A Trip to Granville Island

Since my Dad was down to visit we decided to take a trip down to Granville Island. It's a great place to visit though we usually only make it down when we have company. Callie decided that she didn't want to go and after 20 minutes of screaming and coaxing I remembered that they have a great bead shop there. It didn't take long to convince her once we let her know that we could go bead shopping. She's had a number of sets given to her as gifts and she enjoys making up bracelets and necklaces. It's a good hobby because she can always start over if she doesn't like the end result. I'm not a fan as at least every few days someone makes a wrong move and you hear the tinkle of beads flooding across the floor.

Although the bead store is a great place with literally thousands of options, the prices seem out of this word. I think the average price for the beads in the picture above was about $1.00. Callie truly enjoyed herself though and picked up a little vile of beads and one 'special' bead. After bead shopping we bought some treats and headed outside to sit since inside was packed. Callie had a great time chasing and feeding pigeons. I plan on using this trip as an example in the future of. 'Trust your parents. You'll have fun!' She got beads, treats and two Nancy Drew books. Poor Carter didn't complain once and only got a cookie!

Christmas I and Christmas II

Somehow two weeks off at Christmas just isn't enough. We don't travel anymore since our 13 hour odyssey from Prince George a few years. Instead we get the parents to come to us. (A good thing this year since Carter decided to have some sort of terrible cold that had him sick and cranky for 10 days with a high fever for 5 of those days.) I've lost track of whose 'turn' it is but this year Barb and Reg were down before Christmas up to Boxing day. We had a fondue with Barb, Reg, Corey, Carmen and Ron on Christmas eve. (No fire this year.) Christmas morning was chaotic with wrapping paper flying everywhere. I won't mention everyone's favourite gifts but I'm sure Carter's was not they grey pants he got. His exact words were "Pants!?!? That's just weird!"

On Christmas day we had everyone over again for traditional turkey Christmas dinner. The kids spent the entire day playing with all their new toys and surprisingly there were very few melt downs. This year Santa's pajama theme was Penguins and he even knew to give a set to Kristen. We didn't get a white Christmas this year and I'm starting to think that the prediction that this year will be 5 degrees cooler than normal is not going to come to fruition. We've been wet, windy and plus 7 for most of December with very few frost days.

Christmas II came on December 29th. This year it was just my Dad as my Mom had to stay in Prince George to help my grandma who fell and injured her knee on Christmas Day. We opened gifts from my parents and brother and the kids had another day of playing with their new toys.

It's now New Years Eve and Kerry and I went mattress shopping. We've now reached the point where we'd rather have one nice gift for both of us and a good night's sleep was first on the list.

A Trip to the Dentist

A few weeks ago the family made a visit to the dentist. This was going to be Carter's first time in the big chair. Based on our experience with Callie we were a little worried (more on her later). I got to go first and they brought Carter in to watch. He decided he wanted to sit on my lap and help. The dentist let him try out each of the tools and he was quite fascinated looking inside my mouth with the big spot light turned on. When it came time for him to go had no problems climbing up in the chair and letting them go to work. They managed to floss, clean and fluoride without even a whimper. (He still thinks they painted his teeth red though because the dentist said she was going to paint his teeth with Strawberry fluoride.)

Callie unfortunately is still a different story. We always try to start with her first and it always turns into Kerry going and then Callie takes her turn while sitting on Kerry's lap. I always like to deal with moments like this by thinking that this can't possibly continue until university so at most we've got another 12 years of this. Should be a snap.

Boots to Blades

This fall we put Carter into Boots to Blades again. This was his second time and I was hoping that we'd be able to try the blades this time but no such luck. As soon as I'd tell him that we were going skating he'd get excited and say. "We're going skating...but I will not wear skates Daddy." I'm thinking we might have had a better go at it if we had just skipped the boots part and threw some skates on him.  This time around he was the only one that didn't wear skates and most of the other kids were quite good on theirs. He still has lot's of fun when he goes though. Some of the events include picking things up and putting them in boxes. He likes it so much that I have to stop him about half way through so the other kids get a chance.

As per usual a highlight of the class is the chair rides. They are little plastic lawn chairs and the instructor gives them quite a big push. I'm sure once in a while the chair must hit a rut and just send the kid flying.

I think we'll try going during family skate a few times this winter and see if we can't convince him to put on skates. Though if he decides he doesn't want to follow in the footsteps of Crosby we've still got soccer to fall back on.

