How EMH saved our trip-Doing the World on West Coast Time! Completed. Stop by my PTR!

[kschafer]

Originally Posted by eandesmom

the plotting and planning for next one is party of what gets us through and is a lot of fun! Or a bit OCD, I'm not sure. A hypothetical ADR list that's been revised several times already for a hypothetical trip over a year away is perhaps a bit....

I hear you! the Dis keeps me feeling the magic, even over a year later and no trip in the near future.

revising imaginary ADR lists seems perfectly sane to me I scroll through the food porn thread and think about retiring nearby someday so I can go and eat at least once a week (OK, in like...25 or 30 years!)

[michellem1118]

Originally Posted by eandesmom

Hi and welcome!

I wouldn't call it new.....I have the full Adobe Creative suite so am using Illustrator and Photoshop. New (er) to me simply as I have a bit more experience with In Design and Photoshop but Illustrator really does more for certain things than PS does (not that you'll see it in those siggies other than Belle's stained glass window border thing) and In Design is a print product.

Fun to see what one can do in each though and figure out the nuances. Which is good since I'm basically clueless but love trying to figure stuff out and figured it really would be pathetic if I don't do our own T's for the next trip. That's the playing part!

Ahh, PhotoShop.... I miss PhotoShop. I had the full creative suite on an old desktop, but my laptop doesn't really have enough RAM or processor speed to run it... waiting on a replacement desktop to reinstall it, I only really know how to use PhotoShop though, never tried to use the others. One of these days, maybe I'll take the time to figure it out.

Great report so far!

[MEK]

Wow - A new update that I missed and I can't see one blessed thing. I know there are some awesome pictures there. I have to wait until I get home to see yours and CP's pictures. Uggghhhhh. Everyone updates at once and I find them here at work.

Be back soon........

[Happydog]

Wow! Great pictures!!! nice one of the gazelles and the gorilla!!! really close up! What kind of camera do you have? I want to buy a new one for Christmas... as a B-day gift for me!

Looking forward to your rapids ride!!! AND snack

[lisalonglash]

Great update! I know what you mean about looking through the cages Those close-ups are fantastic - I bow to your superior photography skills! I agree that those impalas (I think they're impalas) are fascinating - so graceful and pretty!

Looking forward to your next update - Yeti, Dinosaur, Rapids and a snack!

[eandesmom]

Originally Posted by kschafer

I hear you! the Dis keeps me feeling the magic, even over a year later and no trip in the near future.

revising imaginary ADR lists seems perfectly sane to me I scroll through the food porn thread and think about retiring nearby someday so I can go and eat at least once a week (OK, in like...25 or 30 years!)

thank you for enabling me

Originally Posted by michellem1118

Ahh, PhotoShop.... I miss PhotoShop. I had the full creative suite on an old desktop, but my laptop doesn't really have enough RAM or processor speed to run it... waiting on a replacement desktop to reinstall it, I only really know how to use PhotoShop though, never tried to use the others. One of these days, maybe I'll take the time to figure it out.

Great report so far!

Yeah, it's a space hog, no doubt about it! It's really interesting as they are all good for different things. PS is perfect for image editing, illustrator better for compilations and freehand type stuff that you can't do in PS and IDD is totally different from either but fabulous for multi page print needs

Originally Posted by MEK

Wow - A new update that I missed and I can't see one blessed thing. I know there are some awesome pictures there. I have to wait until I get home to see yours and CP's pictures. Uggghhhhh. Everyone updates at once and I find them here at work.

Be back soon........

I hate that when I can't see the pics! They'll be here when you come back!

[eandesmom]

Originally Posted by Happydog

Wow! Great pictures!!! nice one of the gazelles and the gorilla!!! really close up! What kind of camera do you have? I want to buy a new one for Christmas... as a B-day gift for me!

Looking forward to your rapids ride!!! AND snack

I my camera. funny story, I was always really impressed with the shots my mom got with her little digital. She has quite a selelction of cameras but the little digital just did an amazing job. I went to get one of my own, did my own research, found something in my price range and go to find out...

it's the same camera she has. As does my SIL. And now 2 of DH's family members who liked my camera's results.

It's all the camera, not the user, trust me!

