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You just can't go to a Disney theme park as a little kid and NOT get your mouse ears. Dennis (at left) wasn't all that thrilled at first, and Duncan was positively distraught. But when Mom started "borrowing" them and cousin Gina asked for a turn wearing them, well, then, both Dennis and Duncan (held by Aunt Patty -- see? nobody is gonna let him learn to walk!) both decided they liked theirs.
One of Dennis' favorite "rides" was what he called the "school bus", though he never was particularly thrilled about the wait for the bus [L-R Mom Carolyn and Dennis, Dad Bill, cousin Gina and Duncan]. He thought it was more fun with more people waiting with him, though [L-R Thomas, Paul, Fred, Judith, Evan, Tim, Mike]. But the best part was getting where you wanted to go, with a whole bunch of your
family with you. (We stopped some poor guy my brothers kept calling "Mr. Soccer" because of his t-shirt and conned him into taking this shot with about eight different cameras. Back row L-R: Paul, Thomas, Mike, Gina, Evan, me, Carolyn, Bill and Judith; front row L-R, Tim, Fred, Dennis and Duncan.)
We had a particular reason for heading over to Epcot on that particular day... Judith had decided to surprise Evan (my older brother) with an impromptu informal 60th birthday party at the Biergarten (where else for a bunch of people named Geissler?). It was glasses raised and
polkas danced in honor of the old man... Duncan (who, you will note, is still never going to learn to walk) proved he was a Geissler indeed when he grabbed for the strudel.
Later on, Ian bought a hat,
Thomas survived an afternoon monsoon (it rained -- no, it poured -- in storms every single afternoon we were there), Dennis was not thrilled but learned to cope with the thunderstorms, and there were
more fireworks to round things out. When we got back to the resort, we present Evan (my older brother, who'll be SIXTY in September), with a travel mug engraved for the occasion from all of us but... ahem... we didn't stop there. Because, you see, Paul will be FIFTY in February and Bill, the baby, will be FORTY in October... so we gave them engraved travel mugs too. I'd show you pictures of that but they all hid them too quickly. I think it may have had something to do with the fact that Paul's daughter Katya took one look at his mug and asked him if he was going to use it for his cremation ashes...
I would mention the fact that we gave an engraved mug to Judith as well, but she is not going to be 60 in September no matter what her crazy family thinks. Still, it was very foresighted of us, don't you think? Three years from now, we won't have to get her a birthday present!
Those were the highlights, and that was about it for most of the crew, but (heh heh heh) not for all of us. A few of us snuck in a few extra days after the others went home and headed over to Florida's west coast to a gorgeous place called Sanibel Island where we went swimming and shelling on a nearly deserted beach, had way too many rum punches at the bar at the hotel, the Sanibel Inn, and occasionally noticed that there were pretty flowers around. Unfortunately, however, even that additional time had to end -- but we got another farewell picture at the airport! [Back row L-R Harry, me, Rose and Kacy; front row Alex and Warren -- doesn't Alex look spiffy in his new hat, shirt and shorts?]
2005 (or 2006) IN FLAGSTAFF!!!
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Photos copyright 2004 assorted Geisslers, Russells, St. Clairs
and other miscreants and malcontents
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