Wedding Prep...

After a spectacular dinner and light show for New Year's Eve, and then a little bit of after party at the house,  it seemed that New Years Day dawned earlier than usual for those of us in the bridal party.  We had to be showered, packed and ready to be out the door by 8:20 so that we could arrive at S's hotel room by 9 am for hair and makeup.  Somehow, even though we had a pretty late night (I don't get to see my brother's very often so we do tend to stay up a bit late chatting), we were anxious and eager to get going.  It was finally Wedding Day!

When we arrived at the hotel, we were told that we were at the wrong building.  We had to walk through the entire hotel, outside past the pool, around a bridge and to the building behind us - in the rain.  Carrying our dresses (and those of my girls), our suitcases and most importantly, S's wedding dress.  All without getting any of it wet or dirty.  Yikes, no pressure.

We made it.  Only to find that S had accidentally locked herself out of her hotel room and was standing in just her robe waiting for someone to let her in.  Thankfully, that bellman was right behind us and so were the hair/makeup team.  We broke out the mimosas and settled in for a few hours of pampering...

 

Hair...for all.  (Trust me that you don't want to see me without my face done yet).

 

Face done!  Curls done.  Now to get dressed.

Girls dressed!

 Gorgeous, right???  But we had forgotten the necklace...

 And those shoes!!!  Handpainted by a friend of S's son.  One of a kind and so ridiculously perfect.

As was the rest of this day...

This is the story of a Girl...

It's a simple story.  Really.

Girl is at work and sees Boy, in a tuxedo, walking through the mall with his {then} girlfriend as they are heading to the Prom (the girlfriends', as Boy is a college freshman).  They stop to chat with friends at the very place that Girl is working and then head out to the dance.  Girl has no idea that said Boy works at the same place when he is home from college.  In fact, he and his brother and sister (that's me) have worked there for years.  A few weeks pass, the school year ends and Boy is back in town and back at work, this time working alongside Girl.  The two spend many hours together at work and connect.  Boy breaks up with girlfriend.  Boy and Girl date for a few years.  And this should be where the story ends happily ever after.  But, Boy being young (and dumb) breaks up with Girl due to distance and college.  Girl goes on to get married, have 4 boys and raise her family for the next 20 years.

Girl is once again single.  She wonders what happened to
that Boy she first saw in that tuxedo so many years ago.  She looks him up, friends him on facebook and they reconnect all these years later.  Quickly, they fall in love again and Boy finally does the smart thing and doesn't let Girl get away for the second time.

And that is the story of how I got to spend my 12th Anniversary this New Year's Eve, at Boy and Girl's rehearsal dinner at a private venue in DisneyWorld, laughing and talking with family while watching the fireworks go off over Epcot from a very spectacular location.  And now I now get to call that girl, sister; and I added 4 nephews, a niece and a great-nephew into my family all in one fell swoop.

Happy Anniversary indeed!

My brother C "buying" B a drink.

Brothers.  In both the Picture above and below.

Coolest desert ever (and quite tasty!)

These chocolate balls are hollow but filled with Blondies and Buttercream.  

They put them in liquid nitrogen to flash freeze them, smack them with a spoon to break them open and then drizzle them in Carmel and sprinkle with sea salt.

Amazing!

Because the ice cream balls weren't enough we also got Mickey Ears!

And of course, a fireworks display that only Disney could create...

These guys then plotted their bike ride down on the boardwalk.  They got a group together and rented a covered bike for 8 and spent 1/2 hour cruising the boardwalk below us.

Looks like someone is milk drunk...

On our way out, C remembered the cooler full of Mickey Ears and found an ingenious way to make sure we took each and every one of them home.

Animal Kingdom

The above is a picture of some very excited but also very tired kids on the second early wake up call in a row after a slew of late nights and early mornings.  But it couldn't be helped if we wanted to ride THE ride at Animal Kingdom, Avatar.  Since the ride had just debuted about 6 months prior it was still a huge attraction for almost everyone and the lines could get up to 4+ hours long within minutes of the park opening.  Forget getting a FastPass, your odds of winning the lottery are better.  So, once again, we left the house at sunrise and entered the park about an hour before the ride even opened and the line was already 3 hours long.  It was the ride we had come to do so wait we would.  Thankfully, Disney sure knows how to keep their lines moving and over delivers on wait times.  We were at the front of the official start of the line (yep, it wound us all the way through the park and back again before we got to the "line") in about 40 minutes.  And within another hour we were backoutside remarking on how incredible the ride really was.  Probably my favorite of any ride I have ever ridden BUT (and that is a big BUT) it made me very motion sick.  Boo.

Ready for Avatar and below a shot of how intricate the line scenery was.

We had barely gotten our legs back underneath us when we found ouselves on Everest.  We had expected to wait the full 2 hours they said but once again, within 45 minutes, we were on and off already.  Which was good and bad.  Remember how I said that Avatar made me motion sick?  I was counting on the time standing in line to get over the queasiness.  I love a good roller coaster but this on isn't your average coaster.  It goes forward and around and loops but it also does a fair bit of backwards riding in the dark.  It ended me on wanting to ride anything fast and furious for  awhile.

That is MadHatters face to the left of the photo and my nephew M's arms in the sky.

A photo of our photo.  Stinkerbell and nephew I didn't ride.  They went with Nana and Grampa.

After the second ride we had FastPasses for two shows (no motion!) - Nemo and Lion King.  We got a very special surprise at Lion King when they put is in the front row.  Close enough that we were almost in the show.  And actually, the girls and cousin M were in the show (see video below).

This is how close we were!

The Opening of the Lion King Show.

The kids participating in the finale of the show.

Time for some Dole Whip's with perhaps a bit of coconut rum in them.

Drums were played,

the Tree of Life was scritinized to see how many animals we could find carved in it's trunk, 

and we rode one final ride, Dinosaur, before hitching a ride out of the park and back to the rental.

It had been a fabulous two days of fun but now it was time for the reason we were all at Disney World in the first place - the Wedding.