Monday

Monday morning, we went over to Hollywood Studios with the entire family for a character breakfast at Hollywood & Vine. The characters from the little Einstein's and JoJo's Circus were there to meet the kids. Owen was very excited and came right out and told June that he loved her!

Leo was a big hit too, because he wears glasses, just like Owen. They proudly compared specs and high-fives!

Owen loves Goliath and gave him a big kiss on the nose. Yeah, our child was the one trying to pull his tail too...

After breakfast, we went over and saw the Playhouse Disney Live show... it was very energetic and the kids all enjoyed it. They did short stage routines with puppets characters from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Handy Manny, Little Einsteins & My Friends Tigger & Pooh. After the show, we went over to the back of the park to see the Muppet 3D show and visit the Toy-Story characters. Owen was a little freaked out about the 3D trickery. Thankfully, he got over that by the time we waited in line for Buzz & Woody. Owen loves Buzz Lightyear, and got a big kick out of seeing him! The Green Army man was an unexpected hit too...

At this point, the kids just needed some time to run and play so we killed an hour in the "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids!" play area. They have a great network of tunnels, slides and climbing systems. Cousin Marissa was a big help on the climbing nets with Owen, and they ran through the tower several times together. Cousin Shaun is closing in fast in the background..

Here, Owen is "cleaning" his glasses in the spray from the big gigantic sprinkler.

After grabbing a quick lunch, we headed back over to the Lodge for a quick nap and a swim in the pool. There were two families of little ducks wandering around the pool area and Owen had a blast watching them waddle around and swim.

We went to Epcot later in the afternoon and spent a lot of time walking around looking at all the flowers in bloom. "The Sea" exhibit was awesome for Owen and I think he would have spent all day here if we let him. We rode the Nemo ride, and saw the Turtle Talk with crush and it was pretty fascinating. I think they must have a combination of human interaction and several pre-programmed routines to correlate the questions and Crush's location on the screen. We didn't see it twice, so I'm not sure what may or may not be repeated. The audio/video sync on his voice reminded me more of Mickey's Clubhouse than a Pixar feature, but the kids didn't notice and most of the adults were laughing with the humor. Whoever is managing the response content, must be pretty quick, and creative.

The aquariums are beautiful and full of a huge variety of ocean life... Turtles, Dolphins, schools of fish, sharks, etc... Owen kept running from pane to pane pointing out all the creatures and calling them by name. It was really neat to see him so animated.

Owen was really interested in "Bruce" from Nemo for some reason and pointed him out every time he saw him. They have the "myne myne" birds out in front of the building making noise every few minutes and we had to watch them for a few cycles too.

We had a busy evening with the entire family at the grand gathering dinner. The hosts played a little bit of a cheesy comedy routine, but all in all, it was entertaining. After dinner, we moved to a reserved location on the lake with a great spread of desserts to watch the fireworks show.