1st Trip as Mommy & Daddy Nov 2011 TR- Complete!

[Leger13]

I know, it was ridiculous!! I wasn't expecting everything to be walk-on, but I wasn't at all prepared for the crowds and the long wait times we consistently ran into towards the end of the week. It made it hard to park hop because by the time we got to our afternoon park, the wait times were atrocious. And usually the FP return time was too late for us since we had DS with us. I think the whole week would have been fine & doable had it just been myself & DH. DS threw a little wrench in our old approach to the parks at night!

He was not bothered at all by anything in the Tiki Room. If anything, he was a little bored by the whole experience! Hopefully Alex will do fine. DS is only now at 15 months being bothered by any loud noises. The weekend of the last Saints playoff game, I started jumping up & down screaming my head off when Jimmy Graham made a touchdown in the last 2 minutes giving us the lead (even though we eventually lost ) and when I finally stopped yelling, DH said, "Look at Paxton!" My poor child was standing frozen in the kitchen staring at me, and when I turned to look at him and said, "Aww, sorry I scared you," he kind of yelped a little and ran to me to pick him up. It was kind of funny...he has never heard me yell like that! Definitely shocked him! So we will see in a few months if any of the things that didn't bother him in WDW will now get to him in DL!

yeah we normally park hop but I didn't even plan to this time. I fully expect to be slowed down this time and not be able to stay at the parks late enough to get the benefit of park hopping.

awww he needed to make sure his mommy was ok. That is way too cute!! Alex hates when I squeal and yell at DH when he tickles me and such. He cries every time but other than that loud noises don't seem to bother him. Maybe Paxton was just startled by you yelling because he thought you were hurt or upset or something. I hope he still does ok with that stuff at DL!

 

[khertz]

DAY 8: Friday November 11th

Suddenly, our last full day in Disney World was upon us...how did that happen so quickly?? It always seems to sneak up on you, doesn't it? Originally in the plans, before we upgraded to AP's, we were going to spend the whole day at DTD for Festival of the Masters as a low-key day before driving home Saturday. But since we decided to not only upgrade our tickets, but also to fly home, our plans were a little different! Instead, we spent a majority of the day at DTD, then got to spend the evening at DHS for the Osborne Lights! Now I'm getting a little ahead of myself, so let me start at the beginning of our day.

We didn't set an alarm at all that morning, and all three of us slept in until 8 am. We fed DS his breakfast, and DH and I made some cinnamon rolls he had picked up at the store. It was a very relaxed and leisurely morning since we didn't have to be anywhere by any particular time. What a nice feeling! I mean, it is vacation after all!

We got in the car to leave the resort and head for Downtown Disney around 10 am. There were still plenty of parking spaces, and we parked nearest to the Cirque du Soleil theater. We really didn't have much of an expectation of what Festival of the Masters would be like, but we quickly realized it was much more vast than we had expected! Immediately as we stepped onto the curb from the parking lot, there were booths everywhere!

We began by stopping to look at every booth we passed, but then quickly realized we'd have to be more selective as there was no way to see them all! There was such a huge range of mediums on showcase: sculpture, woodwork, paintings, photography, embroidery, metalwork, etc. Of course, we didn't take pictures of everything we stopped to look at, but a few things did interest us enough to snap a photograph. A lot of the booths did not want you taking photos of their work, understandably.

Some of the highlights we saw:
1. Drum table - It was a table made of wood with some material (I forget what) stretched across the center to turn it into a drum. The artist and I think his son were playing it as people walked through the booth, and it was really beautiful to listen to. It would be a perfect accessory in the home of an actual musician. As much as we'd love to have something like that in our home, it would go to waste as neither of us would be able to really demonstrate it for anyone! lol
2. Embroidery - There was one booth of embroidery portraits where the stitches were so minute and intricate that it looked like a painting. They actually had signs up to tell you it was NOT a painting, and had a picture of the little woman who does the stitching working to create one of the pieces that was on display!
3. Paper & pencil artwork - There was one booth run by a husband and wife (I think the husband was the artist) of his paper and pencil drawings. Again, so intricate and perfect it looked like a black & white photo! They really loved Paxton and had a fun time playing with him while DH and I surveyed the pictures on display. Another one of those things we'd love to own, but the price tag...ouch!
4. 3D/Motion Photography - OMG this was an INCREDIBLE booth! We spent a lot of time in there. It was almost like those books where the page is a big blur of colors and when you stare at it long enough a 3D picture appears, only there was no blur of colors. It was just the picture popping out at you immediately when you looked at it! His motion photos were pretty incredible too. Some when you looked at them different ways you could see things like water flowing over rocks and pebbles. Others changed depending on how you looked at them, like it would be a photo of a bench in a park and if you looked at it one way it was a beautiful spring day, but another way it was covered in snow and ice. Kind of like pictures with eyes that move only the whole picture changed not just one little portion.