Grey Cup 2011

This year was the 99th Grey Cup and it was being held in Vancouver. After an 0-5 start it didn't seem likely that the home team would be attending but an amazing second half of the season resulted in a playoff berth. This was even more exciting for me because my father-in-law Reg had purchased tickets for myself as well as my brother-in-laws Corey and Ronnie. Originally our seats were in the lower bowl but quite close to the top. After some additional bargaining, Barb managed to get us seats in the first three rows. They weren't beside each other but they were close together and incredibly close to the field on the 15 yard line.

Reg and I left our house around 10:00 as we needed to go pick up an umbrella. It had been pouring rain all night and didn't look like it was going to get much better. (We ended up carrying them the whole day as the sun came out and it was clear all day.) We then picked up Corey and headed to Ron's house. The plan was to park the car there and take the Skytrain downtown. It's a much easier exit and we wouldn't have to worry about parking. We got downtown around 11:30 and wandered around the city for a bit before heading into the stadium. Our seats turned out to be just as good as Barb had predicted and had an excellent view. :)

The halftime show was Nickleback. I was quite amazed that they've sold 50+ million albums. I guess they're a natural choice for a halftime show though I would have preferred if they had done some of their older songs. I'm not very familiar with their new stuff and it was so loud it just sounded like noise to me. There were quite a few young kids in our section and I was glad their parents had thought to bring ear muffs for them. The show was still fun to watch though and you could feel the special effects flame from our seats.

There were only a few points in the game where it seemed that Winnipeg had a chance to make a game of it. I think this was a good thing for Reg who is a big Lions fan. The home team won and the crowed went wild.

Oh yes. This was the first time I'd been in the new BC Place since the 550 million dollar renovation. It's a great stadium though I do question whether it would have been cheaper to tear it down and rebuild it. Hopefully it brings in enough events to pay for itself quickly.

Baby Ryan's Baptism

On Sunday we headed to Baby Ryan's baptism. Ryan is Kerry's brother's new son and he was born on August 27th. All the cousins have a 7 in their birth date.  Callie and Kristen both on August 7th and Carter on September 17th. The church is just a few blocks from our house and it's one of the nicer modern Churches I've been in.  It's part of the Catholic High School and has very high vaulted ceilings and is nice and bright. The ceremony included three other children but still went quickly. I get the sense that this is a pretty routine event for the priest now. Kerry looked after the kids while I took pictures where I could.

After the ceremony we headed over to Corey and Carmen's town house complex for lunch. They held it in the clubhouse and all of Carmen's family was there. The food was excellent and all the cousins had a great time playing together. Kristen really seems to enjoy playing with Callie and Carter and it's going to be chaos once Ryan is able to walk.

Disney on Ice

On Friday night we headed out to Abbotsford to see 'Disney on Ice - Toy Story 3' or as Carter calls it 'Toy Story Ice." Previously it's only been held in Vancouver but this year they held it in Abbotsford as well as they have a nice new Arena for the Abbotsford Heat AHL team. We've gone almost every since Callie was 15 months and this year we chose Friday night as you get 2 for 1. Before the show we met up with Veronica and Brad and their kids Sarah and Lauren at the Spaghetti Factory. We met them in prenatal class for Callie and have keep in touch every since.

The theme has ranged from a mix of Princess shows to High School Musical but this year was totally dedicated to just the one movie. I'm not sure that you'd be able to know what was going on if  you hadn't seen the movie before but it was still excellent. I'm amazed at the sets they manage to come up with. My favourite scene was probably the opening one with all of the army guys parachuting in. Two of the guys actually glided in from above on a lifting rig and they used special effects to make it look like they were all arriving the same way. (Actually they were probably mostly army girls.)

Buzz light year had a similar entrance that included a flashy rocket trail. Carter and Callie had a great time and Disney emptied our wallets nicely for Cotten Candy and drinks.  Apparently if you add a 25 cent plastic cup or hat to something you can charge $12.00. They were nice enough to include handy wipes with the Cotten Candy which was very much needed since Carter tends to just let the stuff dissolve in his hands. It was a 30 minute drive home afterwards and we stopped off at Toys-R-Us for their midnight sale to pick up some gifts for Kerry's Sunshine fund at her school. They had portable high-chairs on sale and several teachers are having babies. We didn't get home till 10:30 but still had a lot of fun.

Happy Halloween!

