Disney World

Besides having the time share, the other reason we decided to visit Orlando was to go to Disneyworld.

I had been to Disneyland a few times growing up, but neither Susannah nor myself had ever been to Disneyworld (or Florida, for that matter). By the way, I didn't take this picture - just my disclaimer.

I don't know how Adam talks me into doing dumb things, but he does. He was actually pretty nice on this one. This was our first day. We visited Hollywood Studios that day. We loved "Tower of Terror!" It was awesome!

The next day we visited the "Magic Kingdom" park. Strangely, it was my least favorite of the 4 parks we visited. It was also super busy.

This picture cracks me up, because you can't see Adam's legs. It's just weird.

Being with such a fun group inspired craziness. We were always trying new things, daring people to do stuff, and getting "points" for random things. On this day, we were getting points for random spinning jumps and other crazy things. I don't know how this came up, but Susannah was offered a hefty set of points if she would do this tiptoe move to the next ride. This makes me laugh so hard!!!!!!That evening we checked out Downtown Disney.

Just about every evening, we headed back to the hotel and played games. It was so fun.

Adam finally tried out his new set of Heelies. He couldn't quite get his balance at first so Julie and I had to help him out.

I think Epcot was my second favorite park. This first time we visited, we did all the rides. At this park, however, we had the longest wait of our trip. It was to get on a ride called "Soaring." The pictures below show how we kept ourselves entertained.

Julie introduced us to a game called "Shaky Face."

You are supposed to completely relax your face muscles. Someone gets a camera and gets it on and focused on you. When they're ready, they say go . . .

and you start shaking your head like crazy. They then snap your picture. It was so funny. You can't do it very much or for very long or you'll get a major headache. My pictures were so hideous, I thought I'd spare you the nightmares.

They also had these interactive games where you are sort of projected on this screen on the wall and you have to hit these bubbles. It was pretty funny.Another cool experience was going to Cirque du Soleil. It was really cool. We went on Wednesday night.

We explored a bit at Downtown Disney again and found some really cool Lego stuff.

Julie didn't come to Cirque with us. When we got home, we saw what we thought was her in bed. I headed into the other room and she was hiding behind the door. She jumped out and scared the crap out of me! I screamed . . . loud.

My favorite park was Animal Kingdom. We're on a cool Safari ride here.

I was completely in love with the tree they had in the middle of the park. I think it was called the Tree of Life. Hmmmm.

Anyway, they had made it and it was so huge. The trunk and most of the branches had animals carved into them. It was so cool.

Susannah won the biggest competition of all of them. We had a bet to see who would see someone they knew first. Susannah spotted a student from last year who is now in the first grade right next door to me. It was fun to see him and he still keeps talking to me about it at school. He's cute. He's the only one any of us saw that we knew! That was a little shocking to me!

We had to swing back by Hollywood Studios for another ride on Tower of Terror. It was there that we experienced our "Disney Miracle." We were going to have to wait at least 85 minutes in line because there were no more fast passes. We were prepared to do it and were walking up to the end of the line, when a family walked up to us and asked if we wanted their fast passes because they were too chicken to go on it. We were very thankful and our 85 minute wait turned into a 5-10 minute wait!

We finished off the Disney adventure back at Epcot where we toured all the country pavillions. That was really cool. I like this picture of Adam thoroughly enjoying his chocolate eclair from a bakery in the French village. Fun trip! We made it back home Saturday night, tired, but happy!

P.S. Check out Susannah's blog to see some of the engagement shots we took!