Day 2 - Star Wars at Hollywood Studios

It turns out that in the beginning of the summer, Hollywood Studios host several "Star Wars Weekends."  All the fun of the theme park with extra Star Wars stuff.  We had to go!  As an extra bonus, my cousin Frank who lives in Florida drove in to hang out with us and brought his daughters Grace and Anna.  It was great having professional Disney goers to show us around!  Cousin Frank told us that at Star Wars weekend, it was important to bring light sabers and costumes if we had them.  Um, check!



Good thing!



First thing we had to do was sign James up for Jedi training.  The bad part was that Hollywood Studios apparently opens at 8am on Star Wars weekend, and we got there right at 8 am.  And then, because we went no stroller, it took us awhile to walk to where the Jedi training sign ups were.  By the time we got there it was 8:20 and then we had to wait in line for another hour to sign up and THEN finally got the Jedi training time slot of 4:15. 

Yikes.

However, we did have a good day, probably the best day there.  This was one of those parks where we were looking at the guide book the day before, it just didn't seem like there was much for kids to do, but there ended up being a lot.  The walkways are made up to look like streets of different cities, complete with leaking fire hydrant.  Andy loved this!



They had a Honey, I Shrunk The Kids playground.





 

Does anyone remember what this slide was made out of?  ;)



Grace took great care of the littler kids!



There was a car chase show complete with Lightning McQueen:



Here is everyone at the show:



The Toy Story ride was a favorite!  My score was only like 75000 though...

 

It was almost surreal to be walking around this park and then see Storm Troopers walk by.  And then Queen Amadala, then Bobo Fet.  James really really wanted to get autographs from the characters, but  I had a hard time justifying spending the time in line.  We finally let him pick one character, and he picked Darth Maul.  James loves the bad guys.  We waited about 30 minutes.  During the wait, all the young jedis had their own battle:



I kind of think some of the people standing in a different line really thought this was part of the Star Wars Weekend!  Finally, it was our turn.  James was nervous, but got Darth Maul to sign his book.  Darth Maul was kind of a jerk about it, just saying.  I think that is just who it is though...





Finally it was time for Jedi training.  It was pretty cute.  They gave all the younglings real robes and training light sabers.



Suddenly, Darth Vader appeared to try to lure some of the trainees to the dark side!  He brought Darth Maul too.  Each trainee had the opportunity to use what they learned to right the dark side!  James had to go second.



When the Dark Lords were defeated, Jedi training was over, and kids started breaking down.  We took one last round of pictures with all the cousins.  See, they are tired!



And then Grace took a picture of Frank and I:

Day 1 - Magic Kingdom

Since we were going to Disney World, we figured the first thing we needed to do was to go to the Magic Kingdom.  We decided this even though it was a Saturday.  Eh, what can you do?  Here we are driving in:



Look how excited the kids are!





Truth be told, they had just gotten a glimpse of....DISNEY BUSES.  I know, way cool.



Here is the first glimpse of the castle.  Andy is not very good at taking pictures, thus the head lock.



We hit most of those kiddie rides in Fantasyland that first morning.  It went well.  We may have had to wait for about 20 minutes in some places, but it wasn't bad.  Andy ate snacks:



The kids played with stuff:



The dumbo ride:



Waiting for the Mickey Mouse 3D movie.  The kids got pretty good at wearing those glasses by the end of the trip:



Race cars!



Our go picnic lunch!


Had ice cream:



Bought R2D2 Mickey Mouse Ears!



James was chosen for pirate training.  Cpt Jack Sparrow called him "thingy head":



Perhaps the best part of the day, "getting wet"  Turns out Andy did this willingly and loved it.  Who knew?



We ended up leaving about 4-4:30 and rode the ferry to the parking lot.



It was exhausting, but a good day!

Day 0 - The Condo

It took us just under 9 hours to drive to Orlando.  We stopped like 4 times.  This is not a good time for us...we can do better!  We decided to stay in a condo.  Sure I considered a hotel, but then thought about it, and decided, why on earth would I want to do that?  Four people paying over $100/night to cram into a hotel room and little bathroom and have to eat all my food out.  No thanks!  A little search on VRBO, a little recommendation from a friend, and a little money (only $84/night) and we had a 2 bedroom, 2 bath, 1 living room, 1 kitchen, 1 awesome pool condo.  Yes please!  I have to say, this condo was perfect.  Andy kept saying, "you picked a good place" and often asked to go home from Disney to play on the the bunk beds some more.  It was literally 5 minutes from the road into Disney and it took us about 20 minutes to get in the car, drive, park (in AAA diamond parking), and walk to the gates.