Halloween weekend officially kicked off on the Friday before for us. Callie and Kerry's school were holding a school dance. I don't recall having elementary school dances when I was a kid other than perhaps something for Grade 7 but this event is for the whole school. The tickets were free and they had  a cake walk, door prizes and even a smoke machine and strobe light. Callie had already prearranged to be there with several of her friends and within minutes they were out on the dance floor. One of the first songs was 'Firework' by Katy Perry which was the song everyone danced to at the end of her ballet recital. You could tell which kids went to the same dance school as they all had the same moves. Even Carter got out there to dance with Mommy. I don't have pictures but if you can picture him in his horse costume shaking his booty so that his tale swung back and forth you'll get the idea.

I decided to try a different technique for pumpkin carving this year. Usually I cut straight through but this year I tried one of the ones where you only remove the skin and most of the meat from the inside so that your image glows. It wasn't as difficult as I had thought so I think I'll try something a bit more challenging next year. (By challenging of course I mean copying someone else's work) This year's pumpkin was Phineas from Disney's Phineas and Ferb. A show for the whole family. My favourite trick-or-treaters were the eastern European  family who were speaking in their native language. The only word I understood was Phineas.

Carter was a horse of course, Callie was a witch and Kerry decided she needed something different then her old standby costume of Mickey Mouse's wizards hats along with some Mickey gloves. Our annual routine was disrupted a bit. Rather than the whole family heading over to Corey and Carmen's only Kerry and Callie were able to go. Carter wasn't feeling very well and fell asleep on the couch. He did manage to make it out with them when they got home and they had their biggest hull to date. I'm thinking giving out two candies per kid is stingy compared to what some of the other families were handing out. We only got 60 kids so maybe we'll do something special for candy next year.

The Pumpkin Patch

We took our annual trip to Aldor Acres today with Corey and Carmen. It was an absolutely gorgeous October day. Sunny and 15 degrees and there hasn't been any rain in close to a week so the fields were nice and dry. This year looks like it was very good for pumpkins. Lot's of big ones and very few rotten ones.
Our family got there a bit early so we headed over to a few of the barns where they have some animals. The first barn we always go to has this singing pig in it that will probably cause nightmares with my kids for the rest of their lives. As soon as they see it it's like they're seeing the devil. We usually manage to walk by into the rest of the barn but this time Carter was also upset with the smells and loud noises from the crowds so he and I had to get out fast. We headed over to a slightly less crowded barn that didn't smell as much and he was quite happy that he 'wasn't scared' there.

The big hit with Callie was the bunnies. This year they had at least 40 of them and they were everywhere. You could pick them up and hold them and if Callie had her way she would have taken one home with her. There's something about cats and bunnies that she absolutely loves. It's only a matter of time before she asks us for one or the other. She's mildly allergic to cats so I'm expecting the bunny or hamster request within the next few years.

We did our usual things including the petting zoo, barns, hotdogs and pumpkin pie, chickens and finally a hay ride to the pumpkin patch. Everyone piles on a trailer towed by a tractor and they take us out into the fields to hunt. In past years there have been quite a few rotten pumpkins in the fields with crows pecking at the remains but this year the field was dry and full of pumpkins. Your goal is to find a nice tall skinny one as they use a wooden measuring device to price them. The farther down the trough it goes the cheaper the pumpkin. We usually try to convince the kids to get a smaller one as you can usually get good ones at Superstore for much cheaper. After that they take us back to our cars, or in our case back to the bunny cages for one last visit.

Happy Thanksgiving and GG's 90th Birthday

For Thanksgiving this year we headed up to Prince George. We don't usually go up as it's a long way to go for what turns into a one and a half day visit. But this year was a special event. My Grandmother's 90th Birthday! In our house she goes by GG in PG for Great Grandmother but at this party she and many names. Mom, Grandmother, Great Grandmother and Aunt to name a few. She's still going strong and lives on her own. We had relatives from all over including my cousins from Toronto and Vancouver Island.

The kids had great fun with their usual Prince George games including
1) Lego. This time with the aunts and uncles.
2) Playing with Dax. My parents cat.
3) The marble board. This game is older than my Dad.
4) The box of special toys.
5) A trip to Grandma's where there are more special toys.
6) A trip to Uncle Eric's to see Yoda. My brother's cat.
We didn't have a chance to get out to the lake this time.

This was also a time for Callie and Carter to have some fun with their cousins from Victoria. Erin and Kerri flew up with their kids Avan and Rovan.  These ones are my cousins kids making them my second cousins and I think Callie and Carter's first cousins once removed. I have no idea how many cousins there are now. It's hard to keep track. They had great fun rolling down the hill in the back hard and for some reason Callie decided to rake the leaves into a pile at the top of the hill. I think she convinced at least half a dozen of us to help her. She was trying to make a pile big enough for my brother's dog Misty to jump in though I don't think we ever got to that point. It was a really great weekend trip and much too short.

The Apple Barn

At the beginning of October we took a trip to the Apple Barn. This has turned into another one of annual our day trip destinations. It's mainly an apple farm where you can pick your own apples, however like many farms it's branched out into farm tourism. It's got a petting zoo, a pumpkin patch, and a giant air pillow. If you have the room (and I mean a lot of room) this is a much safer option for a trampoline. It slowly slopes off the sides into a sand walkway and for the adults it's a lot of fun creating giant ripples that send kids flying. (or so I hear.)

It was too early in the season for us to feel like getting our pumpkin and we find them cheaper at Superstore anyways, but if we had wanted to get one they had them nicely categorized by size and shape. Carter had great fun walking up and down and through the aisles of pumpkins. The funny thing about our trip was that it was too early to get pumpkins and almost too late to get apples. We did managed to get a bag of nice apples but the pickings were slim. I think early September is probably a better time.

We finished our day off with a trip through the corn maze. It was the ideal time for this as the ground was still dry and the corn was nice and full. It was a giant maze with five stations that you needed to find. You coloured each finger with a different colour and afterwards you got a task based on the order that you coloured your fingers. There were dozens of options so rather than explaining to Callie how it worked I just made her cluck like a chicken and had Carter act like a gorilla. Valid options though perhaps not matching up with their colour order.

A Trip to Krause Berry Farm

On Saturday we headed out to Krause Berry Farm. Even with the hustle and bustle of the Lower Mainland there is still some great little trips we can make to interesting destinations. Krause Berry Farm is just off of Highway 1 in Langley and is open during the summer season selling berries, pies, baked good and all sorts of tasty treats. They've got horse rides and pumpkin picking in the fall and they must be doing well as they've added a great playground.

I first made it out here by bike during the Fraser Valley Grape Escape bike for MS which was a two day 150km bike ride that included a number of Fraser Valley wineries as well as the berry farm. Our favourites are their pies and this amazing creation that's cream and berries in a single serving shortcake. Even though it was over a year ago Callie still remembers coming out with Kerry during 'Daddy's bike ride' to ride in the horse buggy.

It was a hectic summer so this was our first trip out there this year. The only berry picking that was left was blueberries and blackberries though they also have strawberries, raspberries and a few others. I need to get a hold of some canes of their raspberries as they're much bigger that the ones I have. The kids had a lot of fun ducking in and out of the rows of berries and of course we came back with a giant pie that was about 80% berry.

Carter's First Soccer Practice

Every couple months we get Callie and Carter into some sort of sporting class. They both started with swimming lessons and 'Boots to Blades' skating as well as multi-sport which was a mix of soccer, floor hockey, basketball and many others. We'll keep them both in swimming but we've also been watching to see what activities they'd like to continue. Callie has moved on to dancing which includes two class on Saturday's now. Tap Dancing at 9:15a and Ballet at 11:00a. For Carter it has been pretty easy figuring out that he'd like to go with soccer. Whenever there is a ball he's out there kicking.

We've probably dealt with a couple dozen different teachers now through the Surrey leisure programs. The swimming and dancing teachers have been pretty good but we were really getting varying degrees of quality for things like Multi-Sport. I wasn't expecting much better for this soccer class since it's for ages 2-4 and it's indoor. I was pleasantly surprised however with his teacher. She had a very clear plan for the first class and even though the ages were quite varying she was still able to keep the class together and moving. It helps that we're still at a stage where the parents are out there helping each kid.

By the end of the class she had taught them three important skills. The first skill was stopping the ball. I thought this was very ambitious but quite a few kids figured it out. Carter fell down a few times but he was eventually stopping with the best of them. She then moved on to 'little kick, little kick'. Carter has always been more of a 'big kick, run' kind of player so it took a bit to slow him down and then when he did he was only moving the ball about 2 inches at a time. The final skill was 'Blast Off' where they put the ball up on a flat cone and kicked as hard as they can. She brought it all together with a 'Little kick, little kick, stop, blast off' exercise. This should be a lot of fun.

Happy Birthday Carter

I'm about a week behind getting Carter's birthday blogged. I'm choosing to believe that it's because I was behind on getting the cruise blog done but it's probably just because the second child get's forgotten. Good thing Carter's so easy going. Having Carter's birthday in mid September is going to be tough. When he's going to school he's going to have to show up with birthday invitations on the first day of school and with the first couple weeks of school being so hectic we're going to have to plan over the Labour Day weekend.

