ORLANDO...Part I

It hardly seems possible that this time last week we were in Orlando. The last week has been busy and long! We had an incredible trip to Orlando.

Here it is in a nutshell...
Carson, Collier and I headed to Austin last Saturday, the 16th, to drop off Collier and the dogs with Mom and Dad. They took Carson and I to the airport on Sunday afternoon. Kenny flew out of Dallas and met us in Orlando. The flight was uneventful and Carson relaxed after he was sure that he was not going to have to ride on the wing of the plane (Dad had been teasing him all morning that that was going to happen...told him to be sure to ask the flight attendant for the special glue remover to get the glue off his shorts that they were going to glue him to the wing with). Although he wasn't buying it, I think he was a little worried!
We got to our hotel in Orlando around 6:30 - the Loewe's Portofino Bay - very nice hotel. You kind of feel like you are in Italy (although I have never been there). The best part was that there is a water taxi that will take you from the hotel to Universal Studios park and City Walk (a great area with lots of restaurants, Blue Man Group theater, etc...).

We called Kenny, who was already at the convention center, and made plans to meet him. The whole reason we were there was because Kenny was attending EMC World (a.k.a. "Huge Computer Nerd Conference") and was receiving a Knowledge Sharing Award for a paper he wrote and entered in their contest...more on that later. Carson and I caught the shuttle to the conference and met up with Kenny. The opening night festivities were quite impressive...HUGE yummy buffet with all kinds of food, beer, wine, neat little give aways like t-shirts and glasses (the drinking kind) that have blinky lights (Carson's fave!) and the Gin Blossoms performed. To be really honest, Kenny and I had heard of the Gin Blossoms, even had a few songs on our ipods we realized later, but I couldn't have told you what songs they sang. Once they started playing we were like "Oh yeah! We know them!". After we ate, Carson wanted to go up front and hear them play (we were sitting at the very back of a huge room), so he weaseled his way up to the VERY front and stood right in front of the stage. I, of course, was trailing behind him and people were just moving out of the way, to let us through. Keep in mind that he was one of very few children there...and I was one of the very few females there (it was all men!). Everyone thought he was so cute and charming and he got lots of attention. He made LOTS of friends and chatted them all up. The kid can seriously talk to ANYONE (must have gotten that from Kenny, right?). So, when he ended up front row to the stage, a man motioned for me to put him up on the speaker box, which basically put him on the stage. I probably did major damage to his hearing that night, as he was standing on top of a gigantic speaker, but I don;t think he will ever forget it. The lead singer walked over and handed him a tambourine which he promptly started shaking away! He ended up on the big screen (which I missed because I was watching him, but Kenny saw from the back of the crowd). After the song, the lead singer asked me if it was ok for him to keep the tambourine - of course I said YES! Everyone around us was high fiving him and telling him what a cool kid he was and when he walked on to the shuttle bus, back to the hotel, everyone was saying "Hey, the kid with the tambourine...can we have your autograph?". So fun!

Monday morning, Kenny headed to the convention center and Carson and I went to rent a car to drive to Disneyworld. The hotel where we were staying didn't have a shuttle and we were about 20 miles from the Disney parks. So, we rented a car, drove there, parked, rode the tram to the ticket booths, bought tickets, rode the ferry across and an hour and half later where walking into the Magic Kingdom - whew!

The park was way more crowded than I expected it to be. It was also raining...and I don't mean sprinkling on and off...I mean pouring down rain! We decided that it would not ruin our fun, so we bought some ponchos (FYI for anyone going to DW in the rain - buy ponchos ahead of time!). I paid $15 for two ponchos and Carson promptly ripped his right down the front (luckily the lady at one of the carts gave us another at no charge). Once we got going though, the rain really didn't bother us and we certainly did not let it slow us down! We were at the park for 12 hours and rode every ride except two (Space Mountain b/c it was closed for repairs and the Rocket Blaster ride in Tomorrowland - somehow missed it and were just too tired to walk back over there at 10:30pm). We also saw almost all the shows, saw Mickey and Minnie, ate lots of treats and ice cream and had a GREAT day. Some memorable and favorite moments were riding Dumbo (something Carson promised Memy he would do for her), meeting Buzz Lightyear and Carson being so brave and riding the scary roller coasters (keep in mind that 2 years ago at Disneyland he would not ride anything except the carousel!) and buying Carson his 2nd set of Mouse ears (Pirate ears this time) and Collier his first set! I think Carson fell asleep before we were even out of the parking lot on the ride back to the hotel! It was such a fun day...the only thing that would have made it better was to have Kenny and Collier with us. We did talk all day about bringing Collier back when he was older and what he would think about it all. I can't wait!