Disney Day 1 - Hollywood Studios

After we dropped our stuff off at the hotel we boarded yet another bus and headed
to our first park of the trip...Hollywood Studios.

We were so excited to finally be at the park.  I've been planning this for months and now we
were finally here!!  As thrilled as he was, even the excitement couldn't keep Joe awake after
our long morning.  He fell asleep on the walk in and took a little cat nap as we walked
to the Disney Junior Live show.

Once again, the show did not disappoint.  It even kept Miles entertained, at least for the first
10 minutes anyway.  He started getting a little restless, and perhaps a little scared from all
the noise.  Ryan took him to the back of the room to hold him and he was much better.

As we were walking out of the show,
Joe saw Pluto and insisted we stop to get his autograph.

Then we went to our favorite ride at Hollywood Studios, Toy Story Mania.  The ride itself was a little stimulation overload for Miles, but he had plenty of fun walking through the line.  I
love how Disney makes their ride queues so fun.  There is always something cool to look at.

After the ride we had a little free time before dinner so we headed over to the
Star Wars Launch Bay to meet some of our favorite characters.  

Kylo Ren was awesome and stayed in character the whole time.
We walked in, he looked us over and said "the force is strong with this family."
Perhaps it was the fact that we were all wearing Star Wars t-shirts. ;)

Then we met Chewbacca.  He was my favorite (but apparently not Miles').

And as if we hadn't seen enough characters by this point in our day, we had a character
dinner scheduled at Hollywood Vine and Dine where we got to meet Mickey, Minnie,
Donald, Daisy, and Goofy.  The theme of the dinner is seasonal, so this time of year
everyone was in their Christmas best, including Goofy in a Santa suit.  Miles was definitely
unsure of the characters, but he could always muster up enough courage to give high fives.

After all that excitement in one day, you think we'd be more than ready to go back to the
hotel, but nope!  We decided to stay out to watch the fireworks.  I'm so glad we did!  It was
such a cool experience.  The show was titled "Jingle Bell, Jingle Bam" and the hosts were
Wayne and Lanny from Prep and Landing (one of our favorite Christmas movies).  It was a
fireworks show set to Christmas music and they projected animations onto the buildings.
Then as a grand finale, there was snow!  Amazing!

This was such a great way to start our trip.  I left the park with a warm and happy heart.