have had something to do with it. While there we had beer called Tusker Beer, a Kenyan beer that wasn't too bad. I may have to look it up and get some.

We left the park a little early by Disney standards, around 7:30. This park closes earlier than the others, I assume because of the animals. It was all fine and good, though, because Jenny and I had plans for the evening. On the bus we met a family from Hartland that had tried to get to Disney on the Friday before Easter. If you live in the Milwaukee area, you know that as the Friday of 14 inches of spring snow! Needless to say, they weren't able to fly that day. The worst part was that AirTran didn't have another flight schedule to Orlando until the following Tuesday, so they decided to drive down.

Downtown Disney

After getting Ethan and Quin ready for bed, we left the kids with grandma and grandpa and caught a bus to Downtown Disney, another new attraction since the last time I was here. This area is just like the rest of the parks without the rides. In other words, there were restaurants and shops, and still lots of people. We found a couple of trinkets and souvenirs to buy, but quickly ended up at an Irish pub near Pleasure Island. After a beer each and half of our second, the bartender came over to us and asked, "Mickey Mouse kicking your ass? You have that look about you." He couldn't have been more right.

Downtown Disney was all fine and good. The best part was just to be able to sit upright and have adult conversation for a little while. The beer was good, too. We were both struck by how many kids were still out at this time of night which was hovering around 10:00-10:30. At any rate, we caught a bus and were back home before 11:30 so we could prepare for our last day at the parks.

Disney Day 3

Magic Kingdom Part II

Today we decided to try something a little different. Rather than sleeping in and dealing with the crowds of people, we thought we'd leave a little early in hopes of getting on some more rides in less confined areas. So we took off early for the bus (OK, I think we still got on the bus around 9:00) and headed for the Magic Kingdom. If you've never been to Disney, the Magic Kingdom is one of those parks that you can spend days and days in, so our two half days really didn't do it justice, but it would have to do.

We arrived just after the park opened and everything was as we hoped, there weren't that many people there, but there were still a lot of them. We caught the end of the castle dance review before heading over to Adventureland where we would find Pirates of the Caribbean. On the way we got stuck at the Swiss Family Robinson area, which looked kind of lame, so I took the park passes and went to Fast Pass some other rides. I caught the Jungle Cruise right away and continued down to Pirates, but it did not accept fast passes. Oh well.

After pulling Jenny and Ethan off of the treehouse, and gathering mom, dad, and Quin, who had found another family to talk to, we went to Pirates which didn't have much of a wait at all to get on it. It wasn't a bad ride, another one of those that were designed much in the same vein as It's a Small World in that it was a boat and we went through a bunch of rooms with characters in it. You can tell this ride is somewhat old, though, as it was pirate themed, and the pirates were doing what pirates do best, namely drinking and harassing women. Not sure how this ride would go through the committees that oversee this type of thing now-a-days. They also added Captain Jack and Davey Jones to the experience, which was kind of neat. It was strange how the movie was based on the ride to begin with, then the ride was re-inspired by what they did with the movie...

After getting off of Pirates, our Fast Passes came due for the Jungle Cruise, which is a pretty neat ride only in so much as the dialog is really enjoyable. This ride is, again, in the same vein as It's a Small World again in that we got on a boat and looked at stuff, but it differed in that there was a live person on the ride giving us a tour and it was outside. The woman giving the tour was delivering the canned tour dialog very well. Some of the bits I can remember include, "OK, everybody listen very carefully, I have some very complicated boarding instructions, wait, wait, wait, OK, get in," and "Perhaps at the end of this ride you will find their buried treasure. Oh wait, this is Disneyworld, you are probably going to find a gift shop." Overall, it was a very old, crusty ride, that was made fun by the dialog they had put together for it.

After Jungle Cruise, Ethan wanted to go on a fair-like ride calld Alladin's Magic Carpet ride, so I took the opportunity to Fast Pass another ride, this time in Tomorrowland. When I returned, I gathered the family and we decided it was time for some lunch. Lunch was taken in Frontierland (I'm not entirely sure on the names of these areas, so please, if you are a Disney purest, forgive me) at Pecos Bill Tall Tale Cafe. This was one of our quick service meals and was not bad at all. Burgers, wraps, whatever. I think Ethan actually got to eat something other than chicken nuggets and macaroni and cheese for once at this restaurant. As an aside, I was shocked at how limited the children's choices were for food at Disney. You would think that they would cater (so to speak) specifically to kids when offering food choices, but most of the places only had chicken nuggets and macaroni and cheese.

Having nourished ourselves, we left Frontierland and crossed back over to Tomorrowland where we rode on one of the most enjoyable rides we rode during our entire stay, Buzz Lightyear's Spin Attack. This ride was basically a moving shooting gallery. You get in this pod thing on rails that took you through an area setup with a bunch of Zurg things with targets on them. There were two guns mounted on the pod and a steering wheel. Ethan and I manned the guns while Jenny steered. As you were going it kept score. I scored 33000 points, which I thought was awesome until I saw the point breakdown at the end. They had a category for over 1,000,000 points! I guess I suck worse than I thought.

We departed the Magic Kingdom at last after getting a picture with Buzz Lightyear himself and touring Tomorrowland on the Tomorrowland Transit Authority. The parade had just finished up along mainstreet, we had missed it again. I was intrigued to see they had people out with vacuum cleaners to clean up the confetti and leaves that had littered the streets. I guess I hadn't noticed it before, but the Magic Kingdom is freakishly clean. I guess now I know why.

Break Time

Having experienced very long days the two days prior, we decided this time to take a couple of hours to relax at the resort. So we departed from the Magic Kingdom and did just that. Of course Ethan doesn't really know yet how to relax, so he and I had to go to the pool and play "leech," a game where Ethan clings to my neck and won't let go and I have to try to get him off of me. It was hard. We did get to see a bunch of cheerleaders acting like cheerleaders in the pool which was mildly amusing. They were doing a bunch of throws and pyramids and stuff in the pool. Again, mildly amusing. My mom came out for a little while to swim with us. She never really learned how to swim, but she barely gets wet due to her huge amount of buoyancy. Ethan, being a know-it-all, started to tell my mom how to swim. Actually, he was doing a pretty good job of explaining it...

EPCOT Part II

Our master plan for the day had us going back to EPCOT for an afternoon of rides followed by dinner in China. On the bus on the way, we ran into the coach of the Germantown softball team who was down there with his team competing in some Disney softball thing. It was funny how many people we had met from Wisconsin, but this guy even knew a guy that I officiate with, which made it even stranger. Also on the bus we ran into a family who had a 9 month old boy that looked just like Quin, or rather, Quin looked just like him. He was a very smiley thing and was grabbing the hair on my arms and stuff. It was pretty fun to see what we have to look forward to with Quin in the coming months. They really grow quickly!

As we finally got into the park after bag inspections and ticket scanning, my parents decided they would like to go on Spaceship Earth. Knowing Ethan's track records with getting on rides, we decided to go off on our own and allow them to partake so we went over to the Nemo Adventure in The Sea. The ride itself was a bit lame, and broke halfway through, but at the end they had some pretty neat aquarium animals on display including two manitees.

