Whew...

And we're back!  And I'm glad.  Although we had lots of fun and will definitely go back in a couple years when Charlotte is older, I'm very happy to be back in my own home.  I will be even happier after the girls are in bed.

Our days were packed and sleep was scarce thanks to a nasty stomach bug thing that hit Emily the first full day we were there.  Here is what our nights of sleep looked like:

Night #1: Not so good, getting used to being in a new place with a night light in our faces (since the girls were sleeping in the room with us), a bed that sloped toward the center and the girls being NOISY sleepers.
Night #2: Up with a barfing Emily.
Night #3: Up with a barfing Charlotte.
Night #4: Up with a gagging Emily who didn't end up barfing but we were just as awake anyway.
Night #5: Inexplicably, up with a barfing Emily again (have you ever heard of a stomach bug that moves down through your digestive system and then comes back to make you barf again several days later?!?!?!).
Night #6: Up with a sleepwalking/sleepcrying Emily.
Night #7: Up with a crying Charlotte who had just had a nightmare.

I cannot wait to sleep in my own bed, in the DARK, in a different room from my children.

So you can imagine when you add in skipped naps for Charlotte (or short naps taken in a stroller) and BUSY days, no one was exactly feeling their best.  Luckily none of the adults got the barfing part of the disease, just the ::ahem:: other issues associated with it.  Emily was by far the worst, and she is still suffering from an upset tummy now, almost a week later.  That made the plane ride home fun :-(

Enough about stomach upset!

Despite all of that we had a good attitude most of the time and enjoyed ourselves.  I kept careful track of my food and ate totally perfectly the first 4 days, then snacked a bit too much for the next 4 days.  We only ate 3 meals out though, and I was mostly good :-)

Meal #1 was the princess breakfast at Epcot on Sunday morning:

Smoked salmon and herring with capers, 2 small slices muenster cheese, pile of fruit, plain yogurt with pecans and granola.  I also had a scrambled egg that I forgot to photograph.

Coffee and orange juice...I only drank about 1/4 of this glass, it was HUGE!

 Some other assorted pictures from the princess breakfast:

Our second meal out was Will's and my date at The Wave.  My parents offered to take the girls for us one night and we said YES!!!!  I chose The Wave out of all the options in and around Disney because it had some locally sourced food and seemed to be at least SLIGHTLY more health-conscious.  We were very pleased with our meals!

Will in The Wave Cave

Will's beer flight, from which I had a sip of each.

My wine flight, from which I had all but a sip of each

 I was thrilled to learn that the pasta was 100% whole grain!  Do you know how long it has been since I've ordered pasta in a restaurant?  But this was a far cry (in a good way) from the fettucine alfredo I used to order everywhere when I was a teenager.

100% whole grain penne with fresh tomato fennel sauce, Florida rock shrimp, clams and mussels.

 Will's meal...he had half of mine and I had half of his.

Pan-seared tilefish, cilantro pesto, and edamame corn green bean "soup" underneath

Will also ordered a side of brussels sprouts...a bit oily but good.  We split these 50/50 as well

Will's Sierra Nevada Torpedo (BITTER!) and my Green Point Rosé

 We were ready for the check when our waitress brought out a surprise!  I had told them when I made the reservation that it was our anniversary because January 30th marked 14 years since our first date :-O  I forgot I had told them that though, so I was shocked when she brought out 2 glasses of champagne and a beautiful dessert sampler.

Chocolate mousse, white chocolate crème brûlée with a chocolate-filled macaroon, lemon cheesecake topped with strawberries and a crazed madman.

Now everyone knows that Will has amazing willpower, which is why I was dumbfounded when he took a spoonful of chocolate mousse to try!  I took pictures to prove that it happened because if someone had merely told me I wouldn't have believed them!

Will he actually eat it?

Yep, I can't believe it

He would like me to clarify that he only ate HALF of that tiny bit of mousse.

Now I would not have ordered dessert myself, but when someone gives me a bunch of wine and then places a FREE plate of 3 of my absolute favorite kinds of desserts in front of me, I cannot resist.  I am totally a creamy dessert person so these could not have been more tailored to my preference.  Despite the fact that Will only had a pathetic (but still surprising!) little smidgen of the mousse, I stepped up to the plate and did them justice.

Nom, nom, and nom

 I managed to leave a bit of everything except for the mousse.  That stuff literally melted like a cloud in my mouth.

Will and I had a discussion about crème brûlée as I ate it...when it is GOOD it is my absolute favorite dessert, but I have only had what I consider truly GOOD crème brûlée 2 times, both in St. Martin.  Will doesn't see the draw.  I admitted that this crème brûlée on a scale of vanilla jell-o pudding to perfect crème brûlée was closer to vanilla jell-o pudding but still quite tasty, and he said "See?  I don't get it!  What's the big deal, crème brûlée?!?"  (while pointing emphatically at the offending dessert).  The waitress walked by right at that moment, and was very concerned that something was wrong...we had to assure her that Will is not a dessert person and he is also crazy so there was actually nothing wrong with the dessert.

