Today was going to be our first day at the Disney World parks. We were so excited! We should have known, however, that it was going to be an interesting day when it started raining right at the start! It worked out well because we had planned to go to Hollywood Studios, which has mostly shows and indoor attractions.

On the way there, we were gratefully blessed to see a wild bald eagle, sitting on top of a light post outside the park. I was quite relieved because that is Nate's favorite bird and he knew that a large percentage of them live in Florida at this time of year. I had promised him that we would see one at some point during our vacation. It was great to have it happen on our first full day! (Check-mark one item on our lists of musts!) Unfortunately, we were unable to get a picture of it because there was not really a place to pull over inside the park, and there was no where to turn around. I do not think he will ever forget though! He was absolutely awe-stricken!

When we got inside Hollywood Studios, we purchased rain ponchos from a gift shop, a fantastic tip from my friend Elicia. However, all they had were child sized. They had sold out of all the adult sizes. Luckily Sam and I are pretty small adults. They were a little tight around the neck, but they served their purpose well.

The best highlight of the day, and maybe even the trip, was that William measured 40" tall exactly, so he was able to ride every ride that we wanted to go on with us. Yay!

It was around 6:00pm that we felt we had seen all we wanted to see. We were also pretty wet and wind blown from the day's crazy weather. We decided to take a shuttle bus over to Downtown Disney for dinner instead of staying for Fantasmic.

The kids were so excited to visit the Lego Store, World of Disney, and to eat a T-Rex, a brand new restaurant to Downtown Disney. It was an erupting volcano full of dinosaurs, mammoths, fish, and even ice-caverns. It was Way Cool!

To eat at T-Rex however, we had to wait 2 hours to be seated. By the time we ate, it was after 9:00. When we were done, it was after 10pm. We walked back to the bus station to take us to the Pop Century Resort, which would then take us back to Hollywood Studios, where our van was parked. We did not think at the time though, about Hollywood Studios closing. When we made it back to the Pop Century Resort, we realized that there were no buses going back to Hollywood Studios. I just wanted to cry! Here we had William and Natalie sound asleep in the stroller, no one in sight, and absolutely no knowledge of where Pop Century was located in the Resort or how to get back to Hollywood Studios from there! It was a little frightening. Sam saw a cleaning lady sweeping the outside walkway of the hotel, so he asked her what she thought we should do. Luckily a few moments later, a bus pulled up delivering people from Hollywood Studios to the hotel Sam went to talk to him and he said he would be happy to bring us back to the park. We were the only ones on the bus, the only ones on the tram through the parking lot, and probably the only ones who were so excited to reach Hollywood Studios that morning that we did not take notice of where we parked! Luckily, the tram attendant told us that we would probably be the only vehicle in the parking lot, and we were!

The drive home proved just as eventful as the rest of the day. Disney World is completely enclosed with its own roads. When leaving, we knew we needed to go on 192 West. When the signs came up for 192, they read East, and our hotel was in Kissimmee, so we took that exit. Little did we know that our hotel is 17 miles away from Kissimmee (but still has a Kissimmee address) and that the sign meant East for 1 freeway, but both East and West for 192. We did not figure that out until Thursday. We ended up in Celebration, a city with amusement parks and attractions we had never seen before. We knew we were going the wrong way, so we made a U-turn and finally made it back to our hotel around 1:00am. We were worn out but ready for the next day: Epcot!