We did manage to get a bit of a party together for him in time. We didn't start Callie's friend birthday's until she was four so we kept Carter's third birthday to just family.  Uncle Corey and Auntie Carmen came over with Kristen and new cousin Ryan. Carter had decided that he wanted a Pirate theme so everyone had their best Pirate costumes on. (Mostly stuff we had from the Pirate night on the Cruise.) Even Ryan had a bit of a pirate costume on with the striped pyjamas.

Callie helped out a lot with Carter's gifts. She convinced him he wanted to get a scooter so that he could scooter around with her.  He got a nice red three wheeled scooter and a Cars sleeping bag from us as well as numerous gifts from friends and family. It was good when the family gifts were delivered because Callie was very worried that Carter wouldn't get as many presents as she did. It was quite refreshing to have her getting along with her brother so well even if it is for just one day. I think she feels he deserves at least one day. :)

Disney Crise - Our Final Day At Sea (By Kerry Schwab)

Today is our last day of the cruise. I got up this morning at 6:30a and headed up to the gym. I did 30 minutes of spinning and then tried to go up top but it's so windy that you can't even breathe when you try to cross the deck. I got some more cereal to add to our stash (Carter is living off of Rice Crispies) and one of the boxes blew across the deck and I had to chase it! Oh.. last night we talked to our tables mates about Ketchikan and they said it was a nice place and that they did get off the ship but only went into one store, (the one closest to the ship) and came back on. Good grief.

Everyone is still asleep so hopefully they are well rested and we have a good final day on board. Carter and Evan headed up to the buffet first this morning then Miss Callie and I followed, She didn't get up until 9:30. We went to check out the pictures on deck 4 when we were done eating and the kids spotted Mickey and Minnie just walking around in their sailor outfits. We didn't have our camera with us so I flew down two flights of stairs, grabbed the camera and flew back up. They were still there and they hadn't been spotted by the masses yet. We got some great pictures with them. We headed to the gift shop for our last visit.

The kids had $10.00 left each and so Callie decided that they would pool their money to buy a Mickey Pirate play set. While our room was being made up we hung out at our favourite quiet spot on deck 3, the Route 66 port hole seats. Evan and I took turns getting food from the buffet and bringing it back to our room. Today was seafood day! My plate was piled high with 2 types of shrimp and crab legs! Yummy! Callie and I also stood in line to see Donald and Daisy in their sailor suits. I love Donald! They are really laying the magic on thick today. There is music playing everywhere and we're always bumping into characters.

This afternoon was one of our best experiences. We took the kids to the lab to participate in Ratatouille's cooking school The kids had a great time making chocolate chip cookies. Chef Pepe was hilarious. He kept picking on Evan calling him a 'Crazy Canadian Guy'. We all had a blast. All of the bowls each individual kid had mixed were put in one big bowl and sent to deck 3 to bake for 2 minutes. They miraculously came back as individually wrapped cookies. Very fun. Tonight was our last dinner at Triton's. Poor Carter fell asleep at the dinner table. Evan and I both had the tenderloin and I had baked Alaska for dessert. It was delicious!

The show tonight was amazing! It was called Disney Dreams. We got to see Ariel, Beaty and the Beast, Peter Pan, Cinderella, Tinkerbell, Aladin, Pinnochio, Mickey and Minnie. It was fabulous show. Callie and I really loved it.

We really loved our cruise, the only issues we had were that the weather was really rotten and that resulted in no deck atmosphere. Hardly anyone was ever out there and the pirate deck party had to be moved inside which wasn't as exciting. We had a really wonderful experiences and have some truly amazing memories.

Disney Cruise - Ketchikan (By Kerry Schwab)

It is now 7:00a and I am sitting in the bathroom writing and eating fruit so as not to wake the sleeping beauties:) I got up at 5:30a and forced myself to go run my 6 laps on deck 4 and I'm so glad I did! I finally got to see a humpback whale! It was quite big and kept surfacing (just the middle of it ) and blowing water and air out its blowhole. It stayed with the ship for a while and then wandered off. Beautiful! I was actually able to see the sun come up this morning as it wasn't raining. Hopefully the weather holds up today but apparently Ketchikan is situated in the second largest rainforest in the world!