There were also a lot of booths of European photography that I just couldn't get enough of. I love those buildings, the landscapes, the history. So beautiful!

Aside from the artist booths, there were also lots of fun activities for kids and families to participate in. The first we saw was when we stopped at D-Street for DH to check out the Vinyls. There was a huge white wooden cutout of a Vinyl with a bunch of colored Sharpies so people could draw or write messages on it.

They had some custom 9" Vinyls on display that DH of course enjoyed seeing.

We walked at a pretty slow pace, just taking it all in and stopped at booths that seemed like stuff we'd be interested in. It was all way too expensive for us, but that didn't mean we didn't really wish we could have some of the stuff we saw!

Over by the Lego Store, they had a bunch of Lego artists with little displays set up on a table. That was really incredible!!

My personal favorite, the vehicles of the tv show Lost, my all time favorite show!

More of the Lost vehicles with some familiar Disney characters!

Another favorite of ours, Middle Earth from The Lord of the Rings!

Of course, we also had to get some shots of the new Lego creations on display outside of the store!

After that, we were getting pretty hungry and knew we wanted Earl of Sandwich, so we decided to head over there before the line got too crazy. Too late! The line was already zig zagged and through the restaurant to the side door. But it seemed to be moving quickly so we got in line and decided we both wanted a meatball sandwich. As DH paid for the sandwiches, I spotted a small table in the dining room, so I took DS over there to grab it before someone else did!

We thoroughly enjoyed our sandwiches! While we were there and sitting, we also went ahead and fed Paxton his lunch. As we were getting up, I spotted a couple looking for a table and waved them over to take ours since we were leaving. They were so appreciative, especially since an inside table is a hot commodity around that place!

With our bellies full, we decided to stop in the Christmas store since we still hadn't found an ornament we liked yet.

Still no luck! We had also been searching high and low for a cute Mickey Mouse Christmas stocking for DS, but never did find anything we liked. All of the stores, even the dedicated Christmas ones, didn't seem to have anything different than anywhere else. So we left with no ornament to commemorate the trip, and no stocking for DS.

As we kept walking, we finally started seeing more of what had interested us in Festival of the Masters in the first place, the sidewalk chalk art!

If we ever visit for this event again, we will definitely take the advice of the Podcast crew and visit on Saturday or Sunday when these sidewalk pictures are complete. It was so cool to see the artists working on them, but we would have LOVED to see some of them finished, especially that last one I posted! We did snap a picture of their inspiration artwork to show what it would look like when finished.

We went through the Art of Disney store, and found some stuff we finally wanted to buy! Both DH and I got a Festival of the Masters t-shirt, and we also bought a screen print of the year's design logo.

Continued in next post...

 

[khertz]

DAY 8 Continued: Friday November 11th

We walked through a couple more shops that are on our usual list, like the store with all of the sports apparel, and through some stores we had never been inside of, like Basin. It was pretty hard not to buy anything in that store, some of those things smelled SO good!

Then we hit Ghirardelli, a place I have meant to visit on our last TWO trips and still had yet to go inside!! I looked over the menu while waiting in the line that had built up, and decided on the Cookie Bottom Sundae - half a Ghirardelli chocolate chip cooked served warm under vanilla ice cream, hot fudge, topped with whipped cream, almonds and a cherry.

Cannot even begin to describe how delicious it was!! Since it was a nice day outside, we took my treat out to a shady spot near a performance area set up for different dance group. We let DS out of the stroller for awhile, and enjoyed watching him dance to the music while letting him take a couple of bites of my sundae.

When my sundae was gone, we got back to looking at the artwork, keeping our eyes peeled for the booths we were the most interested in, the Disney artists!

Another family activity: You got a picture on paper showing you a block that you put together using certain colors of Legos. Then you put it on the board in the appropriate spot to make a community mosaic picture. We never did see this one completed.

A Disney artist signing a piece of artwork for a guest.

