My love for Jose Feliciano all started one day when I was sick and laid up in bed about seven years ago. You know when you are sick and the TV offers you nothing to get you through the day? Well this wasn’t one of those days. I was lucky enough to land on a Chico and The Man marathon, a show which I had never seen. It was just what the doctor ordered. For those of you who have not seen the show, which could be many of you, Jose Feliciano sang the intro song to the show which is quite catchy. From that day on I was a fan of Jose.
Every spring, Disney brings artists to the American Gardens Theater to perform for an event called the Flower and Garden Festival. It is times like these we really appreciate living and working here! Jose Feliciano has happened to perform there the last three years. We have gone to see him two of the three years he has been there. Hunter’s first encounter with Mr. Feliciano was when he was barely two months old! We enjoyed him very much the first time, and this time was no different. He is a fantastic performer (and also blind, which is even more amazing). He talked about living in New York when he was 10 years old and watching the Wonderful World of Disney on TV (or, as he joked, listening to it). He said he dreamed of one day visiting this magical place! It really made us appreciate Hunter’s 100+ visits at the ripe old age of 2. He performed a set of 6 songs, told some jokes in Spanish which got a lot of laughs from the audience, and ended with Light My Fire. His band was awesome and the weather could not have been more perfect with a nice evening breeze.
After the show we walked around Epcot and, of course, rode on the Spaceship Earth attraction because Hunter loves it so much. We took some fun photos (along with the week in three words photo, which is coming soon). We parked the car at the Boardwalk so we enjoyed our stroll back to the car. Hunter also asked to see the fireworks so we watched them from the bridge to the Boardwalk prior to returning to our car. After the initial jolt, Hunter really liked them and kept asking for more. Boarding the elevator to take us to the parking lot, Hunter declared, “I’m hungry. My tummy is hungry. Let’s get some lunch.” Being that this was a rare use of the personal pronoun “I” for our little guy who usually refers to himself as “Hunter,” we knew he was serious. We asked him what he wanted and he said “chicken nuggets.” Mind you, this was 9:45 PM, well past bedtime, and we had fed him dinner (promise!). As we made our way to the car, he kept insisting his tummy was hungry and that we should go to a “rest-rant.” We pacified him for a few minutes and figured he would fall asleep within seconds in the car. Wrong. He stayed wide awake, peering around for any sign of the Golden Arches, for the entire ride. At one point, I mentioned going home to “night night” and he clearly stated, “I not going night night. I going to rest rant to eat chicken nuggets!” So at 10 pm, we pulled through the McDonald’s drive thru and got what we were sure would be an uneaten Happy Meal. Bless him, the kid ate three McNuggets and went to bed finally full. It was a very funny end to a great night.