We don't dock until 1:00p today and are only there for six hours so unfortunately everyone will probably want to get on and off the ship at the same time. The people at our table have not got off the ship yet. I think Shaleena is about the same age as me and is a dentist at Metrotown. Her husband looks about 10 years older than her and is hard to understand. He said he's originally from India but grew up in Kenya. I'm not sure what he does but he's not working right now. They have a 6 year old daughter (Narissa) and an almost 2 year old daughter (Kalia) They live in Port Coquitlam and are ready to go home because they are cold and tired.

Carter and Evan went up to the buffet first while I wait for the "Princess" (to become less snarly). We left about 15 minutes later and she chose scrambled eggs and hash browns (just like the ones at McDonalds) and she ate it all. We met up with Evan and Carter and headed to the Promenade Lounge for the paper airplane contest (we didn't do so well). Then we took the kids to "The Lab" for the Jr Rangers Talk. The kids made Petraglyphs out of clay and quite enjoyed it. Afterwards we ventured to the Oceaneers Club where they played on the pirate ship and big slide and Carter made a bear mask. We then went up to the 9th deck and filled our water jugs. Callie decided she wanted to go for a swim so we went back to the room and picked up Evan (we had parted ways at the lab) and he took the kids in the Mickey pool while I took pictures. It was very chilly out there! Carter went under and got very scared so Evan bundled him up and took him back to the stateroom.

I grabbed lunch from Pluto's Dog House (right beside the pool) for the kids then grabbed Callie and we headed back to the room. There was only about a dozen kids in the pool. No one stayed on deck for very long. When I'm out in the morning I run into the same 1/2 dozen people everyday. I guess we're the only ones brave enough to be out there! We got off the ship at 1:45p in Ketchikan. The main street was the usual gaudy t-shirt stores and jewelry stores but we found our way to the South Alaskan Discovery Centre to continue the work the kids were doing with the Ranger program. They didn't have any activities running today so I asked about a nice walk/hike that we could do.

The Ranger sent us on a beautiful little tour called Married Men's Trail. It started at a very quaint little fishing village area called Creek Street. The shops were all on stilts with a boardwalk connecting everything. The stores sold merchandise that was almost solely made in Alaska. I got some jam, coffee and canned smoked salmon for Mom and Dad. Callie picked out some salmon treats for the dogs. The "village" was at the mouth of the river that runs through town. The salmon were crazily running. We saw two cute seals having lunch in the river. As we walked up the boardwalk the river was rushing really fast.

We walked past a salmon ladder on the way to the fish hatchery. Very few people were on the walk we went on so it was quite peaceful. It didn't start raining until we were almost at the ship so we got really lucky. The town was really old with lots of stairs and steep driveways leading up to the houses. Everything is made out of wood and a lot of buildings were rotting but it was a very lush and pretty place. Evan walked us to the ship and then I brought the kids back on board while he went into look around some more. There were stairs leading up to the top of the hill in the centre of town and a neat trolley elevator that was $2.00 to ride up that he was thinking of exploring.

Now to get ready for "Pirate Night!" Carter hasn't pooped in 48 hours so we are also awaiting a storm. Evan returned soaking wet but he found a geocache. Then we got ready for our last dinner in Animator's Palette. Carter was super cranky. He ended up falling asleep in my arms at the table right after my soup arrived. He slept for about 45 minutes then woke up as we tried to transfer him back to the room. He cried for a while then said that he was sick. Callie really wanted to see Gnomeo and Juliet in 3-D so I took her to the Buena Vista Theatre and left the boys in the room. Just after we got back from the movie it was time for the pirate deck party.

The weather wasn't good enough to have it outside so they had to hold it in the atrium. Callie and I checked it out for about 10 minutes but she thought it was too loud and there were no characters so we left. When we got back, Evan ventured out to see what the Pirate buffet was all about (the only late night buffet the whole week). He came back with an assortment of desserts, including crepes. I'm so sick of food, I couldn't even look at the tray. Tonight we need to set our clocks ahead an hour so it's technically midnight right now and everyone is still awake. It's really windy and the ship is rocking, so I thought as a responsible parent I should give everyone Gravol! Here's hoping we have a good night's sleep and a good final day tomorrow.

The dinner in Animator's Palette was very neat tonight. The night started out with everything in black and white; the pictures on the walls, the video screens and the server's vests. The walls and screens gradually started to turn coloured and at dessert time all the wait staff disappeared and paraded back in lead by Mickey in his Sorcerer's Apprentice cloak and hat and everyone's vests were now colourful cartoon drawings. Very cool.