Animals of Animal Kingdom

On our first day at Disney World, we started out with a nice air conditioned breakfast then set out into the heat of Florida to see the animals. First stop was the safari. While not quite like our honeymoon in South Africa, it was reminicent of it and a lot more efficient way to see wildlife. Instead of getting up at 5am to ride around for hours hoping to see some of the big 5 - it was a 5 minute ride where we got to see just about everything, other that the elusive lion. Apparently lions hate us. They were non existent on the many safari rides we took in Africa just about 8 years ago and they were apparently hiding under their rocks at their Animal Kingdom enclosure. Oh well, can't always get everything you want, can you? Not even in the land where magic happens. Here are some of the guys we did see:

Crocodiles! One of Cade's favorites.

Giraffes - even closer than at our hotel.

Cute Elephants

After our driving safari, we walked on several of the walkways that get you up close to some different animals.

Hippo Up

Hippo Under

Man it's hot!

Momma and Baby

Even the non caged wildlife was interesting.

We also took a short train ride over to Rafiki's Island and did a fun search and find activities with the boys, which they earned an "Explorer Badge" for, cooled off in one of the buildings over there where we also pet a snake and met Rafiki. Did I mention we also cooled off in there? It was hot.

Snake!

Cade and Rafiki

Cute Monkies

Dylan did not wish to meet Rafiki.

Tree of Life

Komodo Dragon

Roar!

Fuzzy Antlers

In the Bird Enclosure

Beautiful Macaws

Exited the "stage" by flying right over us!

Then we met Doug and Russell from "Up"

Mimaw HUg

They were really cute and fun.

After that, we decided we were about done at Animal Kingdom. We had ridden the few rides we wanted to do and seen all the animals we could see.  The Bugs Life show I had been looking forward to seeing was under construction so that was a bit of a bummer. So since Dylan had talked non stop for the last few months about riding the Haunted Mansion, we figured we would make his Disney wish come true as soon as possible. We hopped on a bus (air conditioned) to Magic Kingdom to close out our day.

So We Went on This "Little" Vacation....

It's no secret that I stay pretty busy and exhausted with 2 little kiddos around. They are wonderful little boys and lights of my life, but really poop a momma out. However, I have realized a benefit to having really young, pre school aged kids - travel during the "normal" school year. Given that Dylan will be in kindergarten next year, our window for that luxury of traveling whenever the heck we want is quickly closing. That means will be traveling with everyone else and in big crowds. So this year, while all the kids of the country were either well into their homework assignments for the year or getting their outfits and supplies ready for the first day, we headed to Florida to a little place called Disney World. 

Labor Day weekend started this family vacation. And, what truly made the vacation special was that it was just not the 4 of us in attendance...BOTH sets of grandparents came with us as well. We told the boys many times that having Mimaw\Pipaw AND Nana\Bumpa with us was a trip of a lifetime...plus the whole Disney factor, they were VERY excited about the trip and we had a calendar countdown going for a few weeks before departure.

We flew out of a small airport in Worcester, Ma where we were literally the only flight there. It made parking\check in\security\etc pretty easy. We also took the Magical Express buses through Disney which helped to make this one of our easiest travel experiences ever. We didn't have to mess with our luggage outside of getting to the airport (Disney picked it up from the airport and delivered to our room) on the trip in. On the trip out, we checked the luggage in for the flight at our hotel and didn't see it again until we landed home. Taking the bus also meant no messing with rental cars or traveling with car seats.  Easy peasy.

Mike wanted the trip to be super, super special so he booked us at the Kidani Lodge at Animal Kingdom where we got to sit and watch the animals roam around just outside our balcony. It was pretty cool. Ok, now I have about half a million pictures that pretty much tell the story of our trip. So, here's the first batch with captions.

Morning 1 - woke to see lots of animals outside of our room.
Ankola Cattle

Zebras

Giraffes

And Birds!

First up was a character breakfast at Animal Kingdom.
Nana and Bumpa were running late and we came close to having to do our first activity separately.
Mimaw, Cade, Pipaw, Mike, Me and Dylan

But they made it just in the nick of time!
Bumpa, Mike, Dylan, Me, Nan, Cade, Pipaw and Mimaw

The boys started out the trip meeting lots of pals and got a good start on their autograph books.

Cade was especially star struck. He hardly ate anything and just wanted to stalk them around the restaurant.

And my sweet Dylan was his usual reserved self around the characters
but Daisy was the lucky one to get an enthusiastic hug from him!

Even at that early point in the day it was hot. Really hot. Now, of course we expected Florida at the beginning of September to be hot but given our mild summer, we were definitely not used to it. Really only 2 of the days we were there were really oppressively hot and we were initiated with day 1 being one of them. Our breakfast was nice and cool and a great start