Disney Trip 2016 - day 3 - part 2 - Epcot - World Showcase

We started on the Canada side, took a few polite pictures of the totems, and then looked around the United Kingdom. We popped into The Toy Soldier, listened to the band a bit, and I popped into the market looking unsuccessfully for some Jelly Babies.

We walked by France and Morocco, talking a few brief photos and then we moved on to Japan.

We spent a bit of time in the Japan gift shop, with Gee being moved to tears at the selection. Cheryl was so moved that she bought Gee a lovely kimono. Shan also bought one along with some sandals ad toe socks. Gee and I also bought toe socks as well and had everything shipped back to the room.

At this point it was already 8:30 and starting to get dark. We moved along a bit and found a spot near the American Garden Theatre to wait for the fireworks.
I picked up some udon noodles and some teriyaki chicken from Katsura Grill and brought it back while we waited.
The fireworks over the water were very nice. We were under some trees but still had a good view. We were by where they parked a floating ball platform but Cheryl knew that it moved to become part of the show so opened up the view.

Afterwards we moved past the American pavilion and looked a bit at the Italian pavilion while Cheryl picked out some beautiful Italian masks.

We took some shots of the train set up by Germany in the dark and then moved on to China. Shan had really wanted to see the Terra Cotta Warriors but the displays were closed. We also found out that they had moved on and no longer had them.

Things were closing down so we went past Norway and Mexico, again only stopping briefly for a few photos and then made our way back to the entrance for our bus ride home and to our room.

Gee and I went to the shop around 10:30 pm to pick up our bag from the day before, and I bought a refillable mug - purple. Gee already has a blue one, Shan has the red, and Dee's bought the green one earlier today,

He was asleep when we got back to the room. Everyone else went to bed early to up early the next day, but I stayed up a bit to write up day two and three while they were still fresh.

We had worn our Canada shirts to Epcot - Representing! A few people said hi because of them - fellow Canadians as well as a nice couple from Minnesota we met while in line for Spaceship Earth. As well, I got a few people asking about the Figment hat - fellow fans.

Disney Trip 2016 - day 3 - part 1 - Epcot - Future World

Tuesday was Epcot day. The kids were slow to wake so Shan did some laundry. D3 was still sluggish but we catch a bit of breakfast at 11 am at the hotel on our way out and caught the bus to Epcot.

We started off at the Art of Disney but managed to barely resist buying anything.

Our next stop was our first Fast Pass - a Character Meet with Mickey, Goofy, and Minnie. Then we went and got pictures with Beymax. The line for Joy and Sadness went from short to very long while we waited the 15 minutes for Beymax, so we skipped them.

We went over to Future World west and, after a 10 minute line, did The Seas with Nemo & friends, and then spent some time looking at the tanks. D3 got some pictures of a "sad" seahorse. As we were leaving, Shan discovered that she had left her hat on the ride but was able to claim it.

We moved over to The Land and, after a quick 10 minute wait, did the Living the Land tour. Shan loves gardening so quite enjoyed seeing what they are doing. Soaring only had a 30 minute wait so I said that this was our big chance. It did not disappoint. D3 (who dislikes falling), and Shan (who dislikes heights) both enjoyed it. We made sure that they were not sitting on the end.

We had a bit of time, so we were able to finish up the west side with Journey Into Imagination with Figment. This one had a wait of about 15 - 20 minutes. Another classic ride. No-one else in our party knew who Figment was but I did.
In the gift shop, I bought a Figment hat, and had 2 mini monorail cars, a set of buses, and the Star Wars rideship sent to the room.

After that, we made our way around to the Future World East, cutting briefly through the Mouse Gear gift shop. Another quick look around still proved fruitless for some Tron cycles.

We got to the Test Track for our second Fast Pass, making the 11o minute wait only a 10 wait. D3's designed car beat the girls' car 203 to 199.

After a bit of discussion, and some pretzels, as D3 was winding down, we did the Mission: Space. The Green mission was a 5 minute wait and the Orange mission was a 10 minute wait. D3 sat out, and the girls did the Green mission, and I did the Orange mission. D3's feet were hurting.

After 15 to 20 minutes in line, we all did the Spaceship Earth. It's another old ride that holds up well.

After this, D3 went back to the hotel to eat, shower, and get to sleep early for our Universal trip early Wednesday, and we carried on to the World Showcase. He was supposed to text us when he got back to the room, but didn't. He missed his stop but the bus driver got him back to the Riverside entrance.

Batman Miniatures - Suicide Squad

It’s been a while since I talked about BMG. I’m still excited by the game but still haven’t been able to play. I have a bunch of Heroclix figures to use as proxies but haven’t been able to build any buildings or scenery yet to give it a go. Plus, there is so much choice over which gangs to buy, it is hard to decide without trying it.

I did hear about the new Flash and Arrow expansion with rules to cover the Flash characters as well as rules for vehicles. Or, at least, rules for a vehicle – the Batmobile. I should be able to extrapolate rules for regular vehicles from that – including the police van that they offer. I haven’t picked it up yet but I was aware of it and was going to pick it up after the holidays.

I didn’t even hear about the Suicide Squad box set until last week. It has the Task Force X as well as a Joker crew, plus a slim rulebook, scenarios, and two double-sided buildings. The value seems high on this one. I’m not a huge fan of either team, but it’s such a good deal that I will probably pick this one up as well early in 2017.

Mice are like cancer

After living in our house for 15 years, we can no longer say that we haven’t had mice. The boy had heard noise in his ceiling so we bought some poison pellets for them and put them out in little trays that I made out of tinfoil. I also bought 4 tubes of caulking and sealed up whatever gaps I could find in the foundation, including putting almost two tubes into D3’s window sill.

I also made extra poison trays out of the old Cheer detergent scoops that we had stacked up when we were still able to get powdered Cheer. I cut the bottom centimeter off the scoops and cleaned them. The down side about poison is you can tell it is being eaten but don’t often see the results.

I picked up six of the spring traps. Not the cheapie wooden ones but some upgraded plastic ones. I also picked up a bottle of scent bait to use in the traps.
These proved pretty good. Mice tend to leave a trail of feces on their paths so we placed the traps along these.
We caught two greys one night, and then another grey as well as a larger brown one a couple of nights later.

They had been into a small bag of nachos. We packed the chips in the laundry room into a storage tub. In the pantry, they got into some pop tarts and a bag of vegi sticks so all the non canned food there went into more bins.

The next week we picked up two more spring traps as well as some of the electronic noise night lights to use in the bedrooms and the kitchen. Then we found some rice around by the bin. Somehow they had gotten in the bin so we tossed the rice, and stacked boxes on the bin.

We caught another small brown one night, and another small brown on another night. Then one of the spring traps was triggered but did not catch anything. After a few more days, still none caught, but finding sign, and D3 was still hearing noises. We have not caught another mouse in the spring traps.

We picked up another four pack of the electronic noise makers to cover most of the other rooms. We also bought some of the glue traps to try those. Over the next two weeks we caught three more brown mice in the sticky traps. They are a bit more freaky to find still twitching compared to the dead ones in the spring traps.

It's been a week since the last one was caught. We haven't seen any more signs, and D3 hasn't heard them anymore. I don't know if we are again mouse free, or only in remission.