AUSTIN (KXAN) — A real-life “Toy Story” played out for one Wisconsin mom and her 1.5-year-old daughter earlier this month, with the help of a Central Texas city.
Shaunna Tello and her daughter Giavonna recently took a weeks-long road trip with Tello’s mother to sightsee and slowly make their way from Wisconsin to Texas to visit family.
Tello is a photographer and loves traveling, so when planning the trip to visit her daughter’s grandparents and godparents in Texas, she figured, why not turn it into a cross-country road trip to capture photos of landmarks and create memories with her family?
“We could always drive from Wisconsin to Texas, I’ve done it 100 times since I was 16, but I wanted to use the time that we had… to travel the United States,” Tello said. She said they ended up visiting 14 or 15 states on their way down to Texas.
Part of the adventure was bringing along Giavonna’s Toy Story Woody doll — her best friend.
“So, Woody ended up going with us because one, it’s her best friend, but two, she’s one and a half, so she’s not going to really remember the trip, but I wanted to do something cute, and because Woody’s such a big part of her life, I decided to bring Woody with as like a photo prop, and a travel buddy for her,” Tello said. “And Woody made his photo debut in almost every single state, if not more than once.”
Not only was Woody the star of the Tellos’ travel photos, but he was also “the calm to the storm,” Tello said. “Woody played into the travel aspect of things as an entertainment and a support system for [Giavonna.]”
Tello said after they hit some of the attractions in San Marcos and got back to their Airbnb, they realized Woody was nowhere to be found.
“So I’m looking in the car, I’m looking in the Airbnb, I’m looking everywhere that I could possibly think of, and Woody was nowhere to be found. At that point, she wouldn’t stop screaming, to go to sleep, because she sleeps with Woody every night. It’s her buddy, you know?” Tello said. “It was a matter of just pushing through the evening and trying to survive, and we’ll figure out where Woody’s at, like, that’s kind of where it went.”
The next day, Tello got Giavonna a Buzz Lightyear doll to try to appease her until Woody could be found.
“I still was on this quest to find Woody. I could’ve easily replaced Woody, but it was not the same. And so I did not want to go that route,” Tello said. “But he was officially missing for like, three days. I was posting stuff on social media, I was reaching out to news companies… my husband, everybody thought I was crazy… I was reaching out to the local companies, like anybody I could think of to help me try to find her specific Woody doll.”
The trip back home was rough for Giavonna without Woody, Tello said. “She screamed a lot, she did not want to sleep, she ate a lot, threw a lot of beef jerky at me and the dog… the way home was horrible, like, compared to the way there.”
They watched the first three “Toy Story” movies on Tello’s phone more than once on the 18-hour drive back home to survive the journey.
When they got back and unpacked everything, Woody was still nowhere to be found. But after Tello made the posts on social media, one of them in the “Lost and Found San Marcos, TX” page, that’s when “everything kind of came full circle,” and the city of San Marcos reached out to her, saying they’d found the Woody doll.
Not only did the city ship Woody home, but staff members with Visit San Marcos continued his travel adventures, documenting them for Giavonna along the way.
“Earlier this week, Woody (yes, THE Woody from Toy Story!) was found wandering solo here in beautiful San Marcos,” Visit San Marcos said in a Facebook post. “Turns out, he got separated from his family — but don’t worry, he made the most of his time apart!”
“Woody hung out with our crew at the San Marcos Tourist Information Center, made a bunch of new friends, and learned all about the fun things to do around town. He even took a dip (okay, more like a scenic stroll) by the San Marcos River and took in those Texas views,” the post continued.
“While he’s loved his unexpected vacation, Woody is ready to head home to his kid — because as we all know, a toy’s real adventure is being loved.”
Tello said the fact that Visit San Marcos went the extra mile left her speechless.
“When they took the kindness to really make the reuniting something special, it made me restore faith in humanity a little bit. Like there’s a lot of bad stuff going on in the world, right,” she said. “And the things that San Marcos did, about taking Woody on the adventures and everything, I was like, ‘Oh, my God, there’s still some goodness in the world,’ because, it’s really hard sometimes to see through the darkness… the noise, calm the noise.”
Tello said when the package came in the mail and she opened the box, as soon as Giavonna saw Woody, she picked him up and yelled his name, then gave him big hugs.
“It was so heartwarming to see, like, I made her happy,” Tello said. “Because, as a parent, I mean, you can tell when something’s not quite the same with the littles around, you know what I mean? And she wasn’t.”
Tello said she’s going to make a memory scrapbook for Giavonna and “forever San Marcos is going to be part of it.”
“I think that how it all worked out was quite, ironically to say, because it’s Disney… magical, because I didn’t expect it to actually be found, and I definitely thought I was going to have to buy another one.”