Here is the link to where we stayed:  http://www.vrbo.com/64214

We ate most of our breakfast here and two dinners.  Plus we were able to pack snacks and lunches.  And not just any lunches, but picnics, as in go picnics.  Go picnic is a company that provides box lunches.  (www.gopicnic.com).  This made packing lunches easy.  I bought a bunch when they were on sale for half off.  Then in the morning, I would just throw 3 of them in a ice chest with some drinks and some gogurts.  (lets face it, Andy does not eat lunch)

Another big decision we made was that we went "no stroller".  The kids walked most of it, but sometimes they were carried.  Let's face it, Andy may not be big enough for Space Mountain, but he is small enough to be carried by Mommy!  I think this was a good decision for us, but you have to be patient.  We did not go anywhere fast!

The one bad decision was the guide book, The Complete Walt Disney World.  Yes, I can understand that you have to go to press before many changes are made, but gee wiz, just not very helpful.

The Program

So, we are not going straight into our Disney trip.  If you listened to "the commercial", you would know we had several things to do before Disney, one of being the end of the year program at the kids school.  Mark and I had gotten up early and packed the car and then we all headed to the program.  I totally skipped out on bringing snacks though...I had other things to think about.  Again, since this was James's LAST program after THREE years, I was feeling sentimental.  Thanks to my mom, we had great seats and really enjoyed it this time!

Here is James's class:



They are all heading off to kindergarten next year!  One of the reasons I signed James up for this particular class is that I knew they learned how to play recorder.  We all feel that James is really good in music and hoped he enjoy learning an instrument:



Andy also enjoys music and is a great singer.  He was really into the program as well.



I love his version of "Jesus Wuvs Me:



Here is Andy in his three year old class.  He is one of the youngest...and tallest!  Although, he is not the giant that Ms. Becky makes him out to be.



James is the oldest and the tallest.  That's Molly next to him.  She has a January birthday and is the closest to James in height.  When she wears heels, she is the tallest!



Once it was over, we had a snack, said goodbyes, got in the car and headed to Florida about 10:30.

The commercial

James's (first) Kindergarten Graduation

Just in case I have not beat this subject into the ground, James just misses the cut off for school.  By 5 days.  He has always been the oldest in his class.  The preschool where he has been at has been really good for him because there are lots of options depending on what your kids are ready for.  They also have a private preschool.  We made the decision to go ahead and put James in this kindergarten class.  He will repeat kindergarten next year.  As with any good 5K program, you have to have a graduation.  Normally, I am against things like this, but for us it is the end of an era.  He has been with many of these same kids for years and will be leaving this school for a "bigger pond".  So, it was a very exciting "graduation".

Andy was a little put out.

 

Maybe this is true with all younger siblings, but Andy doesn't really have his own friends.  He has James's friends.  They spend a lot of time together in before school care and after care.  He really didn't understand why he didn't get to spend the graduation with the graduates and had to sit with us.

Here comes the Red Birds, "Enjoy Rejoice and Come In!"

 

Man, I am so glad I had James put on a nice shirt.  I almost didn't.  The happy graduate.  I did it!  Um, only 18 years to go!



Big cake:



The vultures are circling:



The boys playing:



They are crazy!



Another little bit about the boys in this class.  They all get along so well.  They are all looking at the camera!



They had a slideshow from the whole year.  It was really great. 



About halfway through, whenever one of the kids saw themselves, they would jump up and say, "That's me!  YAY!"  James was pretty loud at this.





On the way home, James said, "Graduation was awesome!"  We talked about how he would be going to the new school.  Then Andy said, "Then this school will be only mine!"

T Ball: Spring 2012 - James

Starting at the beginning of this school year, James met a new friend named "M".  M is very good at sports and started talking to James about playing T ball.  Add in a trip to a park where an encouraging dad helped James with his very first hit, and James has been talking about T ball for a long time.  He did have to wait until the spring and THEN Andy said he wanted to play soccer.  Soccer is at the same time/different place as T ball.  Well, how am I going to work this out?  It took a lot of doing, and I had to recruit M's mom to shuttle James to practices (it is only fair since it was M's fault anyways), but we made it work.  The following pictures are from James's first game. 

In this first picture, this is actually M.  Look at that stance.  He is A Natural!



Here is James:



You might notice that James is batting left handed.  That is because when the season started, James still had his cast on.  It is funny that with his arm at that angle, James did look like a left handed batter.  However, now the coaches are oh, so, excited to have a lefty, that they keep making him bat left handed.  (**update: at the last game, James told the coach "I would like to bat right handed"**)

James on base:



The coaches and organization at "the city of" seem better than at the "Y".  And I can say that since I was a coach.  Bringing it home:



Ooops, missed!



Fielding.  Here is M.  Again, look at that stance!



James in left out.  :(  However, this was his favorite part.  He loves to heckle!



The post game shaking of the hands:

 

James really likes it so far and we still have a few games left!