Fender Bender

Mary Lou had a minor accident with our car today - I stuck this picture up here so Dave could see the damage. I'll delete it in a little while.

edit - I decided to leave the picture up - this whole episode was so irritating. Mary Lou was in a parking lot, when a Kindcare truck backed into her. She exchanged information with the drive, who neglected to inform her that he was actually an employee of the Firestone, where the truck was being serviced (at least that's what Kindercare thought). After a series of calls to Kindercare, then the Firestone we got that straightened out. Unfortunately, by that time the drive had conveniently changed his story to one where Mary Lou hit him. So now our car is banged up and we have no recourse, because it's our word against his. I've learned two things from this little incident:

1. Any accident I have, no matter how small will involve a visit from the police, so they can see the position of our cars and take statements right away, before people have time to concoct stories.

2. Firestone sucks. The manager of the Firestone was incredibly rude to me. They would not give me any information, and told me I'd have to call their Consumer Affairs department. He also refused to provide me with the phone number for this department, claiming it was in the phone book. He is a liar, as are his employees. No one ever provided a satisfactory explanation for why that Kindcare truck was cruising around a parking lot three miles away from the Firestone. I have a pretty good idea why though - the truck was parked in front of a Murphy's Deli when it backed into our car. Maybe other technicians had already grabbed whatever "cool" cars were in for service that day, so our poor drive was forced to use the Kindercare truck for his lunchtime errands. Why drive your own vehicle, when you can take someone else's for free?

Where's the Beef

We had a priority seating reservation at Hollywood & Vine for 3:30 on this day. That was pretty early for dinner, but way late for lunch. I had stuffed a big breakfast into everyone at the condo and made them wait all day, since this was an all you can eat buffet. Once we got in, it was fabulous. They had shrimp, roast beef, all sorts of entrees and side dishes. There was a smaller bar that catered to kids, with chicken nuggets & macaroni and cheese. I was even able to make Ellie her favorite - a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. There was a big dessert bar, with pie, cakes, cookies and an ice cream machine. By the time we left this place, we could hardly walk and were all ready for a nap. We also got tickets to a special seating section for the Fantasmic show that night, as part of the package I'd purchased in advance.

I don't think I've mentioned it before, but I'm a way obsessive planner. Before we left Texas, I had a spreadsheet with every meal we would eat on the trip. I used http://www.allearsnet.com to check out the restaurants at each park. Then I planned where we would eat and estimated the cost. I carried the printout around in my purse, and was something of a taskmaster about it. We had a budget and I wanted to squeeze in as many character meals and sit down restaurants as I could, which meant we couldn't just blow $40 at a hamburger stand for a quick snack. Food is pretty expensive inside Disney, but I think the pricier places are actually a better deal because you get to sit down and you get a lot of food.

Touched by a Girl

The boys got their picture too, under some duress for Ben. He's at the perfect age where girls are yucky and video games rule. I guess later girls will be not yucky, but video games will still rule.

Ellie with Snow White

Later in the day we ran into Snow White. We didn't take a lot of character pictures at Disney, because there were usually long lines and we'd rather be going on rides. But, we had to stop for Snow White. Ellie has a Snow White costume, and she looks perfect in it, with her short brown hair, red lips and blue eyes. I wish she'd worn it to the park on this day, because it would have been great to get a picture of her with the "real" Snow White.

Candy from Strangers

We met these girls in the line for The Little Mermaid show. They kept talking to Ellie and giggling. Then they told me they were school teachers from Japan on vacation. They asked to take a picture with our kids, then we took one with them. I have no idea why Ellie looks so sullen here - I hope she looks nicer in their snapshot. After the picture, they gave the kids some sort of Japanese candy. I didn't get to try it, but the kids all liked it.