We ended our afternoon at EPCOT at the other half of Innoventions. Jenny and Ethan were exploring the wonderful world of garbage at the Waste Management area while Quin and I tried to find Grandpa and Grandma. After we had all met up again, we finally headed over to China where our reservation awaited at the Nine Dragons Restaurant.

It took a small miracle to get us into this restaurant. My dad had to go up to the podium and bust some heads after several walk-ins were admitted before we were, and we had a reservation. Apparently they had called our name and some other family walked in and took our table. Not to worry, we were seated right by the window, which gave us good seats to watch the fireworks later, which turned out to be the only time we got to see the fireworks during our stay. The food was excellent. Even Ethan ate Chinese food for the first time.

After dinner, we browsed the shops where Ethan bought some rare earth magnets and I bought a flower stick, some juggling sticks that look like fun. It was getting late at this point (9:30), so we decided to start heading back to the bus area. Along the way, we somehow convinced Ethan to go on a Viking cruise, another boat ride through a building with stuff in it (it's a small world after all...). We departed from Norway at almost 10:00, the park was closing...

We had almost gotten out of the park when my parents convinced Jenny and I that we should go on Spaceship Earth since it was such a neat ride. They didn't think Ethan would like it that much, so Jenny and I got in line. The line wasn't very long, but it turned out that only resort guests were being admitted, and then only with a wrist band. So out of the line quickly to find the wristbands, then back in and we were admitted almost immediately. This ride was on a time machine which the two of us sat in. At the beginning they asked a bunch of questions which you inputted the answers on the touch screen in your time machine, and they took your picture. The ride then started with Judy Dench giving a verbal history of human progress, mostly concentrating on communication. There were some very interesting things that I did now know, like the Phoenicians invented the alphabet that we use today because they traded with so many different cultures, they wanted to have an alphabet that was compatible with all of them. Another thing they asserted was that the personal computer was invented in a garage in California, basically saying that Jobs and Wozniak invented the PC. I'm not entirely sure that is true, but it was interesting anyway. At the end, you are treated to a view of the inside of the ball which is completely lighted up with stars in a night sky, very breathtaking. Also, as we rode back to the "present," they showed us a presentation with our pictures of how our future would look. It was neat technology, but the funniest part was Jenny's picture. The algorithm they had to remove the background from the picture apparently thought her eye was part of the background and blacked it out, which made her look like a pirate. We laughed... Guess you had to be there...

Disney Day 2

Good Night's Sleep

Our first night in the hotel was blissfully uneventful. My biggest worry coming to this resort with an infant was that he would be up and unconsolable in the night and he would wake people up. Turns out I had nothing to worry about all along. In fact, I would say that Quin probably slept better at the hotel than he does at home. That is most likely because we were so close by and it was easy to get up to tend to him. Either way, it worked out well and I had nothing to complain about.

Ethan slept in Grandpa and Grandma's room the first night, as we thought he might be kept awake by Quin more than by Grandma's snoring. Nothing really stirred him, though, and he slept quite well through the night.

In the morning, Jenny and I got up somewhat more rested than the day before. We slept in until around 8:30 having only gotten up once each with Quin during the night, so we felt good enough to try out the 1.4 mile track that surrounds the lake in the middle of the grounds. The Caribbean Beach Resort is a number of buildings organized into Islands. Ours was Martinique. Each of the islands surrounds a big lake in the middle with beaches surrounding it. Each island also had its own pool, which we took advantage of several times. Anyway, Jenny and I went for a small run then stopped by the central shop to get water for Quin's bottles and some snacks for breakfast. After that, off to the parks!

EPCOT

Our first stop for this day was EPCOT, which again stands for Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow. We grabbed a quick snack for breakfast as we had reservations in EPCOT for a character lunch, then jumped on the bus to EPCOT.

Have I mentioned how big the Disney World Resort is? Let me put it another way in case I haven't properly explained that yet. From our hotel, we could see Spaceship Earth, the big ball in the center of EPCOT. It seemed not at all far away. However, after boarding the bus in the morning, it took us no less than 20 minutes to get to the park! Now, after having consulted a map, I now know that it took a long time to get there because the park entrance was all the way around the park, forcing us to weave in and out of several highways to get there, but still, 20 minutes, and they are both on the same property!

EPCOT, much like the Magic Kingdom before it, was BUSY! There were people walking all over the place. The weather was somewhat better than yesterday, but still not hot, which was OK since there were so many people around, hot weather would have made things uncomfortable.

The first look at EPCOT is no less amazing than that of the Magic Kingdom. The huge Spaceship Earth structure dominating the sky right at the entrance, with the Beach Boys music playing (why the Beach Boys, I couldn't say), water fountains splashing about everywhere... They definitely went the extra mile with this park to make it seem different.

EPCOT is separated into two separate parts, Futureworld where there are a bunch of rides and attractions that deal with imagination, conservation, and life in the future, and the World Showcase, which has buildings and attractions attempting to capture the feel of different countries around the world. Since it was quite busy, we decided to check out the newest attraction first, Soarin', which was located in "The Land," one of the buildings in Futureworld. Well, that line was already around 2 hours long, so we did the next best thing, we caught a couple of shows.

The first show we saw was called "Live With the Land," which was narrated by Pumba, Timone, and Simba from the Lion King. This, along with most attractions, seemed to have the actual actors doing the voice work for the video, which is impressive. The show was pretty neat. It was all about how we should conserve and live with the land instead of against it. I found it somewhat ironic that Disney of all companies was preaching conservation when they pump millions of gallons of water through their fountains and use tons of plastic to deliver food to their hungry customers each day, but hey, the message is still important, and the show wasn't too bad.

The next attraction we took in was again in The Land. This time we boarded a boat (a common theme in many Disney attractions) and toured through some labs that Disney had setup in an attempt to grow things in different ways. This trip was pretty cool as it showed all kinds of different plants being grown in a huge greenhouse. They also tried new ways of growing things, like suspending tomato plants in the air so that the air can get to the leaves properly, or growing tomatoes upside-down. Fairly interesting stuff.

We had made reservations for a character lunch in The Land's table service restaurant for around 2:00, but after taking in our two shows we still had some time to burn, so we headed outside and went into a building titled "Imagineering." This was basically a big hands-on playground of all sorts of technology that could change the future, stimulate the imagination, or educate in some other way. They had stations setup with video games, fire alarms, a pizza game, but most impressive, a Segway area. Mom, Dad, and I waited in line for what turned out to be one of the most fun adult rides in the park. No kids allowed on these! We first sat through a 10 minute orientation video, then we got to go out into the larger area and drive one, and I have to say, it is a lot of fun! I want to buy one!

After peeling Ethan away from the video games, we worked our way over to the Harvest Cafe for our character lunch. I really didn't think much of a character lunch when we got there, and actually had no intention of scheduling one thinking Ethan was too old for them. Boy was I wrong. The food wasn't too bad, but Ethan really liked the characters. Any time one of them came around, his eyes got really big and he shouted to one of us to look at them. He was particularly excited about Pluto, though why, I can't quite figure out since he didn't even know who he was. The characters we ended up getting to meet were Chip, Dale, Pluto, and Mickey. Dale stopped by for an especially long time having developed somewhat of an obsession with Quin. That was a little creepy, but we moved on.

