Hi, and welcome to Mouse Chat. I'm Lisa and joining me. I've got Debbie Keaton and Steve Hello Hi friends. Hiya pals. How's everyone doing? Pretty good. Great. Okay. Good. Alright Debbie. That was a very affirmative grade Yeah, it's a great day because we're gonna talk about something really fun. You like this thing. Alright, so yeah We're gonna be wait. We're gonna be there. Carefree March Yeah, we'll be there during it April. Doing what Steve the to 2026 Epcot flower and garden festival.

Very nice. I feel like the word international needs to be taught. I was going to say that. Is it international? It seems like it's always in that. And it's going to be March 4th. Is international through June 1st. That means anybody can go from the entire world. Yeah. And enjoy the all are welcome. and garden festival. Yeah, I mean, I feel like we just talked about the art festival of the art. And now we're talking about another one. So we do jump from festival to festival.

It's going to be cool. But this is a good one. It is a good one. Flower and garden is so beautiful. It's flowers everywhere. It's more flowers than you think are possible. And the things that they do, I love the topiaries. The topiaries. Topiaries. Yes. Are you saying it correctly? You know. So Caitlin told me there's a whole list of them on the internet. Yeah. I have it pulled up. There's a lot of them. The Topiaries? Yes. Okay. So who do we have? Who's really impressive on there?

You got Mickey and Minnie. Chip and Dale, Pluto, Tinker Barrel, Tinker Bell. Bell. Bell. Tinker Bell. Tinker by Yale. She has a fairy house. So there's probably a little bit of like a fairy garden thing going on. That'd be cool. You have some blanking. These are my favorite. Which one? Lady in the Tramp. Oh yeah, I love that. Lady in the Tramp is there. You have a lot of the Lion King. You have goofy. If Winnie the Pooh and Friends. So Rabbit Piglet, Eeyore, Tigger.

I mean, there's so many. Lady in the Tramp and then you have a whole section of Princess and Friends. There's no waitin' seven dwarfs. including the Beast, Princess Tiana. Oh, then you have Coco in Encanto, which because I don't know the difference. Actually, well, now when I see them, I know the difference. I like both of those movies, but I need to watch them more. They just kind of blur together for you. I don't know. Like recent Disney movies.

Oh, then you get a whole section of Pixar. Buzz Lightyear, Woody, all the Toy Story, lighting between and all of that. And then you've got monsters in. So oh, and then you've got figment. He's got his own thing. Oh, and Groot's there. Garden is the galaxy. And I'll remember him. You got Groot. At first I thought you said Groot and then I'm thinking wrong part. No, no Groot. And then Stitch. Stitch is always there. Stitch is very popular. So of course he's there.

But if you live up north or anywhere that's not Florida, I would consider that up north. anything, anything, no, Florida, Florida is then you're like, it's cold. I want to go, although this week is finally warm and I took some gardening stuff out, but it gives you the gardening bug and you're like, I want to go because you have all these cool gardening things. They usually have, they used to have like little lectures and things like that, but I haven't been to one. It's so long. Yeah, they, they do, they have more like,

I don't know if it's actual lectures. Yeah. A lot of it's more self-guided now. Like they have little gardens throughout. And they kind of have like signs or things where you can learn about, like for example, knew this year, they have a pet friendly garden where you can learn about pet friendly. You can feed them and pet them. Right. I guess it's so your dog can eat it and not you don't have to. It's not a Sunday emergency trip room. Yeah, so it's it's plans there safe.

There you go. Pack things. Um, there's, you know, different kind of learning aspects. Learning about the water cycle, learning about crops. I don't want to. Site drop go home plan. Sorry. Some of you know what I'm talking about. I remember that song, but I forget what it's from. It's from your kids. That's all I know. I think yeah. I had a whole water cycle song. They had to learn in school. So yes. So all that will come in handy. Another live pavilion too.

Oh, the butterfly thing is cool. I do love that. Mm-hmm. The butterfly thing is cool. You walk in and you see all the really cool plants cool plants and then there's a little butterflies everywhere. And then the little not butterflies, the larva or the pupa. Pupilas pupas? What are they? Pupas? Pupas? Something like that. The cocoon things. Priscilas? Yes. They have those too. Yes. The little caterpillar stage. Yeah, the butterfly garden school. And then the pupas?