When we finally came across the area of the Disney artists, we spent a LOT of time there! Unfortunately, there were not as many booths as we had hoped, but it was still fun to go through all of the different styles of art with those familiar characters in them. When we spotted Larry Dotson's booth, we knew we were in trouble. We bought one of his prints of Cinderella Castle on our honeymoon in 2007 and have really just loved pretty much every design he has done. We knew we wanted to buy one of his prints, but we had a hard time determining which one! As much as I really loved his Christmas at the Parks paintings, we decided instead on one we both really loved, his Magic Kingdom 40th Anniversary one.

We still have yet to get it framed, but once we do, I can't wait to have this hanging in our living room!

After making that big purchase, somehow DH still agreed to walk through World of Disney! However, we really didn't see much we wanted to buy there that we hadn't already gotten somewhere else. We did end up spending just a few dollars though. We bought a magnet, something we have taken to getting on each and every vacation.

Then we decided we should start something for all of DS's vacations. Unfortunately, we had not yet thought of this on our trip to Panama City Beach earlier in 2011, but we figured starting with his second ever vacation would be ok too. We thought it would be fun to start him a collection of postcards. It's cheap and easy to get home, and in the beginning, we can pick something that was a favorite of his on the trip, and once he's older, he can start picking them out himself!

Since he had just loved the characters so much on this first Disney World trip, this is the postcard we chose to start his collection.

It was getting to be later in the afternoon, and we wanted some time to unwind before heading out to DHS that evening, so we started the long trek back to the other side of DTD to where we had parked. We still managed to see a couple more interesting things on the way that we hadn't noticed before. I guess we forgot to get a picture of it, but they had another booth along the same lines of the Lego mural, but it was a coloring one. You picked up a square that had just some lines drawn on it, and you could color however you wanted in the different spaces. Each square had a specific spot where you hung it on a huge board when you were finished coloring. When it was all filled up, it had a huge picture colored all kinds of different ways. Hopefully that description made some sense...I should have gotten a picture!

They were also holding small Animation Academy classes just like the ones at DHS!

And remember that white cutout Vinyl in front of D-Street?

This is how it looked on our way out of DTD.

DTD and the parking lot were MUCH more packed than it had been that morning, but we had a great time at Festival of the Masters. I would love to try it again in the future, but like I said, I would make sure I had the opportunity to maybe go a couple of times. Friday morning was pretty slow and perfect for looking through the booths. But Saturday or Sunday would be better for being able to see some of the sidewalk art completed, which was something we had really been interested in seeing. Overall, we were VERY glad we had chosen dates that allowed us to try the Festival for the first time. It was a really great and interesting way to spend a day in DTD!

We got back to the resort by 3 pm, and it was pretty uneventful except for this foolishness that DS did.

Suddenly I turned around to see DS walking out of the bathroom holding his hand up over his head clutching the toilet paper and dragging it behind him! Unfortunately, by the time DH could get his phone out and snap a picture, DS had fallen down and turned to me to hand me the toilet paper. It was way funnier seeing him Frankenstein-walking out holding the TP like a banner over his head!

UP NEXT: Osborne Lights!

 

[DDuck4Life]

Festival of the Masters was one of my favorite things we did this trip. All the artwork on display was incredible. The chalk art was crazy how much detail they were able to draw on the ground with chalk. And just how fast they were able to do it. Michael's had a bunch of booths set up for the kids to get involved in different craft projects, the one we saw was making your own Mickey picture frame. DS was a little too young to do any of these, maybe another year.

All the restaurants had booths set up outside offering a small tasting of their menus. Which was nice if you didn't want to go inside for a sit down meal you could just grab something to go while walking around.

I thought it was nice how you could talk to all the artist about their work. Very different from going to a gallery and looking at art with the dealer trying to sell you something. Being able to meet some very talented artists showcasing their hard work was nice. The best part was all the Disney art. That's what we like the best and every artist that had their work on display was out there to personalize any piece you wanted or just to talk and meet with Disney fans.

After going to the Festival for the first time I realized two things: I wish we had more money to spend on original pieces of art and that we could go to the Festival every year. If I could only go to one thing Disney puts on this would be it for me. I would go every year if I could.

 

[afwdwfan]

Thanks for an interesting look at the Festival of Masters... I've never been there and I'm not sure I've really ever heard about it before. It really looks interesting to see so many different types of things on display though.

Isn't it amazing how entertaining a roll of toilet paper can be?

