Improv Class

One of James' natural talents is something on the order of acting (or making a big production, or attempting to be a character, or being goofy to make someone laugh), so for the third year, we've enrolled him in a one-week camp at the Kalamazoo Civic Theatre to learn about how real actors do it. This year's class was improv, and he absolutely loved it! Here's a picture of his entire class.
Their week ended with a little show for the families, and for improv, that means playing some of the improv games. They played these kinds of games all week, but nothing we saw today was rehearsed or even planned--it was all made up as they went. The first game was "One Word Story" were they had to tell a story one person, one word at a time.
The next game was "Bus Stop." Here, the person on the left was supposed to be a normal person waiting at a bus stop, while the person on the right was supposed to be the type that would make the normal person want to leave the area. James cracked up the whole audience when he sat down next to his normal person and asked, "Will you scratch my back?"
Here is James in the same game being normal. The girl asked him a barrage of questions that he finally declared made his brain hurt.
Last was the Gibberish game. James and the seated girl were to have a conversation in gibberish. After each gibberish sentence, the girl standing would interpret what they were saying. Of course the interpretation has no need to resemble what you really think the gibberish talkers intended.
He dis great! . . . . . That's all for now.

What A Character!

When you go to Disney World, you will probably have a chance to meet a couple of the characters out on the street. There are also a couple of places where they have character greetings setup, but that usually requires standing in a very long line for a very long time to get to see three characters. Well, when you have a magic Give Kids The World button and a red Disney Guest Assistance pass, your chances greatly increase and the waiting completely disappears. I've repeated a couple pics here from yesterday's post, but I wanted you to see whole collection. Most of these were at Disney World, but a few were very special visits we received at the Give Kids The World Village. Here they are, in no particular order:

Minnie and Mickey (at GKTW Village)

Belle (at GKTW Village)

Santa (at GKTW Village)
Baby Bop, Barney, & B.J. (at GKTW Village)
Quincy

AnnieLeo and Annie

Handy Manny Give Kids The World's Mayor Clayton - visiting our villa at bedtime

Mary Clayton (the Mayor's Wife)

Pluto (at WDW)

Pluto (at GKTW Village) Stitch
WALL.E

(okay, not exactly a character, but a very good two-dimensional representation)
Jo Jo and Goliath Goofy

Pleakley Donald

and of course, Elastigirl and Mr. Incredible

WOW.

Make-A-Wish

WOW. Yes, it was incredible.

Wow.

Monday, June 30, 2008

We weren't sure what this was when it pulled up, but driver Dave took good care of us.

One excited family.

Julie and I in the back of our Limo "Bus"

Ready to board.
Meeting the Captain
Andy and James in the Cockpit
WOW.

Our villa and car at Give Kids The World Village

Andy and James meet a statue of Mayor Clayton

One of Andy's true highlights of the trip was riding this big horse on Wednesday morning at Give Kids The World Village.

Tuesday morning at Disney's Magic Kindom, this was our first time being in the special line that bypassed a hundred or so people to get into an attraction first (this one was the Monster's Inc. Laugh Floor). It was an awesome way to get around the Disney parks, and we understood how special and priveleged it was every time--very humbling, yet, very cool.

Here I met my all-time favorite Disney character, Goofy.

James met his favorite Disney Character, Stitch.

Okay, it's not Disney, but Julie met her favorite cartoon character, Barney.

And then, of course, Andy and all of us got to meet everyone's favorite Disney characters.

So, here's the thing. . . . . Julie, James and I each had cameras, and each took a hundred pictures or so, so we have a LOT more we can show you of this incredible week. There's even more to tell you, and I'll try to get a little more of the story out over the next few days.

One Day 'Til The Big Trip

Tomorrow, we start a six day Make-A-Wish trip to Orlando, Florida, for Andy (but we all get to go)! But that's tomorrow......today, it was baseball at the Kalamazoo Kings. Today was the first Kid's Club day where kids that are registered can get in an hour early and spend about a half hour with some of the players learning how to throw, field, and run. Andy and James are both in it this year, and they were able to team up on some of the drills.

Here are all the kids for today.

Learning to throw. Learning to run.
Learning to field grounders.
Playing catch.
And after that, the game. . . . . . where Andy figured out a way to keep his ball from getting lost.

(Check his hat very closely.)

We left in the bottom of the seventh, with the Kings up 16-3. It was a great game and a great day, and a great way to start a great week. I'll try to post some pics from Orlando. We'll be staying at Give Kids The World Village for the five nights, which could be an extreme vacation on its own (check out http://www.gktw.org/ ), but we get a three-day pass to Disney World, a two-day pass to Universal Studios, and a one-day pass to Sea World! Six days of excitement to squeeze into four days. It will be .......let me see, what's the word.........GREAT!