who we met

The second time we ventured over to the Magic Kingdom ~ day 5 of parkin' it (Thursday) ~ it was much more about who we met than what rides we rode.

Our two little water talents ~ that would be water fairies to those of you non-versed in fairy speak, water talent fairies create dew drops and help fish swim up waterfalls ~ were set on heading to Pixie Hollow to meet the fairies this day.

And meet them they did.  Thankfully the line was reasonable and there were fairy video clips playing to entertain their squirmy brothers.  Once we made it back into Pixie Hollow our girls were thrilled to make acquaintence with both Tinkerbell

and Rosetta.

One of the photography assistants made conversation while we were waiting for our turn with Tinkerbell and asked if Caleb and Darcy were twins.  When I told her that while they were very close in age and the best of friends that they weren't actually twins, she smiled and said that she was a twin and that my two seemed to have that special connection.  We continued chatting and so I asked her if Silvermist was in the park today as she was the common favorite at our house.  She told us that Silvermist was only able to take a break from her water responsibilities on special occasions but that Terence would be stopping by in a little bit and if we wanted to come to the back door of Pixie Hollow she'd personally let us back in without waiting in line again.

That gave us enough time to catch a jungle cruise (so, so cheesy to Ian and I after taking our safari in the Animal Kingdom, but the kids LOVED it) and come back to visit with Terence for a few minutes.  All four were enamored with him.

What tickled me was that Caleb seemed to have enjoyed meeting Terence even more than the girls did.  He was so giggly and cute after we walked out.

terence e is after all a dust fairy and maybe caleb hoped he had been sprinkled with a little pixie dust so he could fly...

While the pixie dust didn't work out, we hopped a magic carpet next and flew above Adventureland.

Daniel charmed a snake.

can't tell you how glad i am that he didn't choose this as his "one thing"
(to prevent a never ending chorus of "can i have" or "i want" we told the kids that they needed to keep their eyes open and at the end of the week could choose ONE gift each ~ worked like a charm)

Then we waited in our longest character line of the week to meet Rapunzel.  This was a time that packing our lunch worked in our favor, we ate to pass the time.  Finally it was our turn...

the girls were so cute with concern that rapunzel would be offended they were wearing silvermist dresses instead of their rapunzel ones.  i told them to explain to rapunzel that they had worn their dresses over the first day we came but that we didn't get to meet her that day.  ky held me to my word and i overheard her apologizing.

It was especially hot that day and we were all worn out, so with a brief stop to admire the castle, we headed back to the condo for much needed naps and a Chick-fil-A fix before continuing our Disney day.

We wrapped up the day at Epcot, riding Spaceship Earth (Ian rode with the boys and ended up getting the German commentary due to little fingers on the screen) and playing some of the interactive games after the ride is over,

the girls did slightly better than the boys and powered up a mega city

We traveled The Seas with Nemo and Friends, again.

We listened to Turtle Talk with Crush, again.   At least Crush was more exciting this time because Caleb was one of the kids that got to talk to him, a true highlight of his trip!

crush getting into position to chat with caleb about swimming

Caleb and I even got to squeeze in a trip to Mars on Mission SPACE.

But again, the evening was highlighted by who we met.

There was Pluto,

Goofy,

Donald,

Mickey,

and...

wait for it...

Minnie.

Not that Minnie herself was the show stopper.  Did you notice who was in that picture with her?  

My big girl actually decided she could put her fears behind her to tell Minnie hello from her friend Corrie.  She was a bit nervous, but determined to approach Minnie without holding my hand.  I was so proud of her!

We spent a good deal of our time waiting to meet some of the characters that day.  But from DQ's proud statement that she got to touch Rapunzel's hair to Caleb's pixie dust giggles to Daniel's squeals of Meeh-kee Moss to Ky's big step, it was totally worth it!