I don't remember. But they do an amazing job with all the flowers, like tons of great photography spots. And then Brooke and I went once and we got the little map. So we could check all the little things off and get our little prize at the end. And so that made us do every garden in every country, which I had never done. Like I've been to flower and garden, but I've never like actually gone to the actual gardens and like, like the one at Japan was amazing.

I didn't realize really cool. I was like, what are like some of the coolest flowers I think I'd ever seen on some the weirdest plants that I've never seen. That was cool. You know, we talk about all these festivals. And when I think about the festivals, oh gosh, here's another festival, but I do like them. And so it's not a bad, I mean, the art festival, food and wine, that's probably my least favorite because it is literally food and wine. And you don't have flowers or other distractions.

But I enjoy the festivals more than I really admit to myself. What about Debbie, is there anything new on the food list that you're interested in for this year's Flower and Garden Festival? Yeah, the food is so pretty. I mean, they have so many beautiful looking things. Like you have to look at the menu to understand what you're even eating as the flowers on them and different things. things. But yeah, you know, my favorite thing they usually do at this festival is the

fruit sheet. The fruit sheet is a fruit sushi. So it's like a fruit roll up, if you will, as the seaweed, and then a sweet rice. And then in the middle, instead of the fish, it's like hand to loaf and maybe watermelon and something citrusy. And then they put a little doll up of a primfresh on top. It's really good. That's that's my personal favorite. But some of Some of these other items look really amazing. There's a cucumber watermelon slushy that sounds kind of nice.

The Florida Strawberry Shortcake amazing. So there's a lot of great food, a lot of it, you know, using Florida ingredients of the citrus and the berries. So there's a lot. It'd be really hard to choose what you want to get. It's around Cobbler, tomato and fresh amounts of relabs, blueberry crumble cakes. scallops. And of course for every food play you selecting on a pick a drink to go with it, of course. Oh, there's a couple things on here. This is interesting. So new this here is a strawberry basil

lemonade. This is for you because Lisa doesn't drink. It's made with minute made lemonade. They're actually filming a minute made lemonade commercial in my office. Are they really? So every weekend, the last two weekends I go in there in my office is completely destroyed in your office or the building? Well, they're doing the whole building. I think by office is the makeup office or it's the green here. I make up. It's one of the other because there's always a lot of weird things in my office when I go in on Monday. So yes, but yeah, so

that's weird. Yeah, so they're filming a minute made, which I didn't even realize minute made was a thing. I think they're trying to make it hip because they're doing this wrestle thing with wrestlers and minute made where they have like superpowers and then they do crazy stuff when they and they drank the minute made. I think they're trying to make it more like to kind of explain what you are. Like a rebel. Oh, I work over it. Well, we have a studio where I work,

so they ran it out the studio for a co-commercial, which I don't even know if I'm supposed to be talking about. But anyways, so yeah, so that'll be coming out sometime in the future. But that, so anyway, so they have a minute made lemonade. There's a plug for that. Strawberry high-piscus syrup. I think minute made is a Coca-Cola brand. Yes. So that makes sense. It looks like, um, I don't know. It's not in the can anymore, or maybe it is. Remember, it used to be like in the frozen section.

It was like a can and then you ripped off the side and then you put it, then the goop would come out of the can real slow and it would fall in the, and then you would mix it. Yep. I don't. So it's not, they try to get away from that, I think. So now it's more like Red Bull is what I would have had envisioned. is their new branding strategy. So anyways, strawberry basil lemonade. So it's got strawberry high biscuit syrup, fresh basil. And it uses the lemons grode inside the land,

which is the land poodle, you know, over there. Although then they say, which can weigh up to nine pounds, I don't know if a nine pound lemon would taste good. I feel like it would not taste good. Oh, it sounds super fresh. I mean, what do you squeeze a nine pound lemon? You sit on it. I mean, that would be the best part is watching them squeeze a nine pound lemon. How big do you think that is? Like basketball. Big lemon. Nine pounds. That's huge.

