Orlando, Florida - Part 1

Dear Friends:

My wife's family celebrated a 2012 family reunion...in style.  We all gathered in Orlando, Florida for a week and spent most of our time at DisneyWorld.  There is a great deal to share - in fact, we collectively ended-up with over 1,200 photos ; )  I won't post all of them here, but I selected a few that helped capture all the fun we had.  There are plenty of other pictures of G-Man's cousins...but I'll let their parents take care of that.

We started the week at Disney's Hollywood Studios:

G-Man has been DisneyWorld before - just 2 years ago with his older brother and sister.  He knew how much fun it was.  It was surprising to see how much he wanted to meet ALL the Disney characters.  We caught up with a few of them at Hollywood Studios.  First, was Stitch:

Both G-Man and L are big fans of the Disney Jr. TV network.  We wanted to ease L into the whole Disney theme park thing, so we spent time at the Disney Jr. "Live" show, which she loved:

One thing that I like to do, is interview the little kids.  It will be fun to show them the video in a few years.  Honest reactions and opinions are priceless:

We then met up with Minnie.  She was a favorite of the kids.  One of G-Man's cousins (shown here) shows us most kids' reaction to Minnie:

We wanted to introduce L to Minnie.  Everything went well, at first.

Then, something happened.  We're still not sure exactly what took place, but she started bawling.  Later, we found a large scratch on her face, or it was simply being scared of a full-size giant-headed mouse:

One of our favorite rides at Hollywood Studios is the Toy Story Mania ride.  It's a brilliant 3D ride that feels like a giant videogame, as you shoot carnival targets throughout the ride:

G-Man's cousin was really mad that I beat him at the game ; )

Some people take their time going through DisneyWorld.  That's not how we work.  We don't every stop...unless it's to wait in line ; )  The littlest cousins have to take a break every now-and-then:

There are times that I wish I could ride in a stroller and be pushed...

G-Man's grandparents had a cool idea.  The boys wanted to get their faces painted.  I was a little shocked because G-Man has never allowed us to do that.  I guess it took an amazing combination of factors, but he wanted a superhero mask:

These three boys had a TON of fun together.  They're close enough in age to all like the same things.  I love spending time with them.  They had the opportunity to participate in a new (at least to me) experience at Disney - the Jedi Training Academy.  This used to happen in Tomorrowland (Magic Kingdom) only a few times a day, and for a small number of kids.  In a brilliant move, they've opened it to a large number of kids.  Basically, the kids get to train with a Star Wars Jedi Master.  We marched them to the training grounds:

They were given light sabers and practiced a few moves, just in case they met some villians:

As you would expect, the new Jedis had to fight the most evil villain ever...Darth Vader! This is G-Man  trying to cut Vader down:

Here's a video of three cousins fighting the Dark Lord:

It was a tough fight, but the combined strength of the Jedi younglings were abe to hold off Darth Vader and Darth Maul:

Luckily, the kids were able to "graduate" from the Jedi Training Academy...and received diplomas ; )

We then watched a parade featuring Pixar characters.  G-Man's generation are more familiar with these characters than any other, so the kids were a little excited.  I love these pictures, because they capture moments of pure joy, as they recognize their favorite characters coming down the parade route:

The cousins had a GREAT time together.  They loved to make silly faces for the camera.  Here's a shot with their Grandpa:

While waiting for their parents to finish riding the Tower of Terror, I took a moment to interview each of them:

That's it for now.  I leave you with a couple of pictures of my family.  I decided that I should probably be in a couple of pictures, just to prove that I was there :)  More posts to follow: