Day 4 - Animal Kingdom

We decided to spend our first full day at Disney at the Animal Kingdom; we thought maybe on a Sunday, it wouldn't be as crowded.  I think that was a good plan.  When we got in, we headed straight to the Kilimanjaro Safari.  It can be truly amazing as a tour bus takes you through a huge area where animals roam all over the place.  This giraffe really was this close; he walked right in front of our bus!

 Mia watching the elephants.

 Zebras are my favorite!

 There were lots of other cool animals too, but I didn't put all their pictures up here.  We love this ride, so we actually got Fast Passes when we first went in, so we immediately returned and rode it again.  Smart thinking, right?

 

After the second safari ride, we headed over to Camp Minnie Mickey where we met Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck and Baloo with King Louie.  I made a rookie mistake here.  I was taking pictures with my phone as the kids walked up to the characters, but then stopped taking them so the Photopass photographer could get really good ones of them together.  I didn't realize it was totally okay to take pictures of them posed and then let the photographer take them.  So, the pictures I have with these characters aren't so great, but we'll get them with our pictures yet to be scanned in.

 They were both pretty excited to meet the two mice.

 We could see we had a pretty tired camper on our hand (see picture below which was on the bus ride), so we headed back to our hotel for lunch, hotel exploring and a nap.  Good call on our part.

 When we headed back after nap time, we decided to go see The Lion King show which was pretty cool.  We all thought the monkey acrobats did a great job.

 After the show, we let the girls use some of their birthday money to pick the souvenir of their choice.  Lily picked this sweet little baby Simba.

 Mia loved her light up princess hat!

We headed over into Dino Land where we ran into a picture spot with Pooh, Eeyore and Tigger.  I didn't even take any pictures here since I was relying on the photopass.  Whoops.

 

We explored Dino Land a little and I watched the others ride Triceratops Spin ride which I think was a hit (it's very similar to Dumbo which we all love).  Everyone was starting to get hungry by this point, so we made our way to the Rainforest Cafe.  It was a pretty good dinner; we all enjoy that restaurant (at least, once the girls get used to the rainstorm that comes every 20 minutes or so).  Mia liked that her chicken nuggets were shaped like dinosaurs.

This was a fun and pretty easy-going first full day.  We definitely needed this slower paced day since Mia didn't seem to be feeling great yet.  Overall, a great day though!

Art of Animation Hotel

We loved our hotel!  Disney recently opened their new value resort called The Art of Animation, and it's perfect for families.  Look at this adorable picture that greets you when you arrive.  There are also pictures of Ariel, Simba and Lightening McQueen.

 The lobby is amazing.  They have all these sketches over all the walls.  Really pretty cool to see.

 We stayed in the Finding Nemo area of the resort.  This amazing mural was on the wall...Nemo everywhere!

 Our room was awesome.  Look at this adorable wall decoration of Dude Crush.

 This table and chair was right when you walked in the door.  The girls thought it was awesome that this was also a murphy bed that pulled out.  Mia enjoyed sleeping in that bed at night while Lily slept there for a nap each day.

 Just past this was a bedroom with large bathroom.  To the right of this was another full bathroom and a living room with a sofa (that converted to a bed for Liz and Lily), tv, dressers, hanging space and a little kitchenette.  Honestly, this was a great room for our family; we would gladly stay here again.

 

I love the fixtures around the hotel.  This was just outside our hotel block.

 Dude Crush was across the pool from us; he's awesome!

 The seagulls at the end of the hotel amazed the girls (and a lot of others too...).  Every time we passed they tried to get them to say "Mine, mine!"

We also took a quick peak around the Cars area of the hotel.  Welcome!

 We all love Mater.

So glad we choose this hotel!

Day 3 - Downtown Disney

Here was the original plan for Saturday: somewhat lazy morning, go to Disney hotel to check in (we had been staying at an Orlando Marriott), lunch at the Grand Floridian and then head to Downtown Disney for the afternoon and evening.  Good plan right?  It would have worked well too, except Mia started complaining on Friday that her ear was hurting.  Then she woke up a couple of times during the night and again complained about her ear and some stomach pain and she seemed to have a fever.  Uh oh.  So, Mia and I headed over to the ER at Arnold Palmer Children's Hospital.  Look at my sweet girl relaxing on the bed and enjoying some Cheerios.

