November 2017 pre trip and trip reports

Fancy brunch. Followed by hot dogs grilled over a campfire with s'mores for dessert.

Sorry pic is not great but fancy brunch

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Followed up with campfire

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I met Harriett while out running. Great getting to meet you and pet the baby.

Been sitting around a bit this morning. Bert is not feeling great so taking it easy. The weather is beautiful, we have sun today. A few notes, we really like this site and the loop. The site has lots of shade and a good bit of cover. The dogs still bark but mostly for the horses. Am hoping to get to Disney springs today for a little shopping. I did notice a lot less people packing up today than the last two.
 
I wasn't sure exactly where to post this so I decided to post here. My son is a nurse in an emergency room in Lexington. As you can imagine, things get pretty stressful at times so he is constantly looking for activities that help relieve the stress. He loves to hike and has Teresa and I looking forward to hiking with him when we travel to Lexington. Raven Run Nature Sanctuary and the Pinnacles at Berea are awesome places to escape the daily grind. Another thing that Jordan has been trying his hand at is painting insulated mugs. Tonight he surprised me with a one of a kind cup to show off my favorite place to camp. He is very creative. Just had to show it off. :thumbsup2:thumbsup2
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jETs that is awesome. Looks like some of the kids (not really kids) have some creative talent. Jets's son and bama ed's daughter.

Yesterday the only thing we did was make it to Epcot. We had a FP for Soarin. I like the old movie better. We did have cookies from the cookie nook, one of the festival booths. We enjoyed them and I forgot pictures. Epcot was way less nutty. You could actually get pictures without a line.

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We came back and cooked salmon on the grill, walked dogs, and ate the leftover CA Grille dessert with some hot tea. Bert is still not feeling great. I hope he gets some more sleep. I will let him sleep while I get my run on. We have FP at MK today. I love posting in the morning as I have no issues with the internet. It was been a real struggle with wifi speeds and even at & t data network. In fact so bad I am not sure we can come here and work. Oh the good old days with the cable modem. I wish they would bring them back.
 


Tuesday we went to MK in the afternoon. Bert worked in the morning, I ran and then checked emails. I will say Tuesday the parks were not nutty. Not a lot of FP available but standby times were not horrible, even at seven dwarfs, it was about 90 minutes at one point. We did our three FPs, then did standby for Mickey philharmagic, BTMRR (only 20 minutes wait), then the train. It was a party night so the daytime felt less crowded. We also got our ice cream sandwich at the ice cream parlor. We did mint chocolate chip ice cream, no birthday cake ice cream this time. We were in MK from 1 to 4:30. Then we went to GF to see decorations and get some food at Mizner's lounge. We went to the new bar/restaurant at WL the geyer point something. It is on the lake. The venue is nice but we both thought it lacked an identity. Not sure we will be going back. It was a long day. Once back time for the usual, feed and walk dogs.

Today is big plans. Run, of course, then BF at Bombay, then to AK. We have FP for FOP again. Hoping in general that park is slightly less nutty. Will spent the evening at the site with the dogs and a campfire. We are cooking burgers tonight.
 
First a correction, dang autocorrect, BF was at Boma not Bombay. It was good but slow. Then to AK. Hit my plan perfect. First FP for FOP, it is a great ride, then did pagani trail, then 1 pm show of FotLK. After that just 15 minutes left of my FP window for EE. Then to KS and out of the park. Hit everything and back at the camper at 3. I took a rest and now outside with dogs. Bert is cooking dinner. Parks are now manageable, which I expected. Honestly I have loved being here these two weeks. The parks were crazy last week but I expected it and did pay for events, like JBJB dessert party. I will say the internet has not been a happy point with me. When we are back in Jan we will be working most of the days and it may be an issue. I can hotspot but even cell network was an issue.