After lunch, we left Futureworld and decided to try to get to Disney's Hollywood Studios. We had read earlier that we could take a boat there, which meant we didn't have to take a bus, so that sounded good to us. To get to the boat, we had to go through part of the World Showcase, Canada and England to be specific. Canada wasn't that spectacular to just walk by, but they did have a band present called Off Kilter which was a rock band with a bagpipe player as one of the main instruments. It was quite interesting. England was more interesting to walk through, but still, we had a mission and intended to accomplish it. So we went through the park exit and boarded Friendship 3, a boat that serviced some of the EPCOT resorts and ultimately Disney's Hollywood Studios.

The boat ride was actually a blast. Everything at this park is an experience, I have to tell you. It was commanded by two old guys who clearly didn't need to be working any more, but probably did because they liked people and they got to drive a boat around all day. They had fun talking with the people on the boat and driving it around all day, so it made for a pleasant ride. Along the way we stopped at several EPCOT resorts which looked quite nice. In fact, if we weren't there with kids (although, what would be the point of that?), I think one of these resorts would be ideal since it was very close to other things to do, like a brewery, the ESPN Club, and dancing places. With kids, though, our resort was very nice.

Disney's Hollywood Studios

Disney's Hollywood Studios, formerly Disney's MGM Studios, is a smaller park, and had fewer people in it, which was nice! The layout was pretty neat as well. After entering, you are placed on a street that looks much like the entrance to the Magic Kingdom, but with a Hollywood feel. Like Magic Kingdom and EPCOT, the park is split into zones, but these zones are different movie themes. One area was a full scale replica of a street in New York City!

The first show we saw was the Indiana Jones stunt spectacular. This show took place in an outdoor theater with a huge set piece at the front that looked like the cave from the opening sequence to the first Indiana Jones movie. Before the show, some casting member came out and got volunteers to do silly things in front of the audience, which was cute. Once the show started, though, was when the real fun began. The first stunt had them doing a rendition of the opening sequence from Raiders of the Lost Ark. Ethan has never seen that movie, and he was hooked. The even did the ball rolling towards Indy, and him getting squished, which I think they added for this show. After that stunt, the entire stage moved aside on huge tires and revealed a middle-easter scene in the background where they staged another stunt. All in all, they did three different big-set stunts. Ethan's favorite part was whent hey fake punched each other, so don't be surprised if he asks you to let him pretend to punch you!

After Indiana Jones, my dad and I went on Star Tours, a ride themed after Star Wars where you ride in a transport shuttle through some space battles and other things. For me it was the first ride where I stood in line and didn't have the benefit of Fast Pass, and I didn't like waiting very much! Jenny, Ethan, Quin, and Grandma went to the Muppet show 3-d movie, which I heard was great.

After meeting up with them, we took in some miscellaneous other rides, some of which we had to skip because Ethan developed a fear of dark places that he could not overcome on this day. Ultimately we ended up at Hollywood and Vine, our second table service meal for the day. This restaurant is a buffet and serves American style food. It wasn't too bad, probably the most ordinary of all of our table service meals, but they did have a decent beer selection, so that made me happy.

Wore Out Part II

After a full day of park hopping, we were pretty wore out yet again. We decided to forgo the light show, which looked pretty cool, and head back to the hotel so we could live to play another day.

Things we Learned Today about Disney

• Do a character lunch even if you think your kids won't like it.
• Disney's Hollywood Studios is a smaller park, but attracts fewer people. It's also a lot of fun!

More exciting commentary coming tomorrow!

Disney Day 1

A Note on These Posts

I'm doing these posts a little out of sequence. I've written notes as things happened, but I'm going back and filling in the blanks as I get time to write them. At times it may seem a bit disjointed, so please forgive me. The dates will be posted as though they occurred on the days in which the events actually occurred, however they will not be written or posted on those actual days. Please adjust your expectations accordingly.

Overview

Mom and dad (Glen and Cheryl) decided that it was time for some reciprocity and treated my family to a trip to Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. When I say reciprocity, I'm of course referring to the numerous vacations that I was unable to attend with the family since I was too old when they went. Sure, we went to exciting places like Philadelphia (in a car), California (in a car), and Colorado (in a car), but my younger brothers benefited from my having finished college on time by getting to go to places like Hawaii, Dominican Republic, and Peru – and none of those were by car! Anyway, it was a very nice gesture on their part, and Ethan is at a very good age to take advantage of their generosity.

We planned the trip several months ago. Knowing that we were in the middle of the adoption process, we purchased insurance for our trip, thinking that we might have to forego the trip if an adoption came through. As luck would have it, an adoption did happen, but we didn't have to forego the trip and Quin was able to come as well. You may think we're crazy taking a 5 week old infant along on a trip like this, but our rationale was that he is really at a very good age to do this. He can't move yet, so he can't get into anything, and he's still pretty light, so carrying him around shouldn't be too hard. We'll see how it goes.

The Trip Out

The day started out very early today. Last night was a rush to get to sleep while hoping Quin would cooperate. For the most part he did. He slept really well all night, waking up twice to eat quickly then go right back to sleep. Still, we had to get up before 5:00 AM to get ready. We had packed the car the evening before, and Jenny had all the bags ready to go for the morning, so we were out of the house by 5:45, our desired departure time.

Traffic was light at that time in the morning, which was good. Of course, the parking structure was completely full except for exposed parking on the 6th floor. The exposure was a little rough to take since spring in Wisconsin just means it's just as cold but with more wind. Still, we were to the airport by 6:30. Checkin was smooth, we grabbed a bite to eat, then headed over to the security check to have our body cavity searches. One thing we found out early at the security line was that traveling with a 5 week old infant gets you a lot of attention. One of the gate agents started ogling immediately and then called one of the other agents over to ogle as well. Needless to say, we didn't have too many issues getting through security. It seemed like they shut down an entire security line just for us, which we pretty much needed.

At the gate, we met a young lady who was traveling with her grandmother that didn't know where she was going. Her mom had purchased her a trip to Disney but didn't tell her about it. We didn't get to see her when she got there, but I can imagine it would have been something to behold.

While waiting for the plane, my mom explained to Ethan that he would have to chew gum or something so that his ears would pop on the takeoff. This scared him, so as we were boarding he was telling us about how nervous he was that he was going to hurt his ears. Nice one, mom. When we got onto the plane, Ethan made sure he had a piece of gum in his mouth and another one nearby in case he lost that one. Once we took off, though, he was having a great time in the air. He loved flying! Jenny, on the other hand, didn't fare quite as well. She doesn't really like flying. Quin did great. He slept the whole way with no issue. The flight was uneventful. Everything went about as you would expect it would with a 6 year old. I tried to listen to my MP3 player, but I only got through 1 song through the entire flight. Also, I tried to read a magazine, but only got through 1 article. Ethan was very curious and wanted to talk about a lot of stuff during the whole flight!