I have a Canon PowerShot SD1100 IS Digital Elph.

Originally Posted by lisalonglash

Great update! I know what you mean about looking through the cages Those close-ups are fantastic - I bow to your superior photography skills! I agree that those impalas (I think they're impalas) are fascinating - so graceful and pretty!

Looking forward to your next update - Yeti, Dinosaur, Rapids and a snack!

It's the camera, not me! Not sure if they are impalas or gazelles but they were so cool!

[GreatBiscuit]

Excellent photos! And kudos on the Signature! First Lady Bicuit saw it last night and LOVED it! We wound up skipping the trails on our trip. (Just sooooooooooooooo hot, that the kids were OUT of gas.)

[lisalonglash]

Originally Posted by eandesmom

It's the camera, not me! Not sure if they are impalas or gazelles but they were so cool!

It is NOT just the camera, it's the camera operator! It would help if I read the update title, hey? I'm sure you're right about them being gazelles and, yes, they are cool!

[MEK]

Excellent, excellent pigani trail pictures. I am so GOING on that trail in September. I'm skipping th safari and hitting the trail. Hopefully it won't be blazing hot! So many animals to see!

[eandesmom]

Originally Posted by GreatBiscuit

Excellent photos! And kudos on the Signature! First Lady Bicuit saw it last night and LOVED it! We wound up skipping the trails on our trip. (Just sooooooooooooooo hot, that the kids were OUT of gas.)

Well thank you and the lovely First Lady Biscuit! I need to try your panoramic trick combo thing....that is so cool! I'm going to attempt it somehow on the next trip though not, I'm sure, on the trails!

Originally Posted by lisalonglash

It is NOT just the camera, it's the camera operator! It would help if I read the update title, hey? I'm sure you're right about them being gazelles and, yes, they are cool!

awww...thanks! I think it's the camera though.

Originally Posted by MEK

Excellent, excellent pigani trail pictures. I am so GOING on that trail in September. I'm skipping th safari and hitting the trail. Hopefully it won't be blazing hot! So many animals to see!

Thanks!

Do the trail, it was really wonderful and it's funny, even though it was a very warm day I don't remember the trail part itself as being miserable!

[eandesmom]

when I left off we had been gifted with FP's, seen lions, hippos, rhino's, gorillas and gazelle's and magically escaped being stuck by the parade!

reunited with our other Safari companions .



who so graciously had told us to take the FP's, allowing for some amazing gazelle grazing (or not....tree eating on hind legs, who knew!) viewing.

it was determined that

it was hot! See, don't they look hot? Steven's got some seriously wilted hair (but in his new necklace which still hasn't come off since the trip lol) and I have no idea what Scrooge is doing with his sunglasses, that just looks wierd. Almost as weird as when he puts them on his head backwards (which is all the time lol!)

we needed a snack! Our lunch (for us) really hadn't been all that late and dinner wasn't until 8:30. So a substantial snack was in order.

See where I am going with this?



as we made the trek from Africa to Asia

it happened.

again

"we have some FP's we can't use, would you like them?"


this time, for Kali. I can't remember how many they had but it wasn't 6. So we hemmed a little bit and I kid you not, someone entirely different nearby said

"I have some too!"


so somehow, magically, in the span of a minute we had 6 FP's for Kali! (which was still on a 60 minute wait!)

Excited, a little bit dumbfounded, we kept trekking to Asia.

But first. A stop.

Yak and Yeti Local Foods Egg Rolls!



TWO of these suckers are one snack credit.

Oh I wish I had a picture of their flaky, hot, yummy deliciousness!

SOOOOOOOOOOOOO good! Moist, tender and flavorful. I'd eat 2 of them right now if I could! And it's 9am here!

Scrooge and I each got our own, the rest of the gang wanted something cold.

For the life of me I have no idea what Goofy & Tink got. Steven was on the search for a smoothie and wasn't seeing anything nearby but had seen something somewhere else so wanted to go there later instead. I still don't know where he went, for some reason I think it may have been all the way back near the safari entry but I digress.

Wall-E, of course, got this





The last mickey bar.


he looks dazed and confused. Or intoxicated by it, I'm not sure.



AK is a dangerous place to eat a Mickey bar if you are dining challenged, as is our Wall-E.

