The family is excited this morning!  Our friends arrive today and are meeting us at Disney Studios.   We got up in plenty of time to get over there and promptly missed the first bus!  :-O   Oops.   Teach us to sit around the room eating breakfast!   But the second bus got us there just before opening, and when our friends called they were about 20 people closer to their turnstile than we were!  How embarrassing... They beat us into the park!  ;-)  They were SO proud though, so it was worth it!   :-D  

The girls were VERY excited to see each other and chattered away for a bit before we headed up toward the rope drop area.  Our friends are Jeff and Corinne and their daughter's Malory(5) and Jordyn (~3) our our god daughters and the girls are like big sisters (that get along!) with them!  ;-)  So, we are looking forward to sharing their first WDW trip. 

Jeff, Brinn and I headed back to get FastPasses for Toy Story Mania, while the rest headed down Sunset boulevard to wait by Rock n Roller Coaster.   Toy Story was a zoo, but we got pretty early return times of a bit after 10am.  Then it was back to wait in line for RnR.  Took about 20 minutes or so and when we got off the young-un's needed an attraction!  ;-)  We figured we'd stop back for Tower of Tower later, and headed over to see the Little Mermaid show.  We timed it pretty well and were quickly waiting in air conditioned comfort for the next show.  First WDW in the summer lesson.  Stay out of direct sunlight as much as possible.  And go into A/C at every chance!  :-D 

The girls all really seemed to like the show, and we lucked out as we exited they were filling up the Playhouse Disney show!   So we headed right in there and just before the door closed *I* snuck out with all the park tickets to go get some Fast passes for both Tower of Terror and Star Tours.  With seven tickets to work with I was able to get 3 passes for ToT and 4 for Star Tours.  This would spread around the tickets nicely amongst those that wanted to ride.  Corinne is about 5 months pregnant so she has to avoid the bumpy - wild rides.   And Jordyn is under 40 inches so she can't do too many. 

Anyway, as I came back to wait for them to get out of the show I saw Handy Manny signing autographs.  Now, I'm TOTALLY out of the loop on the current playhouse Disney shows, but I DID know that Manny is Jordyn's current favorite.  So I jumped in line and called them to hurry over for a picture.  She was excited but a bit nervous waiting in line.  Corinne ran off to buy each girl an autograph book and made it back just in time for their turn.  They both did well with the characters and after Manny jumped in line for June from the Little Einstein's.  They were getting into this photo and autograph thing pretty quickly!  :-D

It was now time for Toy Story Mania and we were all looking forward to this one.  Fast Pass is a wonderful thing, and as we got there around 11am the return time was already 6:45 at night!  :-O  They MUST have been sold out of Fast Passes before noon!   And the standby wait time was 70 minutes.   This was a great ride and one you'd love the chance to do over and over.  They 3D visuals are very well done and the games are fun.   I didn't watch the 'training video' online, but still got around 93,000 points.  I'll have to 'study' online for the MouseFest trip to up that score!  :-D   Hope the ride wait times are down by then! 

As we exited the ride it was POURING.  Major downpour time.  Of course, their stroller was NOT covered, so it was pretty wet out there....  We all got wet as we only had one poncho for the entire group.  (The one I keep in the camera bag to protect it.)   We zipped across the way to wait in line to see Buzz and Woody, and that was a fun picture and line.  While in there an Army man helped us increase Brinn's collection of Tooth brushing pics!  :-D 

The rain was slowing down just a bit but looked like it could start up again full force at any time.  This was confirmed by a CM that said a major downpour was due anytime.  We headed into the Beauty and the Beast show and just as it was getting started the buckets of water started pouring from the skies.  It POURED all the way through the show and when the wind blew it even got us undercover several rows from the back of the theatre.  BIG old rainstorm with a bit of thunder thrown in for effect.   We all enjoyed the show and then most of the audience waited in the theatre for the rain to slow down a bit. 

It really didn't slow down that much and Jeff, Maddy and Malory headed for Tower of Terror to use the fast passes we had for there.  I had just ridden so I passed on this one.  While they were riding the rest of us headed for the shops and worked our way down Sunset Boulevard from store to store.  Eventually, Jeff and the girls returned and Mallory was LESS than happy with ToT.  ;-)  I had a feeling it would be a bit too much for her, but she wanted to be a 'daredevil'.   Jeff liked it, but would have liked it more if he wasn't worried about Mallory being so scared.  Poor thing!  She seemed fine by the time they got back to us though. 

The rain was slowing a bit, and we headed for the counter service place next to the Indy Stunt show.  Always forget the name but like the food there.  We were able to get a couple tables under cover and enjoyed a bite to eat and a rest.  Then it was off to Star Tours for Jeff, Mallory, Brinn and Maddy while the rest of us shopped in the Star Wars store.  Always fun from MY point of view!  :-D