Just ridiculous. I think of a nine pound baby. Not like we're going to squish a nine pound baby. Squish babies. But that is kind of a lot. Oh my God. They have a Dubai chocolate, which is like the thing. Stash it. Like if you go into a Costco into 2025, there is like an entire section devoted to divide chocolate. It was like the thing. I think it's still going on. It was like trending. Yeah. It was. So now they have a divide chocolate frozen cappuccino

over at Joffrey's. Joffrey's. Oh, pistachio syrup, whipped cream, dark chocolate sauce.

So yeah. So they got some good stuff. Yeah, they do. One of my favorite it outdoor kitchens is what they call them is the brunch cot. Bunch called brunch items. So they have like avocado toast, French toast, shrimp and grits,

peach balini, they actually have, I've never tried this, but they do have a cereal milkshake. Oh, I had that. What was it good? It was exactly what you think it is. If you know, you have fruity pebbles. And then we get to the bottom of the bowl where the milk and the fruity pebbles have kind of mush together because it's amazing. That says awful. That's the part that I throw away.

I actually do like the avocado toast, though. That one, I like the brunch cut. And the nice thing too about all the outdoor kitchens is they're very allergy friendly. So, on all the menus it will show, you know, like what to avoid or what to sub and things like that. Oh, and they had the two hunts. So we did spike the bee. That was a scavenger hunt we did, which is like 10 or 15 bucks, which is really fun if you have kids, even if they're older, because Brooke was older and she was all into it.

And then around this time of year, they have an Easter egg hunt through a world showcase also that you can do. And then you get a little price of $10. Yeah, your hunts are super fun and I'm an adult. Yeah, I like doing them. And it keeps you. It gets your kids going from thing to thing, even if your kids are teenagers. They're like, okay, we gotta go to the next country. Okay, we missed one. We gotta walk another mile. Exactly. I was like, no, you know, you know, which one you know by default.

I was like, you know by default, which when we missed, just put the sticker there. No, we have to go find it. I'm like, it's a mile. Well, this go. So we walked twice around. Well, so you get your steps in. Yeah. And then you can eat more. Then yeah, it's so I love it's great when you go with a group of friends you can go through and you can see everything and get food You've got music. Oh, who knows what the music anything on the music schedule this year. That's good

Yeah, a lot of fans Yeah, which one's your favorite Caitlin?

Hmm, it's okay. Do you know any of these bands Caitlin? I do not Debbie and I probably know, although I don't remember. Should I do? I know sugar red. Sugar red. I know simple plan. 98 degrees. Definitely know them. Okay. Plain white teas.

Yeah, there's a lot that I record my spring field. Well, he's the most popular one. So if any of you want to go see Rick Springfield, April 12th and 13th, I highly recommend that you get one of the dining packages or you're not going to get it. Cause there's no way. I'll have her. Otherwise. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. What are we there? April 242526. Is there any bands that let's see who you're going to see? Oh, April. Who are you going to get? Maybe. Or maybe there house.

And here's the fly. Oh, I like air supply. I saw them last two. We see air supply last time. Oh, we loved it. The girls didn't love it. But we loved it. They not love it. And they started while it was raining and we were in like the last row of the covered seating. No, I thought that was for the kind of like, processional. No. Was that was there? So why? I think. But we were we were dry. Well, a little bit. There was a little bit of splashing. Yeah, there was a little right on the edge.

But it was pouring. So it was that was. It was okay. We're like, please let us be covered. Please let us be covered. Yeah, air supply. I love it cool. Yeah, they're April 26 and maybe you can catch them again with the other. I think I'd like to see Berlin because you know that back to my former the viewers. No, it's nice. 38 special might be fun, the music of Abba and then because of a weirdo I kind of like Queensraic at the end of May showing my age for those who know who

Queensraic is a little bit of an odd choice for Disney in my opinion but could be fun. Yes. Yeah, those are probably my favorite ones. What about you? See, what do you, which one do you like? I don't know any of these things. I only know the music, but I don't know the band. Block of sequels. Oh. Isn't that I ran so far away? Yes. Okay. That I know. You want to sing a few bars, Steve? No. I don't want to sing that song. Oh, come on. You might do your hair like that.

