A Quick Weekend Getaway

This past weekend we took a trip up to Orlando to get away for a few days and visit Disney's Hollywood Studios. Daniel is really into a lot of the Playhouse Disney characters like Tigger and Pooh, Little Einsteins and Handy Manny so I figured it would be fun to take him there. I also made reservations for a character lunch at the Hollywood and Vine restaurant where the kids got to meet Leo and June from Little Einsteins and JoJo and Goliath from JoJo's Circus. Daniel wasn't familiar with JoJo since the show isn't on anymore but he was quite enthralled by seeing Goliath the Lion. I think he loves lions almost as much as he loves monkeys!

We arrived Friday evening and after checking into the hotel, we headed on over to the Mall of Millenia to eat dinner at PF Changs. I had never been to this mall - it's really beautiful, especially with all the holiday decorations. Here's Jeff and the kids (with silly faces) with the enormous Christmas tree:

And the kids posing in front of some lights:

The next day it was off to the park! Soon after we got there, we ran into Daniel's favorite characters - Lightning McQueen and Mader:
Then we ran into Jeff's favorite character:
Soon after it was time for lunch. Allison enjoyed dancing with Leo and June:

Then Goliath came by and said hello. Daniel was so excited to see the big lion:

But only Allison would pose with JoJo. Can't say I blame Daniel - clowns are a bit scary!
Then i got up to get some more food from the buffet and came back to this:
I'm still not quite sure what happened - apparently Daniel went to drink his milk and accidentally drank from Allison's cup...which had Sprite in it. Apparently that caused a few tears. But they quickly got over it when June and Leo stopped by to say hello:
Next it was off to the "Honey I Shrunk the Kids Playground" which was probably their favorite part of the park, especially the big net jungle area. I was really impressed with how well Daniel did climbing through it. Jeff had fun following them too.

The big fast green slide was fun too:
We somehow managed to drag the kids away from the playground to continue on with our day. Next we met Sully from Monsters Inc. As expected, Daniel was quite frightened by him, as you can see in this picture:
We figured we better take Daniel to see someone less scary so we went to see Buzz and Woody next:
By this point, the kids were quite exhausted. Before we knew it, they were both zonked out:
Jeff took advantage of this opportunity and went for a ride on the Rockin' roller coaster while they were napping. Afterwards, I donned my hat and said cheese:
While all of that was fun, I'd have to say the best part of the day was seeing the light display. It was simply amazing. These pictures don't do it justice. If you ever have the chance to go around the holidays, you must see this in person. Allison even said she was happy we went to Hollywood Studios instead of Magic Kingdom because she was so enthralled with the light display. Here are a couple pictures, but go see it for yourself:
But that's not all, they choreographed the lights to move with holiday music. I managed to get a short snipit on video:



Before the light display, we saw the Fantasmic Show in the outdoor amphitheater. It's basically a water, light, laser, and music show. After arriving early for good seats and waiting around for about 45 min, right when the show began Daniel had to go to the bathroom of course. Jeff tried to take him but for some reason he wouldn't go for Jeff. So I ended up having to take him. He was also a bit frightened by the two minutes of the show that he did see so I ended up leaving with him while Jeff and Allison enjoyed the show. From what I saw of it, it was pretty neat, but of course I don't have any pictures to show. It turned out to be a great day, even though they were calling for rain all day, we never got a drop!