Wednesday: One Week Ago Today...

we spent our final day in the parks - this time we explored Epcot.  Auntie Erin joined us again and we definitely had a full and awesome day!  Here's Z ready to go on the bus to Epcot.

 

The kiddos got to meet some more characters - T got in on the action this time around.

Pake and Beppe even joined in on the fun with Mickey!

And we all got a good kick out of this guy.  He was super silly with T and Z.

 

Z also met a few more friendly ladies while touring the countries around the World Showcase.  Here she is with Alice and Mary Poppins.

Some of our favorite attractions from the day included: Soarin' at The Land, the Nemo ride and Turtle Talk at the Living Seas,

all of the fun interactive exhibits in the Imagination Building, including the crazy fountains outside of the pavilion,

and the Test Track ride.  When we were at Disney two years ago, T was too scared to ride this one but this go around he was gung ho.  It turned out to be his favorite ride of all of the parks, so much so that he went on it two times in a row!  Here he is after his first go around.

We also enjoyed a lot of the musical performances and other demonstrations throughout the park, including these Garden Percussion dudes,

 
 the fife and drum core at the American Pavilion, the Japanese drummers and the Chinese acrobats.  The three youngest kiddos (that would be including Auntie Erin) also got their faces painted :-)

It also turned out that HGTV had their Flower and Garden Expo at Epcot while we were there so the park was filled with amazing floral and topiary displays.  Here were some of our favorite views.

We ended our day with the Illuminations light/laser/fireworks show around the World Showcase.  We staked out a great viewing spot early on in the evening between Canada and the United Kingdom so while we ate our supper and waited for the show to start, we were treated to performances by one of our favorite musical groups at Epcot, Off Kilter - a Celtic rock group.  T and Z really enjoyed rockin' out with them! It was an awesome ending to a totally awesome day!