Aunt Rita comes to visit and we do Disney! Pt1

Aunt Rita is here visiting! And lucky for us, she's also got a ticket to come to Disney World with us today! Hooray! Let's start the day at our favorite park. Epcot!

We started our day at 12:30, once the initial rush had hopefully died down. 

Why not start our day with soda. Rita hasn't tried the new flavors from Club Cool yet. She still thinks Beverly is the worst, but the Sour Plum soda from China is pretty bad too. 

Let's go to our favorite popcorn stand and enjoy fresh, hot, popcorn and tasty soda. 

Things are looking busy here today, so why not try something that doesn't have much of a line. We'll join Dr. Nigel Channing as he presents "How To Capture Your Imagination."

In the end though, we learn that our imagination works best when it's set free! 

In the ImageWorks, we play instruments along with Figment.

The International Festival of the Arts only has a couple more weeks before Epcot moves on to the next festival. I've really wanted to participate in the Expression Section at the Paint By Numbers mural. Each guests visits the festival tent and picks up a brush and small cup of paint. Each cup has a lid with a number on top of it. 

The mural is giant, but every square inch is covered with a number. We were given instructions that we could each paint 7 squares. The kids saw a need to get a lot of the low spots that were harder to reach. 

Rita and Theresa did their part. 

I got the random numbers scattered around the canvas. 

All done! That was fun!

It's a shame that all these brushes just get tossed into the trash. I wonder if they get recycled. 

When you're done, a cast member will also hand you a small bookmark that shows what the completed mural will look like. We were told that they change out the mural every 1-2 weeks, and that there are 4 different designs over the course of the festival. 

Ride times are long, so we hopped on a short Nemo ride. 

Then waited in a 10 minute line for Spaceship Earth. With 5 people, there's an odd one out. 

Theresa volunteered. She's going to enjoy this ride. 

Like a few days ago, Spaceship Earth seems to be having some operational issues. We froze in this space for a few minutes before eventually things started moving again. 

Alli seems a bit incensed that she has to finish her cucumber before we can go inside The Land pavilion. 

Soarin' showing just a 25 minute wait, so all of us headed there. 

And took the front row in the center. The best spot to watch from. Love it!

Well since it's 3:30pm, and things are looking really busy here at Epcot. The three biggest rides are either down or have long lines. I think we're going to take off to another park. 

But not before grabbing a quick drink from Club Cool. 

Or two. 

And you've got to have popcorn to go with it. 

Let's all head to the truck! The kids even got to play their new favorite game at the Epcot parking lot. We'll pick up again next time when we visit the Animal Kingdom!