As an editorial aside, Jenny was very nervous about flying AirTran Airlines for some reason, but once the flight was completed, she was pleasantly surprised. The service was exceptional, the airplane was clean and as roomy as airplanes can be these days, and the flight left and arrived on time. Nice work, Airtran.

Upon our arrival in Orlando, we headed towards the Disney Magical Express on the ground transportation floor. My parents had purchased this option which allows us to skip baggage claim and go directly to our resort. This was awesome. Basically all we had to do was take our carry on bags onto a charter bus and ride to the park. It was a brief 20 minute ride during which time we were treated to an orientation video that told us all about our life at the resort.

The Resort

After our brief bus ride, we arrived at the “Caribbean Beach” resort located across the street from Epcot (which turns out to be probably a mile or two away, I'll let you know when I actually find it). The resort is nothing spectacular, but nice. Our room was decent size. Enough with the hotel room, though, we wanted to eat something and to check out the facilities. It was 1:00 local time at this point, and we had been up since 4:45 (5:45 local), so we were getting hungry. Luckily, my parents had splurged and purchased the dining package, which entitles us to 1 table service, 1 quick service, and 1 snack per day each. We went to the central area of our hotel complex (which is somewhere in the area of 2200 rooms) and found the food court.

The food court counted as a Quick Service meal for the day, but we were to find out that you get way too much food at this meal to eat in one sitting. If you are going to be visiting Disney, I would recommend this option. I don't remember the cost, but each of our meals would have cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $13 if we would have purchased them individually.

After lunch, we explored the resort a little bit. It is huge! I mentioned before, it has somewhere in the neighborhood of 2200 rooms. It is called the Caribbean Beach Resort, so there are something like 6 different building groupings, each named after a Caribbean island. Our area is Martinique. There are also areas for Bahamas, Aruba, Jamaica, among others. In the middle of all of these buildings is a medium size lake with beaches surrounding it. In each area is a heated swimming pool and in the center is a showcase swimming pool. Unfortunately the showcase pool is closed at this time.

Swimming

After our explorations, our luggage still had not arrived in our room – oh, I forgot to mention that we didn't have to carry our luggage to our rooms. Instead it was delivered to our room cruise style. Very nice. Anyway, our luggage had not yet arrived, so we decided to make do with what we had packed in our carry on luggage and went swimming. It was a little chilly out, in the low 60s, but the pool was heated to 85 degrees, so Ethan and I had a blast. He is really starting to swim well. He had no trouble swimming all over the pool, including the deep areas. When he and I were in the pool together, he swam underwater with me, raced me, and rough-housed with me for the better part of 90 minutes. I tired out early and left the pool to have a beer with my parents and Jenny on the deck while Ethan continued to play for another 20 minutes. We were finally able to coax him out of the pool with promises of visiting the park...

Reservations

Before we left for the park, we had read that it was a good idea to get reservations for any table service meals you planned on taking. Since we had used our quick service meal for the day already, we set out to find a table service dinner. I called the reservations number but was met with completely booked restaurants pretty much throughout the resort. There was literally nothing available in any of the resorts we checked! This was going to be difficult. Taking this as a hint, we decided to make our reservations for the rest of the week at this time so we would at least be able to use our table service vouchers this week.

Free tip to those that might be traveling to Disney in the near future. If you are getting the dinner plan, call a week or two ahead of time and make your dinner reservations. Otherwise you may be stuck without dinner one night... We ultimately decided to use another of our quick service vouchers and make a reservation for table service later in the week for earlier in the day, so it all worked out in the end.

The Magic Kingdom

After our complicated reservation process, and our luggage having arrived, we packed up and headed out to the Magic Kingdom, Disney's first resort on this property. It would seem logical to walk there since we were staying on the Disney property itself, but it turns out we are like 5 miles away from the Magic Kingdom. Everything is huge on this resort! So, to get there, we boarded a bus and took a 15 minute drive to the park.

I can't say it enough, this place is huge! I had visited Disney when I was younger, and I don't remember it being this big! To get to the park, you can take a bus, the monorail, or a boat! They have big lakes where you can boat across from the parking lot and resorts to get to the park itself.

When we finally got to the park, we scanned our passes and gave a print of our fingers (to stop pass-backs) and arrived at the Magic Kingdom. If you've never been to Disney before, the first impression of the Magic Kingdom is impressive. You are placed in the midst of a thriving downtown. A cobblestone street travels down the middle of many shops and food stands, and there were people everywhere!!! We found a statue of Walt where we took a picture, and we saw a bunch of people with balloons (LOTS of balloons), but there was nothing quite like the look on Ethan's face when he first saw Cinderella's Castle. He was completely amazed and his jaw pretty much just dropped.

After getting over the initial shock of Cinderella's Castle, we headed over to the “It's a Small World” attraction, a staple for any first time Disney visitor. The line wasn't terrible, about 25 minutes, and Ethan really seemed to like the ride. I remembered it from my last visit, and it didn't seem that much better from that time, but hey, it's for the kids. At one time during the ride, I looked up (because it wasn't very interesting looking at the attraction), and I saw ceiling tiles at the top of the building. They were painted a dark color, some had sprinklers in them, some had things coming through them for the attraction. In fact, it was those that caught my attention, because they manner in which they broke these tiles to get the pieces through was sort of funny. It looked like they just broke it with their hands and stuck the things through. This is kind of funny because everything else in the park is so well thought out and perfectly done. At this point we passed a staircase covered in old carpeting with an illuminated exit sign over them. Seeing that combined with the sprinklers on the ceiling made me think of how funny it would be if the ride burned down. It would look just like that scene from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. The little small world people smiling and dancing while they melted down, their voices distorting while the blaze envelops them. I think I would like to see that...

Prior to getting on It's a Small World, we scanned our cards at Mickey's PhilharMagic show's Fast Pass station. Scanning this allows you to skip ahead in line if you agree to just come back later. Our scan allowed us to skip ahead if we came back between 6:30 and 7:30, which worked out well. The show itself was a pretty neat production of many different Disney shows from the past 25 years all made into a 3-d show with smell-o-vision and water effects. If you've been to the SpongeBob 4-d adventure at Noah's Ark, it's pretty much the same thing, but with Disney characters.

At last, Ethan told us he wanted to go to the Buzz Lightyear ride, so we walked over to Tomorrowland and scanned our cards at the Fast Pass station. While we waited, we decided to go to Stitch's Great Escape which only had a 10 minute wait. I was unable to go on the ride since I was carrying Quin (using a Snugli infant carrier, which worked very well), but Ethan, Jenny, mom, and dad all went on it. I was concerned since the brochure said it could scare young children. I'm sure they meant three year olds, but I had a feeling it might be a problem for Ethan as well. Sure enough, Jenny informed me that they had somewhat of an episode getting Ethan to actually go into the ride when it finally got down to it. It was another one in the same vein as the PhilharMagic ride, but in smaller vessels. He did end up going on the ride, but it wasn't without its drama.

We decided to grab one more quick service meal, since we were unable to obtain reservations for a table service meal, before we tried to go on the Buzz Lightyear ride. After eating, though, we were all pretty beat, so we left the Magic Kingdom just minutes before the fireworks started and headed back to the resort.

