Wednesday, July 22 was Aaron’s 26th birthday. As I’ve said a handful of times, one of my new year’s resolutions for 2020 was to make sure Aaron had a great birthday.
Folks: Mission accomplished!
His parents are in town to celebrate his birthday, driving down from Vermont where there is only a limited amount of COVID-19 cases. With them, they brought a few presents for Aaron to enjoy! They stopped off in St. Augustine to visit the distillery and pick up a few of his favorite spirits (my idea, of course). In the days leading up to his birthday, his mom cooked him his favorite meals… and bought us bikes! We own bikes now! I can tell he’s really excited to go on bike rides together. We both had to work this week, but his parents went on searches to buy us the right accessories. We’re hoping to go to our original neighborhood to enjoy their bike trails!
I took the day off of work to enjoy the day with Aaron. His parents treated us to fresh banana bread for breakfast while Aaron opened his parents’ gifts. They included fresh spices, coffee from New Orleans, and spicy snacks, among other treats. They got a box of New Orleans beignet mix for me to make on Saturday, too!
Aaron and I decided to go to EPCOT that day to enjoy the Food and Wine Festival. There has been a LOT of hullabaloo and discourse about the Disney parks being open right now, but we threw caution to the wind! We’ve been in isolation during quarantine, and it was a special occasion. For all the anger over the parks reopening, Disney is really doing a great job of keeping both guests and employees safe. They are only at 50% capacity, employees are wearing masks and face shields, and the lines are spaced out to have each party six feet apart. As well, there are plastic walls separating the employees and the guests and enforcing guests to only take off their masks when eating or drinking.
We went on a rainy weekday. There were no crowds whatsoever. It was wonderful! When we first got to the park, we headed right for the Mexico booth, where Aaron got a mango margarita and a pork tostada. I stopped at the booth across from his that had plant-based foods, where I got an Impossible Burger slider with a wasabi cream sauce. I didn’t try Aaron’s tostada, but I had some of his margarita! It was very tasty. After that, we went on the 3 Caballeros ride, where we had a car to ourselves and sat front row. Something about the spacing made the ride perfectly in sync, and we didn’t hear the effects looping the whole time. Apparently one of the characters broke yesterday, so his animatronic was missing during the end sequence, but it was still fun! Aaron hadn’t noticed that part of the ride features a group of Mexican villagers hitting a Donald Duck pinata, and it was sweet to see his excitement at seeing something for the first time.
After the 3 Caballeros ride, we went to the Norway pavilion to ride the Frozen Ever After ride. It was the longest wait we had the entire day… roughly thirty minutes, max. Again, front row of the car, with no awkward loops! The music always makes me cry, I just love “Frozen” so much. We then went through the China pavilion, where I treated Aaron to a beef bao bun and I got an order of chicken dumplings! I was bummed that they didn’t have any boba tea like they usually do during their special festivals, but I get the desire to minimize unnecessary resources. After that, it started to rain, so we quickly moved on through to Africa, where Aaron and I marveled at some of the cute merchandise. We considered splitting something in Italy, but decided to stop there on our next visit, if there is one! Aaron grabbed a quick coffee in the America pavilion, while I went to Japan to get sushi in a flowerpot! It was served in a decorative cup, with salmon and salmon roe piled onto a tall bed of rice. Aaron then got us some hot sake. It was my first time trying sake, and I’m not a big drinker, but Aaron thought it’d be fun to try it hot on a rainy day! It felt warm in my tummy but I hated the taste. I think the next time I try sake it’ll be in Japan.. the REAL Japan!
We bought Aaron’s mom some fans in the big Japan store, and then moved on to Morocco, where Aaron got spicy hummus fries. That’s always a favorite for him! From there, we went to France, where we intended to watch “Impresiones de France,” which is a twenty-minute film about the beauty of France. It’s a highlight for me on every EPCOT visit… but they’ve sort of replaced it! They only show the film at night now, and during the day the film is a “Beauty and the Beast” singalong. The film retcons the original plot, with Lefou (Gaston’s lackey) feeling fed up with Gaston’s bullying, getting Belle and the Beast together. It was cute and I thoroughly enjoyed it and with Josh Gad killing it as Lefou in the live-action movie, I would be totally interested in seeing an extended version of that retcon. I think it was Disney’s first bit of 2D animation in years!
