Barney!

Barney is a rock star in our house. We love him. And thanks to Unca Mike we own every Barney DVD ever made. We even know how to put DVDs in the player and start them up. Mommy loves Barney too. When he's on, there's peace and quiet in our house.

Mommy thought since we're such big fans we should meet him. So she looked on Barney's website and it turns out that he lives at this place called 'Universal Studios' in Orlando, Florida where he, Baby Bop, BJ and Riff have daily live shows. Jackpot!

Orlando is only a short 8-hour drive from Atlanta so Mommy started dropping hints to Grammy and Papa that we should go on a road trip. "Have you lost your mind?" was the response she got. But, she persisted and after a few months of subtle hinting, Papa caved and booked the trip.*

We took a day off from school and headed south, all five of us in our minivan. The best part of the journey, for Liam, was getting to pee in a cup. Of course Lucy REALLY wanted to pee in a cup too, but Mommy reminded her that girls wear tutu's and boys get to pee in cups. Anyway, we were great little travelers.

When we finally arrived we got to go swimming (which we love almost as much as Barney) in the one of the many pools there. Orlando is to kids what Las Vegas is to adults.

The next day, bright and early we headed out with Mommy and Grammy to Universal Studios to see Barney (Papa went golfing with Unca Mike who flew down for the weekend). We were soooooo excited!!!

We got there and headed straight to Barney's park. You should have seen this place. It was soooo cool. We waited in line and when they opened the doors we ran and got front row seats. It was amazing to see Barney and his friends so close. We didn't take our eyes off them the entire 20 minutes. We danced and sang along with him too. It was so cute -- Mommy and Grammy cried when they saw how happy we were -- weird huh?

After the show we got to play in his tree house AND the best part -- WE GOT TO MEET BARNEY!!!** We ran up to him and gave him a great big hug. We almost knocked him over. We loved the show so much we went and watched it again -- just like we watch his DVDs - over and over.

We felt so inspired after seeing Barney that on our way out we saw an empty stage that needed some dancing so we put on a little show of our own. We felt like super stars.

The next day we went to Sea World to meet Shamu. Unfortunately our trip there wasn't as successful - we had to leave in the middle of his show. We were up all night coughing and so tired that we just couldn't enjoy ourselves. Liam pretty much cried the entire time - poor guy. So we left which ended up being a good thing because a big storm came in. We spent the afternoon in our really cool condo watching Barney DVDs and playing with Papa and Unca Mike.

Next day we headed back home. We kept telling anyone who would listen that, 'We go olando. We see Bahney!" Now we can't wait to meet Mickey - Mommy's already dropping hints...

*We actually went almost a month ago but Mommy's just now getting around to posting it.

** After the second show Liam and another little boy we were taking their time leaving the auditorium, just looking around the stage, checking things out. Lucy had already taken off for the tree house and then the doors closed. Well Barney's pal Professor Tinkerputt saw Liam and the other boy and asked if they wanted to meet Barney privately. Hello? Mommy was probably more excited than Liam. So Liam got a backstage hug from Barney. Super cool. Anyway, we don't tell Lucy about it because she would have been crushed. It's our little secret. Here's the brief footage...