Winding Down

At this point, we are all pretty beat. We're going to rest up and prepare for another big day tomorrow.

Interesting Tidbits

Epcot stands for Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow.

This parenting thing is easy...

Jenny has to work today and tomorrow, so I'm working from home.  So I got my laptop out, put on some slippers, and got ready for some good ole fashioned parenting.  I tell you, it really isn't all that hard...

Pre Adoptive and a chink in the armor

It's official as of Monday afternoon, we are a pre-adoptive family. On Monday, both birth parents were given one last opportunity to choose to parent Quin. The birth mother showed up and gave up her right to do so, and the birth father did not answer the attempts to contact him. That's an important step for us! That means that there shouldn't be an bad Lifetime movies written about our situation any time soon. Now, we're still not the official parents of Quin, still only the foster parents. The adoption agency is now the legal guardian of Quin and all major medical decisions and travel plans must now be arranged through them. We will also have three home visits from the agency to make sure things are going well. After Quin has been with us for 6 months, the agency will file for a court date in Waukesha to make the adoption official. At that time we will get a birth certificate and have the ability to apply for a social security number. As you can guess, we're very happy about this step. It is a major one! We feel very fortunate given all that could have happened. Jenny was in contact with an adoptive family who had been selected only to have the birth parents change their minds just before the child was born. I've also heard stories recently about people who were going through the legal risk period only to have the birth grandmother decide she was going to care for the child three days prior to the termination of parental rights hearing. She went through the trouble of having her daughter declared unfit to parent so she became the legal guardian. Needless to say, we feel very fortunate and blessed.

Quin himself is doing very well. He eats pretty much every 3.5 to 4 hours. He sleeps well at night... Well, he still gets up every 4 hours to eat, but as soon as he's done eating it's back to sleep for him. I've found the magic that is Netflix Watch Instantly to pass the late hours while Quin eats.

Ethan is doing well, too. He is a very good big brother, though he's shown some recent signs of weakness. The other day, Jenny had to go out to the grocery store or something and Ethan wanted to play Spiderman: Friend or Foe, his favorite game on the Wii. It's a game that he and I play together. So he went downstairs and got the game setup while I situated Quin. When I came down with Quin in a bouncy seat, he said, "Aww, don't bring him down!" I asked him why, to which he replied, "when he cries, we have to quite playing." I can't blame him, infants are pretty inconvenient sometimes, and so far it's the only chink in the armor we've been able to detect.

That's it for now. I'm sure exciting posts are coming up as Easter in Neillsville is right around the corner, then it's off to Orlando for a Disney vacation with Grandma and Grandpa Grady. Exciting times ahead.

Loose teeth and doctor's visits

Today, Quin is 16 days old. Almost like his golden birthday in days! Jenny had to go in to work today, so Quin and I worked from home, and let me tell you, he does better work than some of the interns I've had! I fed him once at 7:00, then he didn't want to eat again until around noon (my mistake as I got lost in e-mails for awhile). After that, he slept again until Jenny got him around 3:00, so like I said, he probably did more good (or less bad) than some of the interns I've had.

In the middle of all that, though, Quin had his 2 week checkup. Everything looked great except for a little infection in one eye and potentially a little thrush. He now weighs in at 8 pounds 4.5 ounces, which is up a full 1.5 pounds from his last visit 10 days ago! He's also up to 21 inches long, up only .5 inches, but still, not too shabby. He continues to be a very good baby for the most part and Jenny and I are adjusting fairly well.

In other news, Ethan lost another tooth this past weekend. Saturday night was pretty traumatic, however. Jenny was helping him brush his teeth when, whammy!, one of his loose teeth got caught in the bristles and started bleeding all over the place. There's something about your own blood when you are 6, apparently, that causes you to lose all capability for reason. After much sobbing, we finally got him calmed down to talk through his options. Option 1, let me pull the tooth. Option 2, let Ethan pull the tooth. Option 3, just go to bed. Having regained his talent for reason, he wisely chose none of the options... I wasn't sure what that meant, so I told him that I was going downstairs and that he could do whatever he wanted to (see, I still had my wits about me!). About 5 minutes later he came down and said to us, "if I'm going to lose a tooth, I want to be with you guys." Damn, he knows how to cut to my core! Anyway, there were a lot of bribes and talk of bravery and whatnot, but in the end he finally just went to sleep to let nature take its course.

The next morning while getting ready for church, Ethan was brushing his own teeth when the tooth just fell out on its own. Instantly he was going around talking about how brave he was and how he should be able to get a new toy, and how "that didn't hurt at all!" At any rate, hopefully the next couple of teeth won't be so traumatic. He has three other lose ones as we speak.

Lastly, below you fill find Ethan's latest masterpiece. It is a recreation of Spider-man's duel with the New Goblin from Spiderman 3. Of course, he hasn't seen the movie, but I think he captured it pretty well. Notice the pumpkin bomb exploding near the tree. Enjoy!

Skiing on Mount Olympia

Ethan and I had a wonderful boy's day today. Jenny took Quin up to meet his aunts in the Dells while celebrating their mom's birthday. Since it was a rare beautiful day, Ethan and I decided to go skiing at our local "mountain." Really it's a recovered garbage dump, I think... It's definitely not a mountain, but it's close. The last time Ethan skied was last year in the U.P. and he did really well. Today was no different. He hasn't forgotten much from his time in ski school. The early going was a little rough. He had some control problems and was a little timid of the rope tow. But after two times down the hill, he was going up the rope himself and starting to be a bit of a daredevil. He was doing a little more "french fries" and less "pizza" than I'm comfortable with. We were there for two hours, each time Ethan would say, "one more time down," or "five more times down."

We finally left the hill and went to Burger King, a place Ethan has wanted to go to eat for two weeks. There is a special toy in the happy meals that he really wanted. Unfortunately, they were out of them. We ate there anyway, and while we were there I saw two white families with adoptive black children. It's amazing how you start seeing these things once you become acutely aware of them.

After eating, we went to Target and picked up a new action figure, did a few more errands, then caught a movie, The Spiderwick Chronicles. This rated PG movie was a lot of fun, though perhaps a little on the scary side for six-year-olds. Even though he closed his eyes for parts, Ethan enjoyed the movie.

It was quite a day for the two of us. Apparently Jenny and Quin had a good time visiting with her family as well. It's rare that you have a nice day like today in February. Hopefully more are coming our way as spring slowly approaches.

Bringing Quin home

Yesterday we got the call that Quin was going to be discharged from the hospital. It was going to be later in the day, so we took Ethan out of school around 12:30 and headed over to the hospital. When we walked into the nursery, we were surprised to find two doctors circumcising Quin. We thought that had happened already in the morning! Well, it was somewhat interesting to watch, but Ethan was not so impressed. He asked me what was going on. After telling him, he was officially appalled and decided he didn't want to watch or be near that, so we went and found a TV for him to watch Zathura.

About an hour later, they were ready to discharge Quin to our care. Since then, it's been your basic baby caring stuff. He likes to eat, he does so about every three hours or so. He also likes to sleep. He does that in between eating.

