Me, Seaweed, Ocicat and Bedtime Bear just got back from a week at WDW, and other than Seaweed losing her credit card at the beginning, the trip went swimmingly. Bedtime set us up with a wonderful dinner at the California Grill, leading to an awesome view of the firework show. We got to do the new Pandora and Toy Story rides, as well as land some wonderful meet-n-greets. I'll post a few pics here over the next few days, but one thing did happen I want to address, and it will not be easy for me to put this down into writing...

As many of our friends know, these trips used to be organized and arranged by Pandaguy, who was often the brother I never had. Literally at the last minute, when packing, I threw in one of his old Animal Kingdom shirts he had left here years ago (yes, it'd been washed you pervs) to make sure I had enough shirts for the duration. I then forgot about it until we were at Disney. Our Animal Kingdom planned day got rained out, so we swapped it with a 2nd Epcot day which we could do at a more relaxed pace, with many Epcot events being indoor. So, a day late, we headed to Animal Kingdom to brave the rope drop and run with the bulls...er....crowd to the new Flight of Passage ride so we won't have to wait 4 hours in line later. The day progressed smoothly and we had lunch at an old favorite - Flame Tree BBQ. Mmmmmm.... Well, as we headed to Dinoland there was a scheduled event where a pair of characters would pop out and dance and interact with the crowd. Earlier it has been Turk and King Louie, I believe. Not really my characters, so it was a pass. But this time I froze when someone pointed out one of the characters to me. It was Meeko. Meeko had always been on of Pandaguy's favorites, and I knew I needed pics, so I grabbed my camera and moved in. Then I got punched in the gut. The other character out was Koda, one of the Brother Bears and another of Jon's favorites. Last I had heard the Brother Bear characters were no longer in this park, but had been sent to California. To the best of my knowledge it should not have even been there. But there I was, staring at 2 of Jon's favorite characters in the whole of Disney - together. I was still snapping pictures when I realized something - I was wearing Jon's old shirt. I admit, right there in the middle of the park I broke down. Maybe it's just a massive coincidence. Maybe it was a sign. All I know is I'm tearing up just writing this, so I'll wrap this up by saying we haven't forgotten you Pandaguy, and after this last week I know in my heart you have not forgotten us either.