Glen and Evelyn were in town and bought their new annual passes so we headed to Epcot one night to ride the Star Wars rides and see Fantasmic!. We also spent the morning at Animal Kingdom with them one morning. J. R.'s brother Jim and wife Lori came down with their son Bryan and his wife Ashley and their kids Levi and Liam and we spent a morning at Magic Kingdom with them as well as an evening at Universal Studios.

For the last few years, we have been able to ride a Mardi Gras float to toss beads during the parade at Universal Studios. This year, we decided to buy the Ride and Dine experience. We went over early and rode a few rides before our dinner at Lombard's. Dinner was a little disappointing because the restaurant did not have any desserts, including the key lime pie. It started to rain as we left dinner and the rain continued throughout the night as we rode the Gator float. But we still had a great time tossing beads.

Rebecca had some time off in the middle of the semester at Harvard so she flew back to Chicago for the weekend to hang out with Ashley and Jenna and the McRaes in Bolingbrook and spend some time exploring Ashley's new neighborhood in Wrigleyville.

We had plans to fly to Las Vegas in early April to see Janie's mom, but about a week before, we received word Janie's stepfather Ike had passed away due to complications from a medical procedure. Janie rearranged her flight to go straight out to Pahrump and J. R. joined her the next day. We stayed the week with Gale and her cat and then flew home. Janie flew back the next week to take Gale to see the Cirque show we had planned to see on our original visit.

For Janie's birthday, the kids paid for her to experience the cake decorating class at Amorette's Patisserie at Disney Springs. We had to reschedule due to Ike's passing but finally got to do it in mid-April. We showed up early and were given a free drink and then went to our table where the materials were laid out. The teacher showed us how to buttercream the cake and Janie was a little bummed she didn't get to do this part, but it had to be frozen for a day for the gel to be able to adhere. Janie did get to pour the glaze (three times) and decorate her Minnie Mouse-inspired cake.

We hadn't made it to the Flower and Garden Festival at Epcot so we went over one morning to have lunch at the booths and see some of the flowers. Afterwards, we went to Beach Club and Grand Floridian to see the eggs decorated for Easter.

Janie learned after returning from Houston that she had broken her ankle on our March cruise in Celebrity Silhouette. This meant our long-awaited and planned trip to Iceland and Norway needed to be cancelled as Janie required surgery that would keep her off her feet for two weeks and require use of a knee scooter and canes for several weeks after that.

The day before Janie went to see her orthopedic surgeon, we had reservations for Art Smith's Homecomin'. Janie made her way there slowly on her scooter so we could enjoy one last dinner out before she had to have surgery. When she finally got her cast off, we made a quick buzz into Epcot in a wheelchair so she could get her Maleficient magnet.

We had to cancel our planned Mother's Day dinner at Sear + Sea due to Janie being laid up, so once she was able to get around on her knee scooter, we rescheduled it for June to celebrate Mother's Day, J. R.'s birthday and Father's Day all at once.

Janie joined our friend Lynn for a night of Paint and Sip where she made a masterpiece to hang in our beach-themed bathroom.

We had not been to the theme parks much this summer after Janie's surgery and we wanted to get our Crush magnet so we booked at day at the Animal Kingdom. Since Dinosaur is closing in January, we rode one last time. Janie did Expedition Everest then we rode the safari and did the Asia walk where we got to see the baby tiger.

We were able to do the annual Solivita Pub Crawl again this year. While we were not able to coordinate with our friends Kevin and Lynn or Joanne and Jim, we did have our Chicago friends Trisha and Steve in our group as well as two members of our former pickleball team, Steve and Karla.

Our original plan was to visit Universal Studios' new theme park Epic Universe shortly after it opened in June but it was too soon after Janie's surgery. Universal allowed us to move our dates to September, which turned out to be right in the middle of our visit from Alex, Bethany and Bennet. They headed off to lunch at the Polynesian while we went to Epic. J. R. had bought the all-day Express Pass which meant we were able to skip most of the lines. We didn't get to ride Stardust Racers as it was closed following the death of a rider earlier that week, but we did get to ride every other ride we wanted to.

We started our day in Super Nintendo World with Mine-Cart Madness, followed by Yoshi's Adventure and Mario Kart: Bowser's Challenge. Mine-Cart Madness was a bit of a letdown for us as we expected it to be faster and since was not, the idea of jumping broken tracks was lost. We really enjoyed Mario Kart, however.

The next stop was Dark Universe where were impressed by both Curse of the Werewolf and Monsters Unchained, although we thought Curse would have been much better in the dark.

It was time for lunch next and we had chosen The Blue Dragon, a pan-Asian fusion restaurant in Celestial Park. The food was excellent although we ordered way too much.

Following lunch, it was time for The Wizarding World of Harry Potter - Ministry of Magic. We were not as impressed with the theming here as we were with the themes of the other two parks, mainly because it just felt like Paris and not a magical world. We didn't get to see Le Cirque Arcanus due to timing but did ride Harry Potter and the Battle of the Ministry. We thought it was a good ride although based on the ride vehicle, we expected there to be more sudden drops like Tower of Terror at Disney World. The queue, including going into the floo network is the best part of the attraction.

We saved Janie's favorite for last, How to Train Your Dragon: Isle of Berk. She didn't want to wait in the long line to see Toothless but we did get to see the mini-robot version up close. We skipped Fyre Drill because we did not want to get wet and thought Dragon Racer's Rally was a little too intense after lunch, plus it did not offer Express. We enjoyed Hiccup's Wing Gliders, a launch family roller coaster.

Alone again for Thanksgiving since Alex was with the Vuyks and Thomas and Rebecca only had a few days off, we went to Rosen Shingle Creek for their Thanksgiving buffet. We were turned off by the crowd of Pop Warner football and cheerleaders running through the halls and their parents who were put out that they stepped into an elevator that was going down (where we wanted to go) and did not like that we pressed the ground floor button and the elevator went there. "I guess we are going down". Yes, that is what happens when you get into an escalator going down. The buffet had a lot of good choices and was more traditional foods, but we preferred Four Flamingos better.

Our plans had us traveling to Houston for actual Christmas week and we were gone on a cruise in mid-December but we did get a chance to have some Christmas spirit at home by going to Epcot for the Festival of the Holidays and to ride the refurbished Test Track for the first time. We also stopped to get some holiday photos taken at Disney Springs.