Today we took him to see our doctor for the first time and all seems to be going well. I did not remember how much time these little people can take. It's not so much the amount of time you take tending to them, but running after things that you need to get for them. Like today, it took us about 15 minutes just to get ready to go, then we drove all over the place to get to the doctor, went to Target to pickup a prescription and some baby things, then we had to go vote... By the time we got back, we had been gone for like 5 hours. So much for that novel I was going to write...

Anyway, here are some more pictures for your enjoyment.

Quinton Edward

On February 16, 2008 at 10:47 AM, Quinton Edward Grady was born. OK, that will be his name assuming the whole adoption goes through, but since the birth mother has not named him, we will refer to him from here on out as "Quin." Quin was born via a Caesarian section delivery in a Madison area hospital. He weighed 6 pounds 11 ounces and was 19 3/4 inches long. He has a pretty good head of straight black hair and brown eyes (so far as we can tell).

We were able to meet Quin at 3:00 yesterday, when he was about 4 hours old. He is being well cared for in the nursery. While we were there we had the opportunity to feed and change him. He is a decent eater already from what we're told. It's hard to remember hum much babies eat, but they said an ounce was a very good start.

After spending a couple of hours with Quin, we were able to meet the birth mother for the first time, who was recovering in a different part of the hospital. She was doing well, happy to have her pain button. She wasn't real fond of the whole C-section delivery, but was in good spirits. It was nice to finally put a face to the voice and to get at least some idea of what features Quin might have as he grows and develops.

Ethan is a very proud big brother. He made sure that he got equal time holding Quin and took lost of pictures. He even drew a picture of Ethan, Quin, and Dad in the hospital:


If all goes well, we should be able to bring him home on Monday. More pictures will be posted to Facebook or Flickr, I haven't decided which yet.

New Brother Coming

I'm putting a stake in the ground to start doing these again. Perhaps once a week is a good goal, but I need to get it done...

So much has happened since the last time I 'blogged, it would be foolish to try to recap. Instead, I'll talk about the most significant event of recent memory, our adoption. Jenny and I have been trying to have another child for several years now, but with no success. Finally last year we visited a fertility doctor who informed us it was unlikely to happen for various reasons. Rather than try to get a donor egg and try invetro fertilization, we decided to pursue adoption. Three weeks ago, we were finally selected by a birth mother.

Should everything go through as expected, our birth mother should be giving birth any day now. She was due on February 5. Here we are on the 15th and she has just started to labor, so good news should follow soon.

To simplify, I will probably continue to 'blog under this site but perhaps under a new title. More to come...

First Tooth...

It's been fun the last few weeks. Ethan still is getting green slips at school, but he still tells us about it each time. He also is learning his letters very well and is very good with numbers. Jenny and I are both very proud of his schoolwork.

Tonight was the annual Harvest Dance at school. The gym had a bouncy castle and a bunch of games. We spent nearly 2 hours there. Ethan decided he wanted to go as a Power Ranger just in case one of his friends was there who was also a Power Ranger. The best thing that happened, though, was Ethan lost his first tooth right there in the gym. This tooth has been loose for weeks already. A few weeks ago, Jenny and I discovered a new tooth growing in behind his baby teeth. We, being inexperienced first time parents, took him to the dentist who told us to just let nature take its course. I've been continually hounding him to keep wiggling it, hoping that the sure bet of braces could be avoided at least with this first lost tooth. He has been afraid of having anybody touch it except for him, and he hasn't been that good at wiggling it either. Last night I even tried playing a modified college drinking game with him saying that each time the word "bear" was used in the movie "Brother Bear," he should wiggle his tooth. Tonight, his worries and ours were finally put to rest. After putting a jaw breaker in his mouth, Ethan found that the tooth had finally worked its way out of its position. There was blood all over in his mouth. He opened up, and I did the final severing of the last pieces of tissue. Jenny had a tissue that she gave to him. Surprisingly, he didn't mind having all that blood in his mouth at all. In fact, I think he kind of enjoyed it. It didn't hurt or anything, he told me. On the way out to the bathroom to clean up, he had to stop by the registration table to inform the ladies working there that he had just lost a tooth. The rest of the evening he went up to each kid he knew and smiled at them, pointing at his newly vacant spot in his mouth.

Chalk another one up in Ethan's history book. Today, Octoboer 27, 2006, Ethan lost his first tooth.

Long time...

OK, it's been quite awhile again, but I thought the time was right to update some of Ethan's stats on this site. Really what forced me to do it was some of the things Ethan said to me tonight.

First thing's first, Ethan has an adult tooth coming in behind his existing baby teeth on the bottom of his mouth. Jenny and I don't really know anything about this, so we took him to the dentist. He has a very loose tooth that is about to be replaced by this much larger one, but it is not out yet, and the new tooth appears to be hindered by another not loose tooth on the other side. Luckily the dentist said everything looks OK. He seemed to be a bit concerned that he was getting these teeth already since his mouth is not big enough to accommodate these new teeth, but at least we're OK for now. In the mean time, Ethan is very excited to have the tooth fairy just around the corner.

I'm sure I've said it before, but putting Ethan to bed is the source of many very interesting conversations. Tonight was no exception. We started out with our prayers, like we normally do, and Ethan surprised me when he recited the Hail Mary almost perfectly. He and I had been working on it for quite some time... Well, I had him repeat after me when I said it, so I was surprised to find out that he knew it. At first I thought he had just learned it from me and was fooling with me in not letting on that he knew it. Then he let it out that they were actually learning it at school. After I found that out, I think he thought I was upset that he didn't learn it from me, so he changed his tune and told me that he learned it from me. I told him it was OK hat he learns things from his teachers...

Later in our conversation we talked about what his uncles do for a job. He asked first about uncle Rosco (Bryce). I explained that he worked for the Electric company. He asked if he drove a truck or if he fixed things, but I had to explain that he opened envelopes and processed payments. It is a difficult thing to explain to a kid how people, like Bryce, my dad, and myself, can have jobs were we really don't do anything that they think of as work. Explaining uncle Blaine's job was much easier, he's a teacher, and Ethan understands teachers. Most difficult, however, was explaining how uncle Brett didn't work, he went to school. To Ethan, only kids go to school, and uncle Brett was an adult. After trying unsuccessfully to explain that uncle Brett was not an adult, I changed my tact to explain how you go to college when you are an adult, and that uncle Brett was now going to college.

The last conversation turned to Santa Clause and the presents that Ethan wanted. He explained some toy that I have never heard of, and told me that he's never seen it before either. The toy is some spaceship with blinking lights or something. He said that he's never seen one, but I told him that he should still ask Santa and maybe Santa would be able to make one. Ethan told me that Santa couldn't buy it, so what would he do, make one with magic? I said maybe. He then said, "well what if some other kid gets that one?" I said that Santa would maybe make two, to which he responded, "what if some other kid gets that one?" I thought this was a pretty good step in the understanding of the concept of finity (is that a word?). Ultimately I told him that Santa would never give him that present unless he laid down and went to sleep. Yep, the same tricks that worked with me are working on my son now.