So Sharpie, we're talking about flour and garden festival just in time. So we're talking about all the bands that just came on for this year. And then I don't know. We kind of went over the Topie Aries. Yeah. Hey, Sharpie, give us a haudy. Haudy. All right. So it starts tomorrow. So anyway, so we're going through it. But I want to go now. That starts this three per evening. So that's a lot. Yeah. I guess I'm going to be sure. What do you five or eight?

Yeah, they're not the not the sets are never really long for the floundering garden festival. That's all right. That's just enough. Give your kids a taste without all the pushing and shoving and expensive parking and smell of pot. So it's so true. And it's included. Yes. And it's free. Well included in your ticket cost. cost. But yeah, I mean, it's been clearly showing free free concert by of, um, you know, legit band. Yeah. What'd I go again? I always see so many

cool ideas with gardening and then you come home and you feel like it's hard to execute on it. And like, they do such a good job. I've learned you have to start small. You have to pick a, you have to pick a small project, and a single area of your yard, one flower bed. Yeah, you have to start small and build on it. When I first bought my house, I made the decision to leave the flowerbeds alone for the first year. And then the next year, I was going to completely redo

the flowerbeds and did that. And then each year, I add a few more perennials to it. Because my goal is to get to a cutting garden. Nice. Like they usually have, it moves around a little bit. but it's it's definitely a cotton spired. Yeah. I like all the hydroponic stuff, but it's a pain to keep it up. Cause we have all the stuff here and it's just a lot. And then if the, if it trips the breaker on the stuff, then the water's not running and then you go out there and everything's dying.

So anyways, it's tough. It's not as easy as it looks.

I've had some very expensive tomatoes, but I could have probably just bought a tomato or way less than all the work and effort to try to make a tomato. But it is cool. They do a lot of mass planings too. It's like huge amounts of you're like, man, if you could just get like 400 of these canas and plant them in a big thing, they would look great. Well, that's not practical for the. I know. I know. Because you look at it and you're like, this looks great. But then you're like, oh, it's like so many of them.

a grouping of six at the corner of a bed, maybe, or the center. Yes. You can't, you can't go overboard. No, no, no home garden. Oh, no. It's crazy. They do a great job. But yes, anything else? What is your favorite country? Ooh, which country has the best flowering garden display in your opinion? Well, we were talking about the scavenger hunt, and then the kids get you to go through all the countries, and then I was saying that I finally got to see some of the gardens,

as Burke was like, okay, we gotta find Spike the Bee. So he's at, and he's in every garden. And so I actually went into the gardens one year and saw every garden in every country. And I thought Japan was interesting because it had some really cool flowers because they have different things they put in for that specific festival. So they do a really good job. But yeah, everyone was cool to go see like the actual garden and get inspired. And then they have, then they make special gardens as well.

We were talking about there's a pet friendly one this year and a couple others that'll be cool to see. You have a favorite Sharpie. So my favorite like traditional wise, of course, is Canada. I love, I love all the beautiful flower beds and everything they do. But I definitely, there's definitely a soft spot in my heart for everything they do in Japan. I love the gardens there. They're just so pretty. Yes, amazing. simplistic but elaborate at the same time.

Yep. Yeah, they have all kinds of cool stuff. So we're gonna go, I'll actually go this year. So what is it? I can't wait to go. It's my paper festival. I'll let you know how it is. It's probably going to morrow since you're local. I know. I wish. Oh, I wish. Oh, no. It's just, I'm for sure. No, she's gotta go on a cruise first. I know. Oh my gosh. I do. The advantages of living in Florida are so nice. We'll be boarding a cruise in a couple days. So once I get back, I need to make my way.

Then you'll go. You have more to report. Drag yourself over there to up-cut. Yeah. Hello, who is you? No. All right, so I guess that's going to wrap up this show. We're going to thank Pixi Vacations for sponsoring the podcast. If you have any comments or questions for us, you can write to us a comments at mousejad.net. Thanks so much for listening, and please join us again next time. I'm Estee.