The weather was beautiful - almost too hot - and while the crowds were heavy in the morning it became more manageable as the day wore on. On the way out of AK Cassie asked a cast member named "Gus" for his autograph and he was so touched that he said she was a "special person" and gave her two special "Magic Moments" pins.

Nice fireworks photo that you can actually recognize as fireworks.

Now armed with a FastPass, the rest of the family determined we were doomed to ride the Tower of Terror and so gave it. While I thought it was a great ride, and exceptionally themed, the reactions of the other Schaads varied between nausea and, well, terror. Who felt what will be a closely guarded secret that can be emailed to you as a PDF file for only $9.99. But act now, and I'll throw in another PDF file - "Foods Schaads Won't Eat and Who Won't Eat Them" free of charge.

As exhilarating as the Tower of Terror was, it wasn't the highlight of the evening. We were walking through the Beverly Sunset candy store when Cassie spotted an older cast member standing alone. She asked her to sign the autograph book, and the woman (Annette is her name) wrote the nicest message: "To Cassie, What a sweet young lady!" With that she handed the book back and told Cassie "You made me feel like Princess; thank you." It was one of those moments that convinces you that the whole thing isn't a waste of time.

I had promised Cassie that I would be willing -if she was interested - in buying her another autograph book should she fill this one up, and she did as we left the park. So we picked that up and she already has two (the tram operators that drive guests back to the parking lots that they parked in - several miles away.

I'm sure there's lots more, but I'll save it for my first meet and great, 37below Hero signs his book or more likely other books that are not his but instead were written by people who have apparently published. Either or. Or if the meet and greet thing doesn't work, I could write a real book, It would have pretend, exaggerated stuff in it, but I think that's okay.

If anyone is interested in a get together send me your location, and I can start plotting them on a map and see what's possible.

It's tiring writing these posts after having my brain pureed by the sun, the prices and the people at the parks. So my apologies if they're not up to my usual unattainable level as I'm just costing on fumes here. But this will be a great help when Alert Scrapbooker Tammy wants to begin working on the next, inevitable, scrapbook.

It's a coin toss tomorrow between MK and MGM. MK has the Mickey Christmas Party at night, so it will be crowded. MGM has the extra magic hours for park guests, so it will be crowded. There's no way to know how it will break, so my plan is to do what any guy would do: totally wing it and end up a tired, cranky family. Hm. I suppose I should put a little more thought into a plan that that.

We ended the night at with Fantasmic. All of the guides say to arrive 90 minutes early to get a good seat, but after sitting there for an hour they told us to "move to the left" to make room for people just arriving. We like to do what we're told (we're compliant that way) but it was annoying to give up our seats for people who were arriving in the last ten minutes. The show was amazing though, and not at all what we expected. I took dozens of photos that did not come out at all. Above is one of the fireworks shots that actually looked sort of like fireworks.