 

[skier_pete]

Your last full day was our first full day! I knew about FotM, but didn't tell DW about it. I know she would really enjoy it, but DD and I would probably be bored pretty quickly, though maybe not if there are a bunch of craft booths. We may go back the same week next year, so based on your reviews.

Love the Lego "Lost" vehicles! Wish I could but a Dharma Van kit. Loved that show even though I thought the ending was terribly dissapointing.

 

[suorkaterina]

I love the Carousel video! He's all like "gidyup horsie" hehe. So cute.

 

[Leger13]

Wow the Festival looks amazing! The sidewalk art. The changing and 3D art. The Disney art! I love the print y'all bought too. Good choice And your sundae looks delicious! I'm also totally at Paxton pulling out the TP. Alex has touched ours but hasn't discovered how fun it is to unravel it yet

 

[khertz]

After going to the Festival for the first time I realized two things: I wish we had more money to spend on original pieces of art and that we could go to the Festival every year. If I could only go to one thing Disney puts on this would be it for me. I would go every year if I could.

I certainly won't object to going as often as you want in the future!

Thanks for an interesting look at the Festival of Masters... I've never been there and I'm not sure I've really ever heard about it before. It really looks interesting to see so many different types of things on display though.

Isn't it amazing how entertaining a roll of toilet paper can be?

We heard about it on the Dis podcast and thought it sounded interesting, so we decided to try and pick dates to coincide with the Festival on our next trip. We were lucky that the first year we were able to go was the year they featured Disney artists! I don't think they had done that in the past, or at least not as many as they did this past year. That's what we were most interested in.

Your last full day was our first full day! I knew about FotM, but didn't tell DW about it. I know she would really enjoy it, but DD and I would probably be bored pretty quickly, though maybe not if there are a bunch of craft booths. We may go back the same week next year, so based on your reviews.

Love the Lego "Lost" vehicles! Wish I could but a Dharma Van kit. Loved that show even though I thought the ending was terribly dissapointing.

I'd say it was worth checking out, especially if you and DD can hit the activity booths while DW looks at the art. There were plenty of other fun things going on that I didn't manage to get pictures of!

I was obsessed with Lost, so I loved seeing all of the little Lego vehicles! The Dharma van would be fun to make!

I love the Carousel video! He's all like "gidyup horsie" hehe. So cute.

Thanks! He really loved it! We didn't expect to try that attraction since it's just a carousel, but he really enjoyed it. So I think we'll be riding it every trip until he is old enough to be tired of it. Plus it never seems to have a line, and that's ALWAYS a good thing in WDW!

Wow the Festival looks amazing! The sidewalk art. The changing and 3D art. The Disney art! I love the print y'all bought too. Good choice And your sundae looks delicious! I'm also totally at Paxton pulling out the TP. Alex has touched ours but hasn't discovered how fun it is to unravel it yet

We had a great time at the Festival! I love looking at Disney art, especially Larry Dotson! His stuff is amazing. I would fill my house with his work if I could.

He seemed to want to mess with the TP a lot while staying at Bonnet Creek, but hasn't really shown much interest in it since we came home, thank goodness! I think it's mostly because he has little to no access to our bathrooms at home, but it was easier to leave the bathroom doors open at the resort because of the room's layout. Either way, I'm glad he's not doing this on a more regular basis.

 

[bluechic03]

I am loving your TR! We leave on Sat for my sons birthday trip(he turns 2 Feb 9!) and we are getting his 1st haircut there too! I really loved that video and all the others with your little guy! What's cutie!

 

[khertz]

I am loving your TR! We leave on Sat for my sons birthday trip(he turns 2 Feb 9!) and we are getting his 1st haircut there too! I really loved that video and all the others with your little guy! What's cutie!

Thanks for joining in!!

I hope your DS loves his birthday trip! We were "celebrating" DS's birthday on this past trip, even though it was about 2 weeks after his actual birthday, but on this next trip, we will actually be IN WDW (probably MK) on his real birthday! Hopefully your DS does well for the haircut too. It was a really fun experience! Have a great trip!

 

[SwiperFox]

My new puppy just did this the other day! Except he got the whole roll out before I figured out what that weird noise I kept hearing was.

 

[khertz]

My new puppy just did this the other day! Except he got the whole roll out before I figured out what that weird noise I kept hearing was.