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Ok I will post this on the fly over thread but we went that direction from the fort this morning to go to AK. Bad idea!! Good test for leaving Saturday, don't do it. Go left out of the fort and take Bonnet Creek. The light now backs traffic way up. Also coming in from world drive, it's a crapshoot. When we came in with the rig it was not backed up, but at 3 pm today most of the traffic was heading to MK resorts and not MK. I think we will continue to use buena vista to bonnet creek and come the back way. Maybe when construction is actually done it will be better but not now.
 


Apologies to Bert I know that look. You would think how Katie acts at dinner time we only feed them once a week. Since Thanksgiving when they all got some Mr Willie Goodie in their bowl WookieBear won't eat till after we do hoping for better
 
I notice Yeti hasn't had as much "foliage" in his tail in the pics so far.
 
I notice Yeti hasn't had as much "foliage" in his tail in the pics so far.

Yes, he can't get around so well, so we have been able to get him to lie on the mat for the most part. We have less pine needles mostly leaves. He is dropping them in the rig.

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We had a campfire last night and did our final cook out. Did both the burgers and brats last night. It was just easier and we decided we wanted to go to Epcot in the evening so did not want to cook.

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The plans for Thursday are a much needed rest day from running for me, then to Disney Springs for cake decorating (next post will be a review). On to shopping and lunch at Homecoming, then back to the campground for outside time. The food at Homecoming is really good. Maybe not the healthiest, but it is delicious. We had ham and jam biscuits as a starter. You could make a meal out of that. I had a fried chicken sandwich. It was really good. Bert had the shrimp and grits. The quality of the food is really good, just consider Disney calories and enjoy.

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I am praying to the internet gods so I can get this posted with pics. Review of cake decorating at Amorette's Patisserie. It started at 8:45ish, and no I was not the late one. It lasted till 10:30ish. They had hot beverages and alcoholic (Bellini and Mimosas) drinks. The hot drinks were standard coffee, tea and hot chocolate, as well as cappuccino, lattes and espresso. Bert had 3 cappuccinos and I had 2 plus a Bellini.

The instructors were two young ladies. First the talked about the history and then on to the cake. They prepare the cake part ahead of time as just the cake it 3 days to make as it is chocolate cake, chocolate mousse center, an orange layer and more cake. The layers need a few days in the fridge to setup. Then they showed us how to frost the dome cake with buttercream frosting. The frosting was delicious we had samples. I learned a few tricks on frosting the cake. The good part is they actually frosted the cakes as well ahead of time. This was good so that all the cakes still had the dome shape. I know the struggles of frosting cakes so was glad they did it for us.

Next we learned about glacage. That is the red covering on the cake. We got to do this part. It took three layers of glacage. After each layer into the freezer it went. Between glacages we painted the ears, tail and buttons. They were precut for us out of white chocolate but needed to be painted with cocoa butter. This was after round two of glacage.

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Then after round 3, though not much different. You can see the painted ears in th back.

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Next it was time to add the stuff to make it Mickey ears. Here is the final product.


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This is the instuctors cake that was done ahead of time.

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I thought ours looked pretty good. I really enjoyed this, especially for those not going park commando or those that come often and want to do something different. They held on to our cake while we shopped and had lunch. We picked it up before leaving Disney Springs and it is in the fridge now. One important thing, it is a mousse cake so it needs to be refrigerated. If you are flying or driving a regular car you may want to do this earlier in your trip so you can eat it before leaving. We have two days still and if we don't finish it, we drive with the fridge on so we can get it back to the condo. Overall good experience. Price it's not cheap but I did not think it was horrible, everyone needs to make their own decision about that. It was $140 per cake, so that is two people. Two people to one cake you may get one adult and two kids. To let you know the cake that size retails for $60. They do have smaller versions and other cakes.

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Looking at the Lego pic - when we were there a month ago they were doing a build event where guests were building small sections according to instructions that were then being assembled into the larger product. Unfortunately, we only had a couple minutes, so our son wasn't able to participate, but those statues are the end result of what they did. It was pretty cool to see how it was being done.
 
Kris nothing to worry about I suspect . He most likely had the gang come over and provide Overwatch protection for the ROCK STARS
 

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