Another restful day at home, with the kids basically already in a routine for their day's activities. The girls finish work very fast, and the boys working a lot longer. Sweet Ruby made my breakfast on this day and brought it to me. I think she made me a bagel with cream cheese. I'll take it. There was some more swimming on this day. Funny, there was a huge pool at the main shared clubhouse, but the kids never asked once to go there...which was better for us anyway.
I did not have any activity planned for this day, but I have always wanted to try the mini-golf at Disney. And we didn't have anything else going on that afternoon, so we went to Winter Summerland. For this course we used the back entrance onto Disney property near Animal Kingdom, so it was even closer to our condo. And upon arriving at the parking lot, we saw that mini golf is not really a top attraction when you are on Disney property. All of the kids laughed at how difficult it was to find parking here. And do you think Disney has a backstory for everything...of course...so here is the story behind Winter Summerland...
Winter Summerland is different from any other miniature golf course you’ve ever experienced. That’s because Santa Claus, himself, designed it! Late one Christmas Eve, as Santa was flying back to the North Pole, he discovered snow in Florida. After surveying the strange sight, he decided to build a vacation destination for his off-duty elves, a Winter Summerland. Seeing that the only thing Winter Summerland lacked was a golf course, Santa and his elves divided into 2 camps, one that enjoyed the warm Florida sun and another that preferred the snow and cold of the North Pole. The elves then built 2 distinctly different 18-hole golf experiences: a sand course named "Summer" and a snow course named "Winter.
We played the Winter course, mainly because I felt bad smiling and laughing earlier in the week while Ruby was so sad we missed the snow in Alabama. So now we had our own wintertime. When miniature golf was in its prime in the 1980s, and courses were built for true tests of ones geometric understanding of putting, combined with understanding of physics and momentum, I really enjoyed the actual game. But now they are really just a novelty to help families have some fun without focusing on any real skill, I quickly (by hole 2) threw away the scoresheet, and just watched everyone have fun. And we had a good time...don't know about the fun per dollar spent on this activity, but when in Disney, credit cards just have extra magic.
But there were a lot of laughs on this course, The first I remember is that Davis is completely horrible with any obstacle that may be in the way. He would hit the obstacle every time and end up behind the starting point. Davis has a tendency to pout up when things go bad sometimes (Com'n Dave...you know it is true), but he cracked me up on this day, because he just had fun with it. Laughing at his self, and allowing us to laugh with him. And he was trying to get better, but he never did. I put in my notes for these blogs that Dad got 2 holes in one, Mom got 1, Sam got 1, and Davis missed every hole.
And the funniest thing I saw on this day was Magan's putting on one hole with a slight incline to get to the top of a "snow" mountain. Let me just say again...it was a SLIGHT hill. It is putt putt...the ball will roll fairly fast with just a simple putt. Well, she pulled the putter back like a driver, wrists bending slightly, and came thru with a full on swing. The ball hit that "slight" incline, then got to the top of the hill and kept on "inclining" over our hole and to the next hole where Sam was playing almost hitting him in the head. So she is cracking up in her Magan laughs. Me and Sam and Davis are like "What are you doing? Just tap tap it up the hill." We never found her ball, but we did find another one in the bushes from some previous Magan. And wouldn't you know it, she did it again, but this time scared all of us as she slammed the club on her back swing (YES, a backswing in putt putt) into the metal sign with the hole number (TIIIINNNNG!). "It's not that big of a hill, just roll it up with your hand". I have no idea how anyone has that big of a back swing in putt putt. It was hilarious, but also something that Sam and Davis playing slightly ahead of us began to take caution of for the rest of the game. "Mom is about to swing!"
And the other big laughs came at the snowman hole. I knew something was up when Ruby and Belle were there waiting for us (They were like 3 or 4 holes ahead of us most of the game) at the snowman hole. Did I mention the empty parking lot earlier, yes, so, yeah, we were the only ones playing on this Winter course, which was probably good as we were a little crazy and all over the place. Anyway, the girls were just giggling and saying they just wanted to watch mom play the snowman hole. So Mom started playing the hole, but started guessing that something might be fishy (besides seeing Ruby and Belle snicker), when she saw large water spots all of this hole. So she used her club to reach out and knock the ball in the hole, and even stretching she almost got sprayed with water by the snowman. We all laughed and Magan screamed as she does so often.
So we finally finished our round of mini-golf. Laughing for the rest of the night at the stories above, but mainly that loud TIIIING when Magan busted that sign. The kids all got to do some mystery pin trading at the mini golf desk, and the guy there was super nice and ended up just giving each of the kids one of the mystery pins even without a trade. Based on the traffic flow, I would say they don't get many kids here pin trading. After our golf outing we went to a chick-fil-a that was super nice, but not crowded at all. This is still a mystery I don't understand, but we enjoyed our meal...much better that those frozen nuggets with mustard. But even with it not having hardly anyone inside the restaurant, we somehow all crowded into a booth for 4 people. And we laughed at Sam at one point where he started falling out of the booth, but it was like a slow motion fall...it didn't even look real until he was on his back in the floor laughing. We also picked on Sam after we talked about playing Chickapig that night, and he said "Oh, I thought you said we were playing Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza". Wow, he was way off. And the last think I remember from this day is when I hopped across one of the holes at putt putt, I felt a little twinge of pain in my left knee. Not a good sign, as it can take me out of service quickly. And that little twinge was just a foreshadow of the pain I would end up with just a few days later.
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