My cat used to unroll the whole roll with her claws, shredding it completely in the process. And forget it if we didn't actually put the roll on the dispenser and just sat it on top! She'd knock it down, bite it and scratch it with her back claws, then run around the house with the roll in her mouth! We lost a lot of rolls of toilet paper that way. Luckily DS has since forgotten about the thrills of unrolling toilet paper and he hasn't done it since we got home!

 

[khertz]

DAY 8 Continued: Friday November 11th

After a fun morning at Festival of the Masters and a short break at the resort, we were ready to head out to DHS to see some beautiful lights! We got our stuff together and left Bonnet Creek around 4:45 pm and made it to DHS within just a few minutes. We must have managed to find a decent parking space, because never on the entire trip did we have to take a tram from the parking lot, which was pretty nice.

However, once we got into the park we encountered the same problem as the previous afternoon at Magic Kingdom...long lines EVERYWHERE! So we stopped and grabbed some FPs for Star Tours since we wanted to try our luck at getting a new set of destinations, and the return time was decent compared to the return times for RNRC and ToT which were too late in the evening.

We wandered around aimlessly for awhile before we gave up and realized we weren't going to be able to do much else until our FP time came up, so we went to Backlot Express for some dinner. Then we went to the front of the park to the Baby Care Center to warm up Paxton's milk and dinner. I have to say this was the smallest and least stocked of all of the BCC's in all of the parks. It was SO tiny and cramped in the one small room and they only had one additional room with the changing tables. There was another woman in there with a double stroller, and the 3 of us barely fit in the room with them! Then another mom came in with her little one to breastfeed and all they had were 2 small areas off the main room with just a bench and a curtain for privacy for breastfeeding. That BCC could DEFINITELY use some work & some space! It was the only one without a halfway decent kitchen set up too, so it took some work to feed Paxton his dinner and get out of there. I left at one point to use the restroom across the street and had a hard time getting back in because a huge line had formed out the door of Guest Services. Definitely avoid this BCC if you don't really need it! Plus, on the way out we had to stop at the little gift shop right outside of GS to buy a jar of fruit for DS's breakfast in the morning. I didn't write down the exact price but I think it was pretty close to $3 for one jar of baby food! INSANE! Just a tip for those traveling with little ones...make sure you bring/buy ALL of the baby food you will need, because it is expensive in the parks!!

We got out of there as quickly as we could and hurried over to Streets of America to see the Osborne Lights! I was SO excited about this, since it was one of the reasons we had chosen these dates! I was prepared for it to be crowded, but it was REALLY crazy and packed down there. They wouldn't let you enter where we remembered entering in 2009 down where you walk past Sci-Fi and Writer's Stop, they had you going around past the Star Tours gift shop and down the side of Muppets and entering at the opposite end of the street. DH took some video of us walking in, and it was the only video of 4 that Photobucket would allow me to upload!



The music playing in that video always reminds me of the last scene in Home Alone when the rest of the family finally gets home. I think DH was getting annoyed with me saying, "KEVIN! What did you do to my room?!" </random>

Although it was pretty packed, we walked through and took a couple of Photopass pictures, but we were thoroughly disappointed to see that due to some malfunction, the lights were NOT dancing!! Didn't stop us from taking some pictures, though.

Our Photopass shots...

We decided to go use our Star Tours FP's and hoped that by the time each of us had a chance to ride, the crowds may have died down and the lights would be dancing again. I took DS into the bathrooms at Backlot Express while DH went to ride Star Tours so I could change him into his pajamas and give him his antibiotic. Then I went over to the gift shop to wait for DH to come out. I could see TONS of people just piling into the Streets of America as I stood there, which was making me nervous (I think Fantasmic must have just left out). BUT...I could also see that the Lights had started dancing again!

Finally DH came out and I took my ride, which didn't seem to take long at all. I didn't mark in my notes which planets I visited, but I know it was 2 totally different ones, while I think DH had the pod races for a second time.

When I met back up with them, DH confessed that he had noticed the lights working again and took Paxton over to see them, then came back to wait for me! How rude! But we went over the 3 of us then and FINALLY got to see them dance to a few different songs. They seemed to be dancing a little more frequently than usual, maybe to make up for the fact that they hadn't been working. We got 2 videos of them dancing, but one wouldn't upload because the file was too large, and one uploaded all the way only to tell me Photobucket deleted it for being copyrighted material.

So here's some more pictures instead!