Northern Exposure

It's a lovely evening in the North Woods. This week is our family vacation, and this year we have chosen to spend it in St. Germain, WI at a cabin on the lake. It's absolutely lovely up here!!! We're not more than 30 feet from the lake.

We weren't here for 10 minutes before Ethan had his swimming suit on and was in the water!!! It's really amazing to me how he's taken to the water in the last few months. Anyway, he no longer has any problem with water over his head (as long as he's wearing a life jacket). The beach is literally 30 feet from our house, so he's been in the water more than he's been out of it for the last 30 hours.

Today he made a new friend. Andrew, the 7 year old from next door, introduced himself and they have become fast friends. It's hard for Jenny and I since Andrew is used to all kinds of independence. Today they went over to the location of the "camp fire" without telling us. I followed them (from a long ways back) and got yelled at when I finally caught up to them. "Why are you here," they asked me. "Just not ready to let my baby go," I should have honestly responded.

Grandpa and Grandma Grady are here today and tomorrow. Tibbett's are coming on Wednesday. Ethan really seems to be enjoying himself!!!

Jack Black

I just found out that my son is cool. He knows who Jack Black is and wants to see Nacho Libre, and in my book, that makes you cool.

Yesterday we were outside talking about the new DVD he took out from the library. He said that one part doesn't play very well, and told me that the reason was "probably because mommy put a fingerprint on the shiny side."

The things kids will say...

First joke...

Ethan told me his first real joke the other day. Here it is... "Why is the corn stalk mad? -Because people are always pulling on their ears!" Of course he followed this up with "Why is the bear mad? -Because people are always pulling their hair!" So maybe he doesn't have that great of a sense of humor...

Clowns...

It was Jenny's birthday a last week. Ethan and I were outside waiting for her to go roller blading. While we were waiting, I started talking to Ethan about Jenny's birthdy present. Here's how the conversation went down.

Daddy - "Hey Ethan, you know it's mommy's birthday this week, don't you?"
Ethan - "Yeah."
Daddy - "What do you think we should get her?"
Ethan - "Maybe a pretty necklace or something."
Daddy - "That's a good idea" mommy enters "Shh, don't tell mommy what we were talking about!"
Ethan - nods
Mommy - "What were you guys talking about?"
Daddy - "Um, clouds..."
Ethan - "Yeah, clowns."
Mommy - confused "Clowns?"
Ethan - "Yeah, like they're funny and stuff. And they have funny noses."
Mommy and Daddy - laughing
Ethan - "We weren't talking about your birthday present."

When I'm 16...

Last weekend, Grandpa and Grandma Grady were down to visit for a couple of days while Grandpa had a convention. They brought down their old truck which they are going to be keeping here on a permanent basis. Ethan loves this truck. I'm not sure how it transpired, but Grandpa has apparently promised it to him when he's 16. He was later talking to Grandma about when he could have the truck, and said, "not until I'm 16, right?" Grandma nodded. Then Ethan said, "Do you think Grandpa thinks I'm 16 already?"

Everybody is naked...

Today, Ethan told Jenny and I that he was going to start a band and it was going to be called "Everybody is naked," and everybody in the band had to be naked. We actually thought that would be a pretty good name for a band. He got the idea when we were listening to the "Barenaked Ladies" during lunch...

5 Years Old

My baby is 5 years old! This year's birthday was particularly fun. Not only was he really looking forward to his birthday, but he was looking forward to his parties as well. So far Ethan's had 2 parties. The first was on his birthday, last Wednesday. We had the Abholds, the Witte's, and the Kelchen's over for supper and cake. Ethan loved all of his presents he got there. Then, last weekend, we went up to Minneapolis to have a joint birthday party for Ethan and Bryce with the Grady's. Also very fun. Jenny and I bought him a Rescue Hero Hyperjet, which is this huge carrier ship looking toy that Ethan loves. He loves it so much that we had to put it in the van and cart it all over the midwest this weekend!

Grandpa and Grandma Grady secured a new motorcycle for Ethan. They got it from a friend of theirs whose son had outgrown it. Of course, we are just "borrowing" it as Teddy wants it back when we are done. Ethan was very excited about the motorcycle initially, but his enthusiasm quickly faded when he realized he couldn't quite ride it yet. I'm trying to get him outside on his bicycle more often to teach him how to balance better, so hopefully he'll be more excited about it soon.

One more party to go. We're having 4 boys over to the house this weekend for a birthday bash. So far we know we are going to open presents and have cake. Beyond that, I'm not sure what we're going to do. Some sort of game, probably... I'll post pictures.

Wisconsin Dells

We took our annual trip to Wisconsin Dells last weekend. We met the Hupperts, friends of ours from Seattle who now live in Baldwin, WI, at the Wilderness Resort for the evening. Ted and Sue have two little boys, Teddy, who is 3.5, and Charlie, who is 1.5. Ethan had a very good time with Teddy this time. He gets along with kids younger than him very well. Ethan is getting braver and braver as he gets older, but he is still a bit scared of certain things. He had no problems going down all of the kids' slides, even the big ones. I was even able to get him to go on a family tube ride one time. It was pretty dark inside the ride, though. After the ride he told me, "that wasn't so scary." So I asked if he wanted to go again, to which he promptly replied "No!" It was a fun weekend.

Ethan continues to be very curious and seems to be learning quite a bit at school. We pass a lake on the way to daycare on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and in lake there is an island. He tells me that it is the "Galapagos Island." He also told me today that hermit crabs are nocturnal, meaning they "sleep during the day and are awake at night." He then parlaid that into asking if he could maybe get a "hermit lobster" someday.

Tonight was a big event for Ethan. It was the first time he rode a two-wheeler bike by himself. He got it in his head that he wanted to ride a two wheeler, so he made me take off the training wheels, and off he rode. He didn't even want me to hold the bike up while he got started, but after a few failed attempts he conceded that he might need a little help. He can go about 20 feet or so before he falls down. Now he wants to practice each night.

Ice Age - The Meltdown

Here's another in my series of reviews of Children's movies. This time, Ethan and I went to see Ice Age, The Meltdown. Ice Age 2 is the second movie by Blue Sky Productions (I think) under the Fox production company. Like the first Ice Age, it is a computer animated movie about three prehistoric animals who became a "herd" of their own.

This time around, the world is warming up and all of the animals live in a large bowl formed by an 80 foot high ice dam. They have to make it to the other end of the valley before the end of the week before the dam breaks and they all drown. Along the way, Manny, the mammoth, starts to believe that his species is extinct. That is, until he meets up with a mammoth (I forget her name) that thinks she is a possum. Her and her two "brothers" add hijinx to the film by injecting pop phrases and making fun of the other three. Anyway, the gist of the movie is about loss and getting past it. It's kind of a deep subject for kids, but I think it is enjoyable enough for them to stay interested even they don't really "get it." You see, Manny lost his entire family (wife and child) to a group of hunters and he's never really gotten past it. Now, faced with extinction, he has to try to get past his feelings of loss and try to start over with this new mammoth (played by Queen Latifah), but first he has to convince her that she is not a possum.

