Christmas morning started out early with me getting up and heading to the hotel Starbucks to get a candy bar cup of coffee for the wife and smoothies for the girls. After all, the end of the year is coming quickly upon us, and I needed to get some extra bonus points in the battle to win the Coolest Parent of the Year Award. This has not been easy, as Pam has taken home the trophy for the last six years.
We exchanged gifts, wolfed down some breakfast and soon found our selves in a full sea of strollers, kids, Mickey Mouse ears and parents hoping to accomplish the same thing Pam did four years ago when she struck gold with her idea!
We navigated our way through security to find our first Fast Pass experience of the day called Living the Land. I determined that it was educational enough that it would count as homeschool credit and AK could drop out of school if she would like. She declined, and we were off to our next adventure of Finding Nemo.
It's no secret that AK loved Nemo when she was little. Her face lit up with glee is we loaded our clamshell and rode the adventure with Bruce the Shark. Although we enjoyed the ride, the aquarium we explored after the ride was spectacular, and one I would put up with any I have visited before.
After two rides we still had one more Fast Pass to use. Pam noticed Little D getting hungry and offered up a Mickey Mouse Pretzel to stave off her pre-teen hunger. With Little D satisfied with her food consumption, we traveled the many countries Epcot had to offer up.
Little D loved visiting each country, and I was on a quest for a new beer to try. While Pam and AK found themselves watching a mime, Little D and I explored her favorite place on earth, Italy. Little D dreams of the day she can leave behind the fambam and become a full-time Italian. I soon settled on a beer from Italy as the price was not too outrageous only to discover that I had a shot-sized glass. After chewing my way through several bites of my beer, we found the other half of the Fambam and went on to train for space exploration at Spaceship Earth.
To no one's surprise in the Fambam, Pam took on the role as ship Commander. AK was the Engineer because they are not in charge of much. I was assigned the task of navigator because I was the only male in the crew and Little D was the Pilot which proved to be disastrous in trying to land us. Little D did get us safely to the ground, but let's just say NASA will not be calling anytime soon.
With Fast Pass number 3 down, Pam was able to get on her Disney App and find us some new fun in the Animal Kingdom. Pam's quick thumbs from playing years of Candy Crush proved to be advantageous with the Disney App as she scored us a ride on It's Tough to be a Bug.
We loaded up the car in search of bugs. We arrived at the Animal Kingdom to find it very dark and hard to navigate with the lack of lights and thousands of people we had to swim through. As always, Pam took charge and led us to the Tree of Life where the show on bugs would take place.
I was slightly excited to see "It's Tough to be a Bug" because cousin Maggie had highly recommended the show, and it starred my boy Flick! With the Fast Pass, we found ourselves first in line, which should mean we would have any pick of seats in the house like proper theater etiquette allows. After all, I do live by Ricky Bobby's mantra of "If you're not first, you're last!" Apparently, Talladega Nights is not a Disney Movie because they do not share in Ricky's sentiments.
The doors to the theater opened, and we were told to go all the way to the end of the aisle and not stop in the middle. I had little concern at this point, but the usher was telling everyone it is a 4-D movie and there were no bad seats in the house.
This proved to be a lie as big as Mickey's ears. Once the movie started everything was blurry from being at the end of the aisle, and I felt very little of the physical effects. Like an angry kid who just got hosed out of his favorite baseball card, I let the usher know I was not pleased with the so-called "no bad seat" talk. She merely smiled at me and got on the microphone and gave the directions on how to exit the theater.
Pam soon sprang into action and realized that I was suffering from too much Disney excitement and hangry Mike was coming out. She grabbed my hand and loaded us up into the car. I continued to whine and complain until I found us in the parking lot of Giordano's Pizza. Pam knew she could stuff my face with pizza from the land of Chicago to bring my blood sugar level back to normal and welcome her third child back to her brood.
With the votes tallied on the day, AK brought home the gold for Toughest in the Fambam as she was sick and achy all day and never complained once. Little D received the honors of the Happiest Child as she loved EPCOT and all it offered. To know one's surprise I won the award of Grumpiest Kid for my late day meltdown, and Pam went way ahead in her quest for the Coolest Parent of the Year Award standings as she had to calm her third child down after a disaster failed ride.
We chowed down on our grub and discussed the fun from Day 2 and mapped out the plan for day 3 as the Fambam heads to Hollywood Studios and back to the Animal Kingdom for a possible redemption at the Tree of Life for the Bug Attraction!
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