The first doctor came back, and she was very nice.  She gave Mia a thorough exam and said her ear seemed to be a little inflamed, but she wanted her supervisor to examine her too.  As soon as the doctor left, Mia said "why didn't she look behind my ear?"  I said "what do you mean?  Does your ear hurt inside or behind it?"  Mia replied "Behind my ear."  I looked, and sure enough, it was as dry and flaky as could be.  When the supervising doctor came in, I told her how embarrassed I was and explained what happened.  She said not to worry about it, but still wanted to examine her.  When she did, she confirmed one of her ears was in the beginning stages of an infection, so she prescribed Amoxicillan.  It was actually good that we went in that morning after all since this allowed us to catch the infection early.  So Mia and I headed over to Publix to fill the prescription.  Poor little thing.

 

We went back to the hotel, picked up Ryan, Liz and Lily and headed on over to Downtown Disney.  We picked up our Photopass package and then headed over to Earl of Sandwich for a yummy lunch.  After that, it was our appointed time for the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique.  If you're unfamiliar with this place, let me tell you...it's crazy.  This is where they turn your little girl into the princess of their choice.  Lily chose Sleeping Beauty while Mia went with Rapunzel.  They get that princess' dress, their nails painted, make-up, their hair fixed...all sorts of stuff.

 

 Unfortunately, Mia wasn't feeling very well (she hadn't started any medicine yet) and she was very tired; we were making her miss her nap again.  She let the "fairy godmother in training" paint her nails, pull her hair into a ponytail and put a jewel sticker on her face, but she adamently refused make-up (fine by me) and a hair piece.

Our sweet Rapunzel.

Lily on the other hand was thoroughly enjoying her experience.  I think she could get used to a pampering lifestyle!

 Getting her hairpiece in.

 Included in our package was also a little photo session we gave us some cute pictures; however, I haven't had the chance to upload them yet.

 

After the boutique, we had a little bit of time to kill, so we did a little shopping and explored for a bit.  Oh, and Mia insisted on changing back into her regular clothes :-)

A little bit later we headed over to see La Nouba.  This is an incredible Cirque du Soleil show.  I have seen about 6 or 7 cirque shows, and this is probably my favorite.  We planned far ahead, so we actually had front row seats; they were awesome!  Mia was a little upset by one of the "scary" characters, but otherwise, she loved it like the rest of us.  I am amazed at what these individuals can do!

When this show was over, we headed over to our hotel to check-in...finally!



Day 2 - Islands of Adventure

On Friday morning, we had a quick breakfast at the hotel and then headed to Orlando for a day at Universal's Islands of Adventure.  It was fantastic!  As we entered, we headed straight over to Seuss Landing.  The girls were amazed.  This is such a fun place!  They were dressed in regular clothes at first, but after a few minutes here, we bought them "Thing 1" and "Thing 2" outfits; they were too cute to pass up!

 The Cat in the Hat ride was absolutely Lily's favorite ride.  She rode it four times!  Even now, after the trip, she says this was her favorite part of the vacation.

 Mia loved the Carraseusal!  She wanted to ride it again and again and again.

 Lily enjoyed this too, though not as much as Mia.

 We all rode One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish and had fun on it.

 Mia and I rode together.  She laughed pretty hard when the water sprayed from one of the fish and got me pretty wet!

 We all enjoyed the train ride that went high in the air all around Seussland.

 Stylin' in these blue wigs.

 Fun statue posing after lunch at Mr. Mcgerkus' Circus' lunch.

We took a little playground break at If I Ran the Playground.  It had lots of cool features like a water park (though we didn't play in it), a playground with lots of hidden fun, tic tac toe on the belly of a suess character, a rocking chair-like worm...it was a fun break.

 

 Mia loves The Grinch.  She was excited to stand by this statue and hold the Max doll in one of the gift shops.

 There is a neat little area with the once-ler's (from the lorax) house.  The girls really loved getting to hear him talk through the rope line.

 Every hour they performed "Oh The Stories You Will Hear!" which was pretty cool.  We listened to the story of The Lorax.  There was a neat storyteller who did a great job, and then lots of characters came out...The Lorax, Thing 1 and Thing 2, The Grinch, Sam I Am and The Cat in the Hat.

