Well, we went to Disney World! It's a short day of driving from our house, so it was great to finally get down there. This will be a Lucy-centric accounting of what went on.
[pit stop]
We met up with my mom, dad, and brother, so she got to spend some time with extended family.
[playing the dots and squares game with her uncle]
Grandma and Grandpa have been living/working in Trinidad recently, so they brought her a Trinidadian flag, a map, some currency, and a parrot feather!
She found a fountain/splash pad thing our first night there, and was way more interested in actually getting wet than any of the other kids there:
We had the opportunity to take several ferry rides and many bus rides. On one of the bus rides, it was standing room only, and we were standing in front of a boy her age and his mom. Lucy struck up a very pleasant conversation with him about their clothes and school and cousins and all sorts of things.
On the drives down and back, she worked on a road trip workbook I made for her (mazes, design your own license plates and road signs, finish the robot drawing, etc.), played some tablet apps (Word Girl design your own superheroes, Fruit Ninja, etc.), and somehow generally kept herself occupied and clear of any whining. It was great!
Our hotel's pool had a big slide, and after some encouragement from Norman (and some random ladies in the pool), and a polite request that the lifeguard let Norman and Lucy go down it together the first time, she was going down it by herself!
[That blur in the middle of the slide is the two of them.]
Speaking of our little daredevil, we took her on Splash Mountain (a glorified log ride), and she
loved it. I mean, I'm pretty sure I didn't like it as much as she did. She said it was "stunning scary! But the good kind!" She also loved us spinning the tea cup ride as fast as it could go. Plus two different carousels and It's a Small World and the Dumbo ride. Pirates of the Caribbean, not so much, because we forgot her headphones. Loud noises -- no; steep fast drops -- yes. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
We rode Spaceship Earth and learned about history. We rode The Seas with Nemo and visited the aquarium and learned about fish and manatees and stuff.
She played Agent P's World Showcase Adventure and learned about Mexico:
She read the clues and multiple choice options herself, and it turns out her phonics must be okay, because she can also read "Adios Amigos".
We met Merida and she shot a bow and arrow. We met Tinkerbell (while Lucy was dressed as Tinkerbell), and Tinkerbell asked what kind of inventions *she'd* been working on, and I mentioned her lizard trap ideas, and Tinkerbell suggested maybe Lucy could help her with her ladybug spotter invention and they pinky promised and it was *adorable*. She met Sofia (big head -- can't talk) and insisted on showing her that Sofia was on her autograph notebook. (We met quite a few characters. Lucy did a great job, even if she was a little overwhelmed and didn't always know what to say or how to react.)
We went to the Lego store and she built her own minifigs (an astronaut who got beat up in space, a lady who is moving, and an economist), and spent her souvenir money on two Lego sets, one of which we put together the day after we got home (and she helped quite a bit with that -- she put together the little oven/stove by following the instructions before she even asked for my help).
We visited an Irish pub and they had some dancers who invited the kids to dance with them, and she definitely did!
[She's the one on the right in the purple dress]
Not that this is out of the ordinary, but she was very well-spoken and polite to all the servers at the sit-down restaurants we went to. She knew what she wanted, and she said it!
Oh, and she found a word in a word search on one of the kids menus! I don't think she's ever done that by herself before.
We played air hockey in the arcade!
And there was a candy shop where you fill out a form to pick which thing you want, covered in which chocolate and which topping, and she wrote her name on it (with the new creative spelling she's been trying out) and put an 'x' next to the things she wanted.
We saw a couple stage shows -- a Frozen one with live actors, and a Disney Junior one with puppets. She
loved both of them (of course).
Hollywood Studios has this cool playground that looks like you're in Honey I Shrunk the Kids -- she really enjoyed that, I think. Especially with all the talk about lizards lately.
[see, it's a slide, but it's a roll of film. eh? eh??]
On our last day, she found a prop/photo op car, climbed in, and made Norman sit in it with her while she rattled off a
long spiel that seemed to be a combination of the recorded announcements from the buses and the ferries. Very professional, apparently.
We saw several different types of lizards and birds around the property. The ferry driver said they had otters, but we never saw any!
She brought Magic School Bus books with her, so I read her at least one of those while we were gone. Volcanos, I think?
She drew this calculator on the last day while we packed up:
["In 'off', does the 'ff' come at the beginning or the end?"]