All in all I enjoyed this movie very much. I would say it is quite a bit better than Madagascar, but still not quite as good as Shrek or The Incredibles. Personally I liked Ice Age better than this outing, but Ethan tells me that "This one is way better than the first one." I definitely recommend this movie to both kids and adults.

Four Year-Old Wisdom

Nothing very long today. I just have some nuggets from the past couple of days that are worth sharing.

Yesterday we were driving back from KFC and Ethan could smell some of the food. He mentioned something about how good the food smelled and then said, "Mmm, the sweet smell of french fries!"

Then, today we were outside changing the oil in the lawn mower, and Ethan turned to me and said, "Dad, if you eat fire, then you will fart fire, and your tongue will be on fire, too." I guess I never thought of it...

Parent-Teacher Conferences

We had our second parent-teacher conference with Ethan's teacher, Mrs. Matyas yesterday. This conference went much better than the first conference. Apparently Ethan is progressing very well and doing a wonderful job in school. He still needs work on his fine motor skills, but he at least knows enough to raise his hand before he talks. I guess he still loves to tell stories. In fact, he tells everybody that he is going to have a baby sister. Unfortunately, Jenny is not pregnant, so that is just not true... I guess he is the only kid in class that is an only child, and that makes him feel left out sometimes.

Ethan's favorite expression lately is "Awesome." "Hey dad, look at this, isn't it awesome!?" He has such emotion when he says it that makes it very exciting. I think he truly thinks all these thing are "awesome."

Ethan Update

Nothing special today. I just wanted to jot some random thoughts down about Ethan so that they wouldn't be lost.

• The other day Ethan asked me, "Dad, is Jesus stronger than Superman?"
• Ethan has quite an affinity for his "booty." The other day, he pulled his pants down in the back, exposing his plumber crack, and asked me, straight-faced, "has anybody seen my underwear?"
• He is very interested in babies and how they are made. He is especially interested in how they get out of their mommy's stomachs. I told him I didn't know but that he should ask Micky, our friend who is pregnant. He told me that maybe the come out of their ears.
• Last night, Ethan told me that poop comes from your brain. Not sure how he came up with that one. Everybody knows that's where boogers come from, not poop.
  

Cowboy Ethan

 

Funny Sayings

I can't remember the exact context, but the other day Ethan was saying some pretty funny stuff. He was talking about liking something or not liking something (what, I can't remember), and a couple of minutes into it he said, "I changed my mind, I like it. I must be out of my mind."

Today we took Ethan to the Curious George movie. Jenny and I both liked it, although it doesn't have as much to enjoy for adults as do some other recent "children's" movies. Will Ferrel is just a funny, funny guy. I would laugh just watching him drink coffee. He stars as the voice of Ted, George's human friend. Very cute movie. I recommend it for any child over the age of 3 (and I think they were all there today).

Pajama Day

Ethan is so excited. Today he gets to wear his pajamas to school. When I told him, the first thing he asked me was, "is everybody going to wear them?" After I told him yes, it was full steam ahead. He picked out the pajamas he wanted, made us wash them, and picked out some slippers. This morning he told me that he didn't want any milk on his cereal so he didn't get his jammies wet...

We're also having interesting conversations regarding a new baby sister. Ethan wants one, and bad. We think the pressure is coming from school where they are discussing families in Spanish. Ethan may be the only single child in his class, and I think that sort of upsets him. Anyway, he has decided he's going to have a baby sister, and he's going to call her Paige Grady. He will feed her, put her to bed, and change her diapers when they are wet, but mom and I have to change them when they are poopy. Also, she is not allowed to use his bathtub because she might poop in there and that would make it smell... These discussions have also brought up the inevitable, "where do babies come from" discussions. He knows they grow in the mommy's belly, but he really wants to know how they get in there... I keep telling him that I will tell him when he's 10.

March of the Penguins and other movie reviews

One of Ethan's favorite things to do is to watch movies. He is probably one of the youngest movie "quoters" that I know. In the last few days, Ethan and I have seen a couple of new movies that are notworthy in that they have left an impression on Ethan.

The first movie we saw was during the Bears-Panthers game on Sunday, Hoodwinked. Hoodwinked is the story of Little Red Riding Hood told from perspective of those involved, Red, Grandma, the Big Bad Wolf, and the axe wielding Schnitzel truck driver. All in all it was a very funny movie and an interesting take on the fairy tale. One of Ethan's favorite parts was when one of the characters said something strange then bowed off the screen slowly, all the while smiling, while another character said "awkward..." What's funny to me is that I'm sure he has no idea what that scene, not to mention that word meant, but he thought it was so funny that he decided to quote it later to Jenny and I. Anyway, I give Hoodwinked 3 stars and caution parents with children that have no sense of humor to stay away from it.

The other movie we saw just last night was March of the Penguins. This is a movie documenting the annual travels of the Antarctic Empire Penguins from the sea, where they can get food, to their nesting grounds, some 70 miles from any open water and source of food. It was a very good show, much better than I expected, and pretty kid-friendly. It is rated G, but I would say it is perhaps less kid-friendly than the likes of Hoodwinked, which is rated PG. I say that because March has to deal with very difficult topics like death and starvation, which are somewhat alien concepts to a suburban American four year old. At one point in the movie, the mothers have to go back to the sea (now up to 80 miles away due to continued freezing in the winter) because they have spent 1/3 of their body weight to deliver their egg. When they finally make it and start gorging on the buffet of fish and crill, they are met by a hungry sea lion who, after some tense chases and close-up shots of his sharp-toothed open mouth, finally lands himself one of the mother penguins. This mortified Ethan. He would not (and has not) stop talking about it. He kept asking me, "what is going to happen to her baby," and, "why did the sea lion eat that penguin?" I tried to explain that sea lions have to eat, too, and if he didn't eat that penguin he might die. Ethan didn't care, he hates sea lions now. It got to the point that he started asking about other animals that might eat penguins. "Do sharks eat penguins?" Not really knowing, I said no, they eat sea lions. Without hesitation, he looked at me and said, "well good. I'm glad that somebody is protecting the penguins." I give this movie 3 1/2 stars and recommend it to parents that are itching for some stimulating conversation with their children.

Little snot...

Wow, has my son turned into a little snot all of a sudden. If this is what it's like to have teen-agers, I want no part of it. I know, I know, those are much worse! I'm not sure what happened, but since I picked him up from school today he has been quite a little snot. He started by informing me that I'm not the boss, and that he didn't like me anymore. I asked him why, and he told me that he didn't like the things I said to him...

"What things?" I asked.

"Those things with all the words," he responded.

"Like what words?" I implored.

"Things like 'go to bed,' and 'eat your food,' and stuff like that," he replied.

Right now he's up in bed because he didn't want to accept my authority and eat his food. Wait, maybe we do say those things too much. Isn't that what parents are supposed to do, though?

That aside, we had a very nice New Year's this year. Ethan came with us to a party at my friend Bert's house. He made it all the way until midnight and celebrated with us, then rewarded us by sleeping until after 9:00 the next morning, so we all got some sleep...