Day 13 – Downtown Disney

We slept in!!! If you call 0830 sleeping in. Today was a day of laundry and relaxed shopping. We headed out around lunchtime to Downtown Disney. Lunch was at Fulton’s Crab House, a restaurant on a “boat” in the water. Not the best seafood we’ve had (definitely not as good as the first night in St. Augustine) but not the worst. We did get to sit outside on the dock facing the water. Ashlyn was on, if you know what I mean. As soon as I put her in the highchair she started screaming. The bread was late coming so I pulled her out and held her for awhile. Fortunately there were only a couple other tables out there…so we were only being cursed by a few. Then, when the bread did come out she didn’t want any. I feared that this would become a disaster.

Our appetizer came and I tried to give her some of that. I didn’t know how she would react to muscles and clams. She liked them. So that placated her for a little while. Lunch came: for me shrimp and Alaskan snow crab (I realize this isn’t from the eastern sea board, I’m assuming they flew it in. Let’s leave it at that); for Du, scallops; for Reagan, something very fishy–mac and cheese.

Ashlyn saw all our food and immediately began whining for some. Du picked up a glob of mac and chees and fed it to A whos jaw started shaking and she started yelling. It was hot. Poor Ashlyn. Poor Du, trying to make his daugther shut up happy.

After she got some temperate mac and cheese she was good. The rest of the lunch was enjoyable. The seagulls were going to love us after we left too. There were crackers strewn about like someone had crunched up a cracker bag and slung it around their head letting crumbs fly as they may. We do try to clean up after ourselves, but sometimes you just can’t get it all.

Picking Finding an orange in our neighborhood orange orchard. This is before we headed out to Downtown Disney.

A lot of people down here park their RVs and build around them for their vacation home. No kidding. BTW this isn’t what our vacation home looked like.

Downtown Disney has a lot of shopping. We only hit one area of it. We got a couple of things that we just had to have. Including ice cream shakes and a cookie at the Ghirardelli Chocolate Store. Yum. Reagan got a crown that she got to bejewel herself. She chose all the jewels for it and the veil for the back. That took literally an hour. Then she picked out lots of My Little Pony gear. You get a box and fill it as full as you can. This took a little less than an hour. Meanwhile Du got to play with Ashlyn outside.

 Lego dragon

After shopping Du & I sat on a bench while Reagan played in those kid-friendly fountains. The ones that shoot up from the ground and kids run amuck* amongst the streams of water. Let’s just say we’re not shocked at why most kids are out of control these days. We saw many interesting parenting styles. We know we’re not perfect, but we have our act together most of the time (I know it doesn’t seem like it with #2, but we really do).

Actually, this whole trip has been a study in parenting styles. Our last day at Disney I was in the restroom with Reagan. We were washing our hands while watching another mother plead and “count to three” with her child to get her to wash her hands. Since when has counting to three ever worked? Of course she didn’t make it past two because what is the consequence after three? There is none. You have to stop at two and then start pleading with your kid again. If there actually were a consequence after three the kid knows they still have until 2 and a half, 2 and three quarters, I mean it, I really mean it, if I make it to three you’re in trouble.

Anyway, dinner was Chick Fil-A drive through. Not a glamerous last dinner, but we had to get home, finish laundry and pack. This was an adventure. All the laundry got washed, dried and folded. We set everything that needed packing in one room. Then we started puting it in the suitcases. Did our clothes multiply while we were out adventuring during the day? We went shopping and bought some things, but really this much? Du sucked in his pride and left for WalMart to get another suitcase. To add insult to injury I called him and asked him to pick up some “girly” items while he was there. HAHA! I know how to make a man feel masculine. I told him he was actually held in high respects by all the ladies in that aisle who were wishing their men were secure enough in their masculinity to venture there. He got home with a new suitcase and we stuffed it full. There are still things bulging everywhere.

*BTW, I looked up amuck to see if I was spelling it correctly. The definition made me laugh: “to rush about in a murderous frenzy. to rush about wildly; lose self-control” Isn’t that fitting.