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Saito Family News - January

Family Florida trip for Christmas

Saito Family News - February

More info on Walt Disney World

Saito Family News - March

March break; trip to Animal Kingdom

Saito News - March Pics 1 DAK

Personal pictures from our Animal Kingdom preview

Saito News - March Pics 2 Home

Home pics March 21+

Saito Family News - May

May News

Our New Disney Diary Site

Our experiences at Disney, featuring Animal Kingdom tour photos

April 26, 1998

Weather has continued to be quite nice in the daytime (60s) but cool at night (30s). However, Pat did fire up the lawnmower and do the first trim of the year. The tulips have joined the daffodils and forsythia in bloom.

Andrew reported that the media day (he & Kelly were in some background shots on "Good Morning America") and the opening at Animal Kingdom have been excellent events, as expected, especially since the weather has been sunny, 80s and dry. He met Roy Disney at the event. See Our Disney Diary for his comments from the media opening day.

Redecorating of the downstairs and upstairs bathrooms has been completed - both look very different. This was a Pat (downstairs) and Jenny/Katy (upstairs) project.

Pat is doing tracking with Tasha, in addition to schutzhund, and is joining the North Halton Schutzhund Club where she spends most of her Sundays.

April 19, 1998

The daffodils opened last week, and the first weeds are starting to appear. Birds are everywhere, gathering grass, straw and stuff for their nests. Must be spring!

Andrew reported that Kelly and he were selected to be extras for the Today show (NBC 7am EDT Tuesday Apr 21st) special on-location show at Disney's Animal Kingdom (official opening on Wednesday April 22nd). If they're on, they will be acting as park visitors.

He also said that they were able to get into Universal's new Twister attraction that simulates being in a tornado (including a cow tumbling through the sky). Universal had postponed the opening due to the February Florida Tornadoes. He said it's much like Backdraft, and has very realistic effects.

Pat and Tasha are at Schutzhund training today. We made liver treats for Tasha's training yesterday, and Pat hates liver. Pat has updated Tasha's website.

Mid-term reports from Katy were very good, and from Jenny were an improvement (that's not saying much, however).

April 13, 1998

Ron spent the weekend sawing and hacking at the stump. Slow progress. Katy and Jenny had their traditional Easter egg hunt, so have a good supply of sugar products for awhile.

Pat took Tasha to the North Halton Schutzhund Club. Tasha had a good time and they did very well. They will be going again to see if they should join. See Tasha's website for an explanation of Schutzhund.

Aisha, Vickey and Neil have promised to send us some of their photos of their Florida visit. They had a great time visiting Bonita Springs, Key West, Walt Disney World, Jacksonville and Savannah, GA. Neil reported the drive home via I-95, I-79/77 and I-90 to be easy, and more interesting than I-75.

April 5, 1998

The project of the week was to cut down a 35 foot Austrian Pine from the front of our house. It was becoming an eyesore and overgrowing our Spruce. This was one of the builder's trees - fast growth was the requirement, and its tendancy to drop millions of 6" needles was more than a nuisance. So last weekend out came the ladders and saws and finally Ron borrowed his dad's chainsaw to finish the task. Now the stump needs to be hacked out.

In other news, Jenny is saddened to see that Titanic was bumped from its number 1 box office position (by Lost in Space) but she says wait till next weekend. Katy's still practicing with her skateboard. Andrew reported that Florida had it's best week of weather all winter - 80s and sunny - and that he was off to Key West for the weekend. Pat's been at meetings every night; a couple have even gone past midnight.

And Tasha had her flyball house league tournament on Sunday. The Silver Bullets did well and came in fifth in their division.

Ron spent the weekend's evenings putting up a new web site to consolidate the family's Disney experiences. You can visit it at Our Disney Diary. Some of the Animal Kingdom preview pictures from this site (mostly without people), plus many new ones of animals are there, and the Animal Kingdom sections have been arranged as a park tour, modelled on our visit.