Note: Foto Fridays will resume next week.

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Remember yesterday when I was mocking Andy for being a 12-year-old boy and wanting to do the African safari twice? Well, um, on the last day of our Disney World vacation, I asked if we could go back to Hollywood Studios and play Midway Mania. FOUR more times.

Proof of his love: he said yes.

We also tried to win one of the three-eyed aliens during our lunch at Pizza Planet, but the game was somewhat rigged. We spent most of our quarters playing air hockey instead.

And yes, Andy wore the unnecessarily warm Posluszny jersey all day. To his credit, he did not whine about his accidentally scheduling our vacation on the first Sunday of pro football. (I made him get all that out of the way before we left for Florida.)

And last but not least, we took a backlot tour of Hollywood Studios, where we saw Walt Disney’s private plane, the Mickey Mouse-eared water tower, and this beautiful, beautiful sign.

Beautiful mostly because the people ON it are so attractive. From what I’ve heard, I may be disappointed in Grey’s moving forward. But you know what? Meredith and Derek are back together. So if needed, I can pretend the show ended last year with their reunion. Just like I pretend that Vaughn never died (AND THEN CAME BACK TO LIFE WTH) on Alias.

Anyway, that was the end of our lovely vacation. I have to say, Andy did a superb job planning it out — and making sure I was fed at proper intervals throughout the day — so I think it’s my turn to organize our next vacation. Unfortunately I am both averse to and bad at planning things, and Andy is both averse to and bad at flying by the seat of his pants. So stayed tuned, friends, because next year, our vacation recap may contain a whole lot more CRAZY and whole lot less “magic.” :P

On Tuesday night, we reluctantly dropped Riley off for his six-night stay at the Pet Spot and then consoled ourselves with delicious City BBQ. I don’t remember what else we did that night, but I do remember Andy not being able to sleep because he was like a five-year-old on Christmas Eve, and I do remember waking up at 5:30 am (30 min before the alarm was set to go off) because even my unconscious was worried about not being ready to leave at exactly 6:30 am, when ever-punctual, paranoid Andy wanted to go.

The flight there was smooth as can be, and we arrived without problem to Orlando International Airport. The Disney Magical “Express” was not as magical or express as the name would lead you to believe — you have to wait in line to check in to Disney, then wait in line to board the chartered bus — but it was definitely convenient. We stayed at the All-Star Sports resort (anyone who knows Andy is not surprised by that, for a multitude of reasons) and had no problem checking in. Well, except for them saying internet was neither free nor wireless. I was like, Seriously? In the 21st century? At Disney, the most magical place on earth? How can you be magical without free wifi? And the check-in clerk was like, Yes, seriously.

Anyway, with half a day to play, we headed over to Hollywood Studios, the smallest of Disney World’s four parks, but I think my favorite. The highlights were as follows:

Tower of Terror (duh), Aerosmith’s Rock ‘n Rollercoaster, and Midway Mania, the new “4D” Toy Story game. Midway Mania was the only ride on our whole vacation with a longer than 20-min wait (at about 45-60 min) but it was totally awesome and so, SO worth it.

This is Andy demonstrating proper Midway Mania dress and form. You pull the rope back from the blaster to shoot at targets on the screen in front of you, targets made 3D via the very cool yellow classes. Now, you’re not actually shooting anything — it’s all infrared or something — but the accuracy and responsiveness is amazing. And you’re actually on a track going around to five or six different shooting screens/scenarios. Did I mention TOTALLY AWESOME?!

Later we checked out several good exhibits, including One Man’s Dream, about Walt Disney and how he went from cartoonist to inventor, entrepreneur, and corporate genius. After reading more about him, I really believe he had a huge, good heart.

We also ran into WALL-E, and of course I couldn’t resist giving the little guy a kiss.

For dinner we went to the Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater, which simulates an old drive-in and plays clips from sci-fi movies and cartoons. Random, but fun.

The night ended with Fantasmic, a lights/fireworks/musical spectacular.

It was a great day and a great start to a great trip. (Did I mention great?!) The whole day I kept experiencing (and bugging Andy with talk about) deja vu, because I’d come before with my parents, but my seven-year-old view had distorted some things. It was fun/ny to see how the pieces of my memory lined up — or didn’t — with reality.

Stay tuned for Day 2…