WDW Day 2 - EPCOT

The plan every day was to let the kids sleep.
We figured letting them sleep might be a good way of holding off any sickness that might creep in to destroy our vacation.

Anyways, my kids are notorious late sleepers.

Especially on vacation.

Disney vacations are no different.

So, we let them sleep.

I didn't schedule our first Fastpasses until 11am or after every day.

And we ate breakfast in the room using the groceries I had delivered.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

We decided to make EPCOT and the Flower and Garden Festival our first stop of the vacation.

We hopped on the monorail and rode on over.

My kids no longer call Spaceship Earth EPCOT.

Sigh.  They're growing up so fast.

The first thing was did was hang a left into Innoventions.

We visited the Colortopia section.

The lighting was really cool.

After a cute little spiel about color, the fun got started.

We got to paint murals with magic light brushes.

At the end the murals came to life.

Our Fastpass (henceforth will be shown as FP) return time for Test Track was approaching.  So, we headed on over.

They changed this ride from the last time we were here.  It used to be a crash dummy theme and now it's a design and test your own car theme.

Here was Katie's car.....

Annnnnnd, Mikey's car......

Mikey really liked this ride.

Katie...hmmm, not sure.

I think she thought it was loud.

She's covering her ears in the photo below.

Mikey has Tow Mater teeth.

Our next ride was Spaceship Earth.

Katie rode with Huzbend and I rode with Mikey.

We had a bit of a slowdown in the Egypt section of the ride.

On the way down and out of the attraction, they play a little video of how things will be in the future using your faces.

Huzbend and Katie's animation didn't work.

But, ours did.

Here we are eating lunch with each other in the fuuuuuturrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrre.

Speaking of lunch.....

We headed over to Sunshine Seasons where Katie and Mikey first encountered the OMG It's Gluten Free Brownie (it was nut free too).  The first of many encounters with this special special treat.

Katie nearly passed out from its deliciousness.

They also had lunch.  Not just brownies.

Katie ate a chicken drumstick and loved it so much that I now have to make them at home.

Mikey had "Pizza Dippers", parmesan breadsticks that you dip in pizza sauce.

He now will eat deep dish pizza because we specifically compare it to the, "pizza dippers at EPCOT".

After chowing down the monster brownie, there was a little extra bounce in Katie's step.

(Mikey was so full from lunch that he had to save his for later).

Off to visit Nemo and Friends!

Hop aboard your clam-mobile!!

The last time we rode this ride, this happened.....

Katie freaked out.

She did not like the sharks and especially the part with the anglerfish.

She went ballistic.

Only chocolate pudding could calm her down.

And then, post-pudding, she quizzed Crush the Turtle as to why the ride was so scary.

This time, it's hard to see, but there were no tears and no screaming.

Just closed eyes and covered ears.

I'll call that progress.

And, this time, she got in Bruce for a picture.

Mikey was there for moral support.

Katie took pictures of all sorts of stuff.

Topiary and butterflies were her subjects of the day.

We began our jaunt around World Showcase stopping in quite a few countries to try out the special food/drink kiosks they had set up for the Flower and Garden Festival.

We breezed through Canada and stopped first in the UK.

We had a blueberry hard cider and a gluten free lemon scone with mixed berries and crème fraiche.

Cider - tasted like blueberry soda.  Scone - WOW. Super yum.

Mikey sat and enjoyed his leftover brownie from lunch.

Next we proceeded over the bridge to France.

It was pretty hot and also, pretty crowded.

So, we parked it in the shade while Huzbend searched out some goodies.

He found an adult popsicle.

"Ice Pop Grand Marnier Peach Cocktail" it was called.

And a chocolate raspberry macaron.

Foooood heeeeaaaaven.

I wasn't a fan of either of those offerings and so we took off to find some sweet treats for the kids.

We stopped in Japan.

First, a little shopping.  A Pokémon ball with Fennekin in it for Mikey and a Luna Sailor Moon purse for Katie.  Followed by a walk through of the display of cute culture in Japan.

Next up, some kakigori (shave ice).

After watching a very drunk woman spit sake out all over the sidewalk because it was "gross" and extricating ourselves from the sticky mess that all shave ice eventually becomes, we headed to the Italy pavilion to take some pictures for Katie.

She wanted to see the replica statues of the Gods and Goddesses.

She stopped along the way to enjoy the Snow White and Seven Dwarves topiary.

We had just a tiny bit of time before dinner and stopped to watch the Jeweled Dragon Acrobats in the China pavilion.

And then it was off to Mexico for dinner at the San Angel Inn with some familiar faces (minus the one behind the camera).

Dinner was yummy.

And the kids ate good.

AGAIN.

If you know us, you know that's a big deal.

Interesting tid-bit.

Did you know that there is only one set of bathrooms inside the Mexico pavilion?

The restaurant shared bathrooms with the entire pavilion.  This made for REALLLLY long bathroom lines.  Sigh.

Just so ya know.

After dinner, we jumped on the Gran Fiesta Tour Starring the Three Caballeros.

(Not sure if that lady back there was waving or didn't want her picture taken).

Whooooooooaaaaa.

Temple.

After our enjoyable boat trip (sans siesta, which I could've used at this point), we went out to find a spot to sit for "IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth."

So official sounding, that name.

We took a quick detour to China to watch the Reflections of China circle-vision movie.

Huzbend went out to find some more yummies.

After sucking down a "Kung Fu Punch" in China he hurried (or maybe stumbled) his way over to the Italy pavilion and picked up two Crimoso al Pistachio desserts (pistachio cream, strawberries and marscapone cream) for the two of us.

I think he might've grabbed a prosecco too....not sure.

We parked it on a bench tucked between China and the bridge to Germany with a view of the World Showcase Lagoon partially obstructed by some trees.  Not bad.  At least we had a bench.

Since we had a while to wait, I wanted to head over to Norway to get myself a treat (yes, another) that I had read about online.

I veered off into the Kringla Bakeri and the kids found this cute guy.

Thanks to my sister for entertaining them while I stood in the not-that-huge-but-still-long line for my treat.

This is what I got.

 School Bread.

It's a sweet bread roll with a vanilla custard filling that is covered with sweet icing and then topped with toasted coconut.

It was okay.

The thing was HUGE.

It needed more filling and less bread, I thought.

The kids didn't understand why I waited in line for something they couldn't eat.
Jeez.

Here we are on our bench.

Finally, it was time for the show.

Not bad, even with the tree.  We could still see the Globe if we leaned rightish.

After the show, it was time to book it to the monorail for the ride back home.

The kids were tired and each took turns getting carried a little bit.

That's why I'm wearing the backpack in the front.

Katie just got a piggy back ride.

We made sure to take a detour to get our family photo with "The Ball" before we hightailed it outta there.

Katie's Favorite Parts of the Day:

 - the chicken drumstick and brownie for lunch

 - having the ride stop in the Egypt section of Spaceship Earth and looking for mummies

 - taking pictures

Mikey's Favorite Parts of the Day:

 - Test Track ride

 - eating my brownie