Nuclear Family Trip-Let's Hope I Don't Explode!! About This Page:

[KimandMark]

Tuesday!! This was to be a day!! In the original plan this was our date night at Jiko, with a dinner at 9:30 sans bebe. Rather than cancel it altogether when my parents could no longer go I rebooked it for three of us at 5:30. (BTW--Mom is doing amazing and even, gasp, went for walk just for fun the other day, we did a test run of baby sitting last night and all seemed well. She's still not 100% sharp, but her physical health is vastly better). I also figured that last night was a late night so today would be low key; play the pool, play wiht Rescue Bots in the room, maybe do a craft, you know, four year old stuff.

We hung around the room, watched some animals get fed. I'm pretty sure they feed the buzzard/vultures actual rabbits. If that wasn't a rabbit being torn to bits by those birds it was the best darned fake rabbit in the world. Adam used his little kid bi-a-noc-alars to look at helicopters. Not animals. Helicopters. And the construction cranes building Avatarland. You could see four of them stickout above the trees in the general direction of AK. I did a little google fu and figure that out. I suppose it's not really a secret.

Anyway, we packed up our little soft lunch cooler. I forgot to include that tidbit. Often, we forgo dinner in favor of a charcuterie board. Garden Grocer didn't really offer what I was looking for so the day before we left I went to Wegmans (and the angels sang) to get the meat, cheese, olives etc that we like, packed them in soft sided cooler with an ice pack, put in a small checked bag with our medicine kit and other non-clothing, and voila, charcuterie while I watch animals on my balcony at night. So, I put some juice boxes, water, diet coke, snacks into the bag, collected the sunscreen adn pool toys and we played at the pool for a bit.

And then Adam declared that he wanted to go on Splash Mountain, again. I offered AK instead, as we'll be back in MK Thursday. I plied him with a video of Kali River Rapids. Dumb dumb dumb. I know you get pretty wet, and I sort of figured the he could wear his swimsuit/shirt and we'd wear a quick dry clothes (NOT jean shorts, cause I can learn!) and that would be that. Plus dinner was at 5:30, so I wanted to be back to get both boys ready (c'mon, you know you have to get the husband's ready too) by 4 or 4:30. So Kali it was. I told him he'd get pretty wet, but still he wanted to go.

Here is the beauty of FP+ and a relatively uncrowded week: getting two fastpasses before even leaving your room, knowing you have them and figuring out how to best use the time between the two rides. We had an FP for Safari, but the gap until Kali was about 45 minutes. Safari was, uh, different? I get that they were toning down the poaching angle, but honestly I liked that part and actually want people to be aware of poaching (did you know giraffe populations are way way down, like 50% because of poaching? see, they were doing a good thing). The new dialogue includes nothing of Wilson or the elephants or why there are reserves and preserves at all. But the animals were all out and active, so I'll take it.

We wandered around, bought Mimi a present, listened to the insane racket that is the Indian House Music With Dancing Too (I made that up) and finally, after much complaining by the smallest person we got in line. He was super grumpy butt because it was taking soooo loooong. Imagine slumped shoulders with that, and whiny voice. We had a moment of panic when they measured him for the ride, because the stick was for 44 inches and I swore the website said 38" was the minimum size. As it turns out, if you are between 38" and 44" you get a special seat. And off we went.

Guess what happened. Just guess. I'll wait.

You know who got it, right? The only two in the boat who got the tidal wave over the head?

And so it was that Mommy got soaked, again. The lady who hates wet clothes and her kid who hates having water on his face.

Because the universe hates me and Jake needed a good laugh. Sadly, our little boy had a good cry. Kali is off his list. Oddly, SM is still on it, as is the slide at the pool. BUt Kali was not ever going to be ridden again. Thank you thank you thank you.

On to dinner. I wore a great pair of navy wide legged linen pants and black silk racerback tank with flat patent sandals, Jake wore a linen shirt and pants and my wee man, who hate all things buttons/zippers/not stretchy actually agreed to wear his jersey knit striped polo with a pair of jersey knit shorts and his sandals. We were smashing! Also, this not getting too dressed up thing saves a ton of packing room!!! Usually there are suits and heels and blah blah blah. My whole wardrobe this week was black/navy/gray. Easy. Also probably depressing. But I like solids, and really like navy and black together.

But that's not why you're reading.

As a preemptive strike I had a secret stash of new legos--those lego city packs they sometimes have at the Target check out, for like $4? Amazing--and a smuckers uncrustable. I'd prepped Adam about this very special dinner for grown ups and that he needed to show me he was a big boy and could go to very special restaurants. First, he was a huge hit with the hostesses who explained that there were from Africa, over the ocean. Well, that sealed it, because my kid wants to go over the ocean more than he wants air. (He keeps asking me to take him over the ocean to see the real Eiffel Tower--he saw a picture of it, like we all did, after the Charlie Hebdo, when it was everywhere) and we watched some videos about the elevators and wham, he wants to go there, I told him over the ocean is far....you get it).

We asked the server if he could serve up the PBJ with some melon from the menu as Adam would 100% not eat the other choices, not even the Mac and Cheese and I'm more intertest in getting compliance at dinner than being daring with food he won't eat. They did!! It was beautiful. Adam was playing with his new Lego car, we ordered a Pinotage, two apps and two entrees, even dessert and Tawny Port. He had the PBJ and melon and then the greatest kid dessert ever---donuts with dipping sauce and candy Mickey heads. I'm honestly at a loss for describing my meal and can't even remember what I ordered because I did spend much of it worried that Adam wouldn't last and we'd have to leave. It was good, that I remember, and full of the wonderful meld of African and Indian spices that I love. The dessert was amazing though.

You need to trust me on this: Avocado Custard Cake is freakin' bananas. Like out of this world creamy, with sorbet on the side and pumpkin seeds and just WOW.

TIW is also a good thing.

Things were going so well we decided to try the night vision goggles with Adam, but it wasn't dark yet and he was thrilled to be doing these grown up things (with Legos, but whatever). So we took him to the bar. Yes. The bar. We sat at the end, he was between us, we played with Legos more, he had a fantastic kiddie cocktail and we had another glass of wine. Really, remarkable how well all this was going. Night vision was good and fun, and then we decided to get Adam's caricature done. Who knew that nonsense would take almost and hour!! Seriously. It'w wonderful, but an hour? And $40. But Jake loves it, and Adam thinks he looks pretty cool as Spiderman, and who cares if the little guy wasn't in bed til 9:45 AGAIN. Not me. It was a great night.