Super Family Fun Weekend 2010 pt 2

The view from our hotel room...Orange Co Jail ;)

Let's see...the recap...

Great football game

Great Fireworks (x2!!)

Found a penny..heads up...

And then we found our hotel...lol

I really cannot complain about this place. It was clean...didn't smell like "cheap hotel room". Even the bathroom floor was clean. Of course, though, we were on the 4th floor & didn't see the elevator til AFTER we were already upstairs. And we had such a lovely view of the jail...lol

Needless to say, I think we all slept in our clothes. I had friends that were also headed to see the Shuttle take off, so we were meeting up with everyone. I figured we could sleep til they made it to Lakeland. My wake up call was at 1:47am....

With everyone super-excited...we left about 2:15ish. Driving thru Downtown Orlando was neat. Would have loved to have found a 24-hr Starbucks! We drove thru Christmas, Fl...and boy did they capitalize on the name. The Ft Christmas Museum had lights & decorations up (& ON at 3am!!). They even had Rudolph's Restaurant! About an hour into the trip, I get a text from my Disney-Sis telling me that the launch is only a 30% GO. *Ugh* Only 30% is not good. I followed @NASA on Twitter the whole way. They really provided very timely updates...which was very helpful when driving across the state on the road to nowhere.

We finally got to Titusville....can you say LOTS of people?? We met up with our friends in a parking lot and waited!! At 4:10am, NASA gave the GREEN/GO for weather...only 20 minutes left. We were kept busy getting cameras ready, tripods, blankets (it was VERY cold that night)...and in about 10 minutes it went RED again. Within a few minutes, they were GREEN again. And then it was RED....

We were on pins & needles waiting for this. It was the first launch of the year..the last night launch of the shuttles. It was one to be remembered. And at T-9 minutes, it was scrubbed. :( We looked out across the water & saw the launch pad. The lights. The beams of light that stretched from the launch pad to the sky. I wanted them to at least see something.

Oh...and I gave Disney Sis one of the pennies I found. They say if you find a penny heads up, you must pass it along to someone else within 24 hours to keep the good luck going!! A friend of mine made a great observation, so I will quote her..

"Shuttle launches aren't like Disney shows. Disney shows always go on time"

Ticker-Tape on Main Street

Buzz Lightyear has been to infinity & beyond.

And then he went to Disney World.

Having a toddler who loves Buzz Lightyear, I knew for certain we had to be there. The parade was Friday, October 2nd. All week we talked about rockets & going to Disney to see Buzz. I talked my friend & her 2 yo into going as well. So, as soon as she got to my house, we loaded up both babies & were off!

We found our place on Main Street for the parade just before 2pm. The kick-off to the parade was 2:45pm, so we had plenty of time. It was so neat. a CM named "Skip" came out and gave the backstory on Buzz & his adventure (Disney Parks Blog covered the event.).


The parade started off with a dancers, dwarfs & Snow White in honor of the re-release of Snow White & the 7 Dwarfs.



First in the line-up was the Disney Marching Band.



Then Buzz Aldrin was next. I have to admit, it was neat to actually see one of the first astronauts to land on the moon.




Next was Mike Fink, dressed in his official NASA blues. As he stopped in front of us, he donned a pair of Mickey Ears.



Finally, Buzz arrived....riding on RC. Yes, it was actually the 12" toy that was in space that was in the parade. I can't tell you how excited Peanut was to see Buzz riding on RC. It definately was not what I expected...but it was cute.




As Buzz got in front of the Main Street Emporium, the ticker-tape madness began. Confetti shot from the roofs, cameras flashed. And then Buzz continued around the circle.

I don't know why I thought that the big Buzz Lightyear character would be in the parade. Overall, it was a great experience. I had 2 very happy, satisfied toddlers that afternoon. Since we didn't have to leave for a while, we headed off to ride, what else...Buzz Lightyear!