 We got to meet the characters after the show too.  Here's the girls with The Grinch.  I think this could have been Mia's dream come true! 

 We actually saw him as we first walked into Suessland; I wish you could have seen her reaction.  Her hands came up to her mouth, and her eyes got wide.  For the first time I can remember, Mia was speechless!  When she talks about meeting him, she says "His heart had growed.  He was nice."

 

Liz also enjoyed meeting The Grinch.  He was a playful thing!

 Who doesn't love The Cat in the Hat?

 Thing 1 and Thing 2 with the real Thing 1 and Thing 2.

 Green Eggs and Ham friends.

 The girls love the Lorax.

 My favorite roller coaster in the entire world is here.  The Hulk is awesome!  We really appreciated Liz hanging out with the girls so we could ride it; they snap a picture as you're riding, so we got that to remember the ride.

 Ryan and I were very excited to walk through Harry Potter World.  We love the movies (and I promise I will read the books someday), and we had heard great things about it.  The castle was impressive to see.

 The Hogwarts Express welcomed us.

 We enjoyed seeing all the cool sites, and Liz let us ride the other awesome coaster here, Dragon Challenge.

 

After Harry Potter World, we headed over to the Lost Continent area.  The girls thought the dinosaur exhibit was really interesting.  They loved this wall where they could use a scanner to search for fossils.

 One of the curators took the time to tell us about four different dinosaurs, and the girls loved pressing the buttons to hear their screetchs.  They also enjoyed seeing a "dinosaur egg" hatch and seeing lots of bones.  It was an interesting place, that's for sure.

 

We tried walking through the Marvel Superhero area too because Mia loves superheros.  However, she was very tired since we skipped her nap and didn't really seem too interested.  We decided by this point it was time to head on out.  We couldn't help but stop at one of my favorite spots: Bubba Gumps!  Look at this shrimp...absolutely delicious!

We then found our way to the Orlando Residence Inn and settled in for the evening.  Lily couldn't wait to complete her homework assignment, so she completed that while Mia settled down.  Once everyone was calm, we turned in for the night.

Day 1 - Most Awesome Family Vacation!

Where to even start?  I guess we can go back to April, just after tax season.  Ryan and I started talking about how next April 6th (that's right, April of 2013) will be Liz's 60th birthday, and we wanted to do something really special and fun for her.  Pretty quickly it came to us that a trip to Disney was in order.  Unfortunately, Liz's birthday falls about a week before the end of tax season which means we can't do anything right then.  So we started talking about when we could go instead.  We originally thought we could surprise her with the trip on her birthday and go in May.  Then we realized that's the end of school which isn't a good time to miss out on activities.  So then we were looking at the summer time.  I do not like Disney in the summer...too many people and too hot.  So we started talking about backing it up a little bit.  Really, it couldn't be anytime between January and mid-April, so we started looking to the end of this year.  With the timing of lots of things, we realized that the beginning of November would be perfect.  So, just before Mother's Day, we gave Liz the news about her very early 60th birthday present!  To say she was excited is an understatement!  Then came the hard part...not telling the girls and waiting on the trip to arrive. 

 

Finally, just after we returned from the beach in October, we told the girls the good news.  They were super excited too!  The best part was they had no idea what was in store.  They expected to go to the Magic Kingdom and have fun; they had no idea all the cool things we had planned.  To build on the excitement, we made this countdown calendar (which I couldn't get turned here).  Each day, we took off a Mickey and the girls received a little surprise such as a Pez dispenser, finger puppets or coloring book.



Halloween came and went, and on November 1, we started the drive in the early afternoon.  Lily thought it was cool that she got to leave school a couple of hours early.  We made it to Gainesville, FL that Thursday evening.  We made a quick stop at a Subway for dinner and then headed over to the Residence Inn.  The girls thought this was such a cool hotel; they loved that there was a little living room and kitchenette in the room.  While I gave the girls a bath, Ryan and Liz headed out to tour the UF campus which is where Liz graduated from.  I think she had a lot of fun bringing back lots of great memories.  Here's a picture of Liz in front of the ADPi sorority house.

 They also made a stop at The Swamp, Florida's football stadium.  Liz was a cheerleader at UF so she knows this stadium well.

They came back and we all headed to bed.  Our vacation was officially on!