Aaron then got a goat cheese tart at the France booth before we “crossed the English channel” into the London pavilion. While there, I saw one of the Youtube personalities we follow! His name is Tim and I’ve seen him once before in town, because he regularly films in the Disney area. I didn’t say hi because I didn’t want to be annoying, but it was neat to see him in action (and see his video posted inside the park the next day)!
We went into the Festival showcase to enjoy a few of the other booths. Typically, they jam-pack six booths into the entrance of the World Showcase, but I’m assuming they moved those six booths into a private convention space within the park to make it safe for guests. Aaron and I split a fancy plate of mac and cheese, and I stopped for a treat at the… drumroll please… dessert and champagne booth! I got a glass of Veuve Cliquot rose and a liquid nitro M&M cake pop. It was delicious! I think both the cake pop and the mac n cheese were our food highlights of the trip.
Before heading home, we stopped off at “Living with the Land,” where you get to see all the exciting research Disney scientists are completing about agriculture and how to farm more responsibly. It’s such a great concept, and I’d love to see some of their methods prominently featured in the factory farming that makes omnivore life so depressing! On our way off we stopped in “The Seas with Nemo and Friends.” It’s a “Finding Nemo” themed ride that empties out in EPCOT’s large aquarium (it’s even bigger than the EPCOT ball)! We watched the manatee rescues they keep onsite. I love manatees! They might be my favorite animal. I love manatees, dogs, and penguins. I’m twelve years old, you see.
Once we got home, I was feeling a bit dehydrated, so I took a pre-birthday dinner nap. His parents had been up the night before, preparing Aaron’s birthday dinner: chicken poppyseed casserole and chocolate marshmallow pie! You serve baked chicken cooked with crackers and cream of chicken soup (topped with poppyseed), with a side of rice, green beans, and warm bread. We only have it once a year on his birthday, and it is delicious! Between the casserole and the pie, Aaron opened the rest of his gifts, from my family and myself. My family got him an iced coffee maker, an iced coffee tumbler, and my mom got him multiple bags of coffee from Kookaburra cafe, an Australian cafe we love in St. Augustine!
I got Aaron a few nice treats. From me, he got a compilation book of Critical Role (a DnD based podcast he loves) fan art. I also got him a series of field notebooks with designs from the National Parks Service, including Acadia National Park, where he used to go camping as a kid! I also got him a bottle of spicy chicken sauce designed by Keith Hapsberger, a Youtube personality we watch together (ten out of ten recommend his “Eat the Menu” series).
The real coup de grace: two volumes of “Star Wars” concept art from principal artist Ralph McQuarrie. It was the first present from me he opened, and his parents had to get him to stop reading to focus on the other gifts he had! He kept turning the page and talking about each design he saw. It warmed my lil’ heart.
We each had a slice of chocolate marshmallow pie (it’s what it sounds like: melt chocolate bars with marshmallows, fill into a graham cracker pie crust, top with whipped cream), and split a gingerbread s’mores that his parents got at a chocolate cafe they visited while we were in EPCOT that day.
After pie, Aaron and I went upstairs. He showed me some art from his Critical Role book, and I followed some of the artists I liked on Instagram between reading one of my books. I went to sleep while he ended his birthday playing his new video game!
- So, let’s recap:
- A day at Disney
- Great food
- Youtuber spot!
- Birthday dinner
- Chocolate pie
- Awesome gifts
I think he had a pretty great birthday. Especially considering that we were in an unprecedented pandemic with the world in shutdown mode! I hope he felt all the love that I could give that day. Now… what to get him for our anniversary? Christmas is five months away, too! Until then, I’m so happy I got this resolution accomplished. He deserves all of the birthday magic, and more.