And that's enough about that meal!  On to my 3rd meal.

This one made me a little nervous...it was the "Hoop De Doo Revue", and the emphasis was on down home family-style cookin'.  I read online that you can request a vegetarian meal, so I did because I figured it would be healthier than fried chicken, pork spareribs, cornbread and butter and mashed potatoes with pork baked beans.  I started out with some salad like everyone else though, even though it was heavily doused in dressing.

Basically Olive Garden salad minus the pepperoncini 

 My drink of choice was sangria...which was all-you-can-drink and they did not ask if you wanted more, they just brought it when you got halfway through your glass.  I had 2 1/2 glasses this size!  It was weak though, because I didn't really feel much despite having consumed an extremely large amount of sangria.

Sangria and way too much cutlery

 Then the show began, and buckets of oil and starch were deposited all over our table.  I waited patiently, and eventually a chef came out to tell me what my vegetarian options were.  It was LOUD because of the show and the guy had a quiet voice to begin with, but I heard 3 of the 4 options he presented me.  Pasta with butter (seriously?), pasta with tomato sauce, something unintelligible and salmon with grilled veggies.  Given the options I decided I would be a pescetarian for the evening and ordered the salmon.  They brought me about 12 oz of it!

Woah dang

 It was not overcooked as salmon can often be in a restaurant, and it was, in fact, delicious!  I highly appreciated the grilled veggies too, which included zucchini, summer squash, a whole portobello mushroom and baby spinach underneath it all.  Yum.  I ate about half of the salmon but they didn't allow doggie bags so I had my mom secret away the rest of it into a baggie in my purse so I could take it home to Will.  I would have done it myself, but I was comforting my daughter, who had a bad stomachache (which was the theme for the week unfortunately).

Dessert included actual whipped cream and actually homemade cake so I had about 3 bites of the strawberry shortcake.

Please note that this plate is not nearly as big as the dinner plate was

Whatever she was looking at was enough to finally convince her to take off her glasses

This lady really liked Dibby

Stomachache over, time for more fried chicken :-(

So yeah, Disney was lots of fun, and we will return again when:

-All of my kids can use the bathroom completely by themselves.
-We don't have to cart a giant double stroller on and off buses and planes.
-None of my kids needs an afternoon nap.
-Hopefully nobody is sick.

Some other random pictures before I go to bed for what I'm praying will be my first uninterrupted night of sleep in over a week:

Charlotte's first plane ride

The non-perishable part of our grocery delivery

Perishables

Sisters watching the fireworks

Rainy day princess

Us!

Us again

Wowed by the fireworks

Mommy and poor Charlotte, a couple minutes after kissing the concrete on the way into the Animal Kingdom :-(

Flower girl

Bathing beauty

Toasting marshmallows (organic HFCS-free at least!)

Outside "The Sea"

Making Figment dance

Face painting

Emily's picnic

With the grandparents

Hoop-de-dooed out

Goodnight!

Charlottesville Trip Report, part 3

Read about Part 1 of our trip here.
Read about Part 2 of our trip here.


The third day we pretty much just woke up, enjoyed yet another glorious breakfast at the B&B, then headed for home.  We did stop by C'ville Coffee on our way out of town for Will's espresso though.  I got a yummy latté as well, but I was regretting it about an hour later when we were headed up Skyline Drive without a bathroom in sight!  We finally found a port-a-potty, which was, of course, about a mile before a rest stop with an actual bathroom. Oh well.  I enjoyed the drive much more after that!

Google maps had told me it would only take about an extra hour to drive home via Skyline Drive, so we planned to get on at the south end and do the whole length of it.  We didn't have any cell phone reception, so without my GPS to guide me I just went on faith. 

We stopped after lunch to do the hike to Dark Hollow Falls.  I am not a fan of hikes that go downhill first and then back uphill because I can't stop thinking the whole time that the lower we go the more I'll have to climb on the way back!  This turned out to be a good length for us though, and a very pretty hike.

Dark Hollow Falls

Will's perch

The falls just kept falling

After our hike to the falls, the drive started to seem pretty long.  The curvy road had started to really get to us (or our stomachs, rather).  It had been almost 3 hours of driving time and we still hadn't even gotten as far as Lurray!  My faith in Google maps was misplaced, it seems.  I really missed having my GPS to tell me exactly when we'd be arriving home.  We bailed off Skyline Drive at the next opportunity, and banged out the last couple hours of our trip. 

We had to get home to this girl!

And this girl!

 As you can see, we had a great time on our trip!  It's nice (and necessary) to get away every now and then and be able to just wake up and say "What do we feel like doing today?"  It's crazy to remember that life (or at least the weekends) used to be like this all the time!  Now it's such a luxury. 

But life in the meantime ain't so bad either.  We live in a pretty gorgeous place as it is...

 ...and we get to hang out with these little crazies every day.

We're quite lucky :-)  And an occasional break lets us appreciate that all the more.