We had laid the stroller back hoping DS would go to sleep while we walked around, but he was WIDE awake. So I took him out for one of the songs and danced with him, which got some cute baby giggles in response. He really loved it, and the "snow"! We both thought he would just love the lights, and we were happy to see that we had been right! He was just amazed, especially when he saw them dance! I'm SO glad it worked out that they started within our dates. We were worried that they wouldn't start until after we left.

We headed out of the park at 8 pm, which was WAY past DS's bedtime, but he still looked raring to go. I made DH take a picture of the tree lit up on the way out since it had been impossible to see any of the trees lit up since we were always back at the resort before full dark. It's kind of funny to think 8 pm was a "late night" in WDW for us now!

DS crashed on the way home, thank goodness. Unfortunately we had to park in that godawful parking garage again, but we had learned from our mistakes last time, and he actually slept the whole way back to the room. After putting him down, we closed the door to our bedroom and started doing our most dreaded task of any vacation...packing! We packed as much up as we could before showering and getting to bed because in the morning, we were checking out of our beautiful "home" at Bonnet Creek!

UP NEXT: Our last few Disney hours

 

[Leger13]

I'm so sad that your TR is coming to an end. I love the Osborne lights! They are just wonderful!! We will be at DHS tomorrow so I'm glad I read that little tidbit about the BCC there before we went over there! Thanks! I can't wait to ride Star Tours! I'm hoping Alex will be ok if we leave him with my BFF so DH and I can ride for the first time together. He's been kinda clingy though so we'll see. Anyways, Great update! And feel special, 'cause I checked in and posted from WDW

 

[Colleen27]

Glad to hear you got to see the lights dance! They didn't have them dancing on the night we were there in '09, because of weather or some such, and we never did make it back to check them out when they were giving the full show.

 

[khertz]

I'm so sad that your TR is coming to an end. I love the Osborne lights! They are just wonderful!! We will be at DHS tomorrow so I'm glad I read that little tidbit about the BCC there before we went over there! Thanks! I can't wait to ride Star Tours! I'm hoping Alex will be ok if we leave him with my BFF so DH and I can ride for the first time together. He's been kinda clingy though so we'll see. Anyways, Great update! And feel special, 'cause I checked in and posted from WDW

I'm sad that it's ending too! One more post plus the wrap up/final thoughts post and that's it! But...then I just get to start my October PTR!

I hope DHS is a productive day for you! And I hope the BCC isn't occupied whenever you need to visit. Seriously...it's SO small!

Have fun on Start Tours! It is a really amazing ride.

No lie, when I got an email letting me know I had a reply, and I saw it was you, I said to myself, "What is that girl doing replying to this TR when she's in Disney World?!" Hope the rest of your trip is MAGICAL!!

Glad to hear you got to see the lights dance! They didn't have them dancing on the night we were there in '09, because of weather or some such, and we never did make it back to check them out when they were giving the full show.

The lights are amazing no matter what, but it is really amazing to see them dance! Bummer you missed out on it. Just a reason to plan another Christmas trip!

 

[afwdwfan]

Packing is the worst part of any trip.
I'm glad you were able to enjoy Star Tours and the lights despite the crowds. Your pictures make me wish I was back there watching the lights dance right now. We absolutely loved them. I know when we were there it seemed like they were dancing every few minutes.

 

[exwdwcm]

Love the info on the Festival. We will be there that weekend and I am not sure we will visit it or not. I heard how bad the parking and stuff was. DH does like art though, so he would enjoy it the most out of our group. A friend of mine from CO who I used to work with is an artist and participates in chalk art at home (she's amazing), she went out there this weekend just for the Festival and loved it. The chalk stuff just blows me away. That would be cool to see.

I swear Earle always has a huge line. We always wait though because it moves super fast. and we are addicted.

LOL at Paxton and the toliet paper. so cute!

 

[heaven2dc]

I have truly enjoyed your TR from beginning to almost end Your Osborne Lights pics are beautiful! Don't you just love how the lights dance to the music? We saw this in Dec 2008 when my DGS was 14 mos old and I'll always treasure the memories of that trip.

I can't wait to see the new Star Tours attraction. I had hoped to visit WDW this next December but not sure if that will happen now that I applied for the Disneyland College Program. I may be working at one of the hotels down at Disneyland and not be able to take a trip to WDW so if I do get accepted, I told my DD that they will have to come to DLR (I would be able to let them in for one day for free )

Loved the pic of your son with the toilet paper roll - how cute! He is SOOOO adorable!