Orlando, Day 1

I like writing these, mostly for me.  It's always fun to look back and remember them.later on.  So, first day!

Tyler spent most of the morning being a big jerk.  We had to put him in time out a couple of times, but after lunch and a nap he calmed down.  We picked him up from his nap and went right to the plane to go to Orlando!

Flight went really well, our plane had TVs on the back of the seats, so Tyler pretty much just watched TV the entire way.  I got to watch Lucy.  Fun movie, dumb premise.  Casey slept on Jessie most of the way.  Jessie didn't seem to mind.

When we landed, Tyler ran up and gave Grandma a big running hug.  He's getting good at that.

We all got to the hotel and fell asleep.  We set Tyler up with a long sofa mattress in the closet.  He really liked having his own room.

The next morning, we woke up and had breakfast at the hotel.  The place had 'magic pancakes'.  It was a couple of robots that just sat there and would spit out a hot, fresh pancake every 20 seconds or so as needed.  Tyler really liked the magic pancakes.  I saw the thing break once at it just spit out one, huge pancake.

Our first stop on this, our mostly 'relaxing and hanging out with family' day, was just Downtown Disney.  We took both the kids and Grammie and had to park a little far away from where the action was, but our first stop was the Lego store.  We stayed there for like an hour.  They had a thing in front where you could build your own Lego Car and race it down a ramp.  Tyler was a huge fan.  The rest of the time he spent inside at the place where you can make your own Minifigures.  He made a few and we got them for him.  He really liked having "lego guys' to play with.  He would attach things to their feet and say they were Lord Business.  You have to have seen the Lego Movie to get the Joke.

We went back home to meet Anne-Marie, Jessie's cousin, and their little one.  He's one-and-a-bit, so he can walk but not talk, and he thought Tyler was the Bees Knees.  When we had to put Tyler down for a nap, he cried because his friend was gone.  Eventually, though, Shannon, Jessie's Sister, and her two older kids showed up.  They played with the little cousin.

We all went out to a nearby park to take some pictures and let the kids play.  Organizing that many young kids is always a challenge, but we managed.  I haven't looked at the pictures yet, actually.  I probably should.  Anyway, the kids had a blast on the playground and got out a lot of energy.  Then dinner!

We had reservations for Bucca Di Beppo, but as it turns out the place we were going was in a mall, and for those of you looking at a calendar, this was Black Friday.  Fortunately, we gave ourselves plenty of leeway, and once we got past the traffic getting out of the place, parking wasn't that hard.  We made it right on time.  Good for us.

We were at the Pope Table, which is huge and round and has a couple of neat features.  1) A huge lazy Susan that all the food goes on so everyone can eat it.  2) The Pope's head in the middle (yes, the current one) 3)  The top is arched so that the person directly across from you gets your voice funneled right into your ears.  It's really odd, but neat.  We ordered so goddamn much food you have no idea.  We put a pretty good dent in it before we all got stuffed, and then jessie ordered dessert.  She got a brownie sundae the size of Casey.  Collectively we polished it off, but it took some work.

We were loud and laughed a lot, and since our table was special, we got featured on the 'intro tour' a few times.  We started toasting people when they came around for the tour.  We got a lot of smiles from the wait staff for that.  Also I got to give our server a big tip, which felt nice.

Home and food comas for all.  Anne-Marie drove home with her family, but Shannon and her family stayed in the hotel near us and joined us for a few Disney days.

-N