Eat fast!

Lick around the edges!

You're dripping!

Aack! here's another napkin


and yet still, most of it ends up on his face.

Go figure.

Tummies full and faces ringed with Chocolate it was FINALLY time.

To brave the rapids. To stand in line. Or not!

Thank you fast pass gods of presidents week craziness. Of magic pay it forward karma. I bow to you.

We whizzed through that line so fast I didn't take hardly any pictures! Here is a couple. You can see, as fabulous as my little digital is, it is NOT great for inside/low light pictures. Not at all!





I probably had quite a few more that I deleted. I'm noticing that I did a lot of clean up and deletion of bad pics and kind of wish I'd waited. Oh well.

My brain was whirling.

Camera - protected

Poncho's - out

Hurry, get in the boat, get everything covered!!

Tink was by far the most apprehensive (I think she just didn't want to get wet) and as it was getting later it was going to cool off quickly but...we had to do it. It would just be WRONG to be at AK and not go on Kali. So it wasn't something that was ever up for debate though I confess to having bad hair concerns for dinner as we had no plans to go back to the resort.

And try as I might, I know I'll never bring myself to wear a shower cap (though I truly admire those who do, it looks amazingly effective!). I'm just not that brave.

Kali was, what can I say, wet, wild and fabulous.

and WET!

I think Tink and I got the worst of it. I had some scary looking pants afterwards but thankfully they dried quickly

And now we can see why I'm not in more pictures. UGH. Eyes closed. Looking weird. Now I know where Goofy gets that look from! Tink is the only one visibly wet though but we were pretty drippy! Scrooge again with the wierd sunglass placement. I really need to make him take them off or put them elsewhere, it ruins photos (IMO)

Thank goodness for poncho's is all I have to say!





Happy, wet, it was time.

To meet the YETI!

But first....

what's this?

It looks like a bubble!

Can we stick our fingers in it?



Sure, live large, go for it!

The E's played with this for at least 5 minutes, probably longer as I think there was a bio break involved. Sadly the picture is rather lousy. Darn low light. Oh yeah, and night time was coming....EMH and Ak in the Dark!

I will say this, compared to other parks I can really now see why generally AK closes so early. It is really really DARK there after 6pm!

Cool. but dark. But very very cool!

Next....EE in the dark, another run in with a Dinosaur, Steven's elusive smoothie and MORE necklace shopping...most importantly, will I find a souvenir for ME and then, a Bomastic last dinner!

[eandesmom]

I just remembered something!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Originally Posted by eandesmom

After dinner we headed back to MK and were able to hit

Thunder Mountain (walked right on!!!!)
POTC Also, walked right on!
Space Mountain (again)

and then...TIME FOR BED!

What a day

It's been niggling at my brain...back there and just couldn't recall it!

So, on Valentine's day, as we were heading over to Space Mountain we were again presented with the

We have 2 FP's for SM that we cannot use


Really? sure!
So we took them. We figured at that point we had no idea how long standby would be and that way at least 2 people could get another ride in.

The standby line was 40 minutes. We got in line and tried to determine who should go. Or if we should all stay together and then 2 go a second time.

While we debated we realized that there was a party for two seemingly very nice young women in front of us. So we did what made the most sense.

"Hi! Would you guys like these? We're going to wait it out together."


The shock and excitement on their faces was magical!


I cannot believe that with our horrible lateness to the parks, my complete lack of fast pass timing understanding at the start and the larger issue that they were often GONE by the time we got to parks, that we were given them by strangers not once, not twice, but FOUR total times!

[cjackearl]

Wow, you really were the fast pass magnets this trip! I'm glad you didn't have to wait in a long line for Kali. It's definitely worth doing, but at a 60 min. wait? Maybe not.

Somehow I knew you were going back for egg rolls! Awesome snackage. And I love the chocolate mouth ring. My pre teen is the same way.

Hmmm. Looking forward to hearing how your yeti encounter and dino meet go.

[Angies1274]

Wow!!! What great fastpass karma you have!! Four times--that's awesome!!

Such a cute picture of your son!! You could tell he was really enjoying that Mickey bar!!!

Ohh....that egg roll sounds so yummy!!!

Looking forward to hearing about EE in the dark!!