Time to close out the year. No better way than with a group of friends enjoying food and just a little something to drink. Looking forward to another Happy New Year!
Ductwork
Now that we've opened the Weird Room to the rest of the house, we need to be sure it can be cooled before hot weather gets here. We called in the guy who replaced our A/C, Vincent. Here's something I almost never see - Randy watching someone else do the work! Even when friends help, Randy doesn't stand around and watch.
And he couldn't this time, either. Soon he was right in there, helping prepare the ductwork.
Now we have a big silver insulated tube in the living room. Next step: cover that thing up.
Holidays at Epcot
Finally - the sun came out! It's been overcast for days. We celebrated by going to Epcot. We were hungry when we arrived so the first thing we did was walk to France, to the Boulangerie Patisserie for a cheese plate and fresh loaf of bread. It's always good and just enough to split. Then we just walked through the various lands. A fiddler was celebrating Hanukkah,
while over at the America Center the singers were dressed as Victorian Christmas carolers. Everyone in this group can really sing. They do the multi-part harmonies perfectly.
In the German area we discovered a magnificent woodland clock. Love to have this, and the house it would need to set it off.
It was here that we realized that a little dessert wouldn't be out of line, so we got some sweets - little squares made with layers of cream, jelly, and graham, surrounded by chocolate.
Another store has a ton of crystal figures. I love the Boba Fett helmet - accurate down to the scuff marks and bullet hole, and it still costs $8,550.
And someone had added a Santa hat to the not-very-hidden Mickey in the tank.
On the way out we stopped to listen to "Joyful". This group (they are actually the D'Vine Singers) are powerful, fun singers who aren't afraid to praise the Lord!
Another store has a ton of crystal figures. I love the Boba Fett helmet - accurate down to the scuff marks and bullet hole, and it still costs $8,550.
We wanted to get some information for Randy's upcoming Disney Dive so we went to The Seas and spoke with a diver. Then we wandered through the aquariums. There are so many wonderful things to see here.
Disney does Gingerbread
On our last day of Disney access this year, we went to see more Christmas displays. At the Grand Floridian they put up a ridiculously tall and beautifully decorated Christmas tree in the atrium.
One change they did make was to leave a section of the roof off, so you can see inside from the surrounding balconies.
The sign says there are 18 "hidden Mickeys" in this. I could only find one, but Randy walked over, glanced at it, and found the rest of them. They are teeny tiny golden Mickey shapes, stamped onto some of the gingerbread blocks. I would have never found these!
We took a quick ride on Soarin, split a sandwich for lunch, then walked over to the American Center to see their gingerbread creation. Although it includes the Capital, the Lincoln Memorial, and Washington's Monument, it's the smallest of the gingerbread displays. But it's much more detailed than the castle. I'm not sure how much "to scale" it is, but they did take a few liberties; the Freedom statue on the Capital has been replaced by Mickey Mouse, and the Monument is capped with a Mickey hat!
By then the forecasted rain was threatening to come in, so we power-walked through some light sprinkles to the car and headed home.
But pride of place goes to their life-size gingerbread house. The design is just about the same as last year, which is fine because once you get it right, you don't need to change it.
From here we to the Contemporary Resort to check out their gingerbread castle. This is an entirely different take on gingerbread construction - they created a 2-dimensional castle, following the simplistic style of "It's a Small World". Not nearly as impressive as the Grand Floridian's, but still a good effort.
Hollywood at Christmas
Sometimes it seems like a long time between Disney visits. Today we were glad to be back at Hollywood Studios.
The first thing we did was use our Fast Pass for Toy Story Mania. I used to be beat Randy's score on this, but we've been often enough that his practice has paid off, and now he regularly tromps me!
No matter, I still love this ride/game. The new Toy Story area is cute - the imagineers really paid attention to the details, so while children are excited by the rides and characters, adults keep saying "I remember that game!"
The next order of business was to walk over to Epcot and head for the Beach Club Resort for a look at their holiday extravaganza. They have created a life-size spinning carousel with 4 ponies, made of chocolate, fondant and gingerbread. They used 36 pounds of honey, 96 pounds of bread flour, 100 pints of eggs, 10 pounds of spices, 10 quarts of simple syrup, 150 pounds of icing, 50 pounds of dark chocolate, 50 pounds of modeling chocolate, with 200 gum paste flowers. They ended up with 2,109 pieces of gingerbread! There are supposed to be 19 "hidden Mickeys" in this creation, but I didn't bother looking for them. I was busy admiring that famous "attention to detail" that Disney does so well.
Afterwards we walked back to Hollywood Studios, where we were in time for the March of the First Order. We strolled through the rest of the park but decided we didn't really want to stand in lines, so we finished the day by going to Guest Relations, where we bundled our 3 Disney gift cards onto one card (again). Hopefully this one won't get stolen!
The first thing we did was use our Fast Pass for Toy Story Mania. I used to be beat Randy's score on this, but we've been often enough that his practice has paid off, and now he regularly tromps me!
No matter, I still love this ride/game. The new Toy Story area is cute - the imagineers really paid attention to the details, so while children are excited by the rides and characters, adults keep saying "I remember that game!"
Just Desserts
Our Life Group got together to celebrate the holidays with, as usual, food! At our last meeting we all decided that for this event, everyone would bring desserts. We had every kind of dessert and it was all delicious. We had a great evening with friends and everyone agreed that we'd never do "just desserts" again!
Our own entry was a bit . . . different. Randy had a snowman pan he wanted to use so he made a delicious cake and we decorated it with colored frosting. It was the first time I'd tried to decorate an upright cake, and that makes a difference. Our snowman ended up looking like a wistful little snowbird with a bright orange beak instead of a carrot nose.
Our own entry was a bit . . . different. Randy had a snowman pan he wanted to use so he made a delicious cake and we decorated it with colored frosting. It was the first time I'd tried to decorate an upright cake, and that makes a difference. Our snowman ended up looking like a wistful little snowbird with a bright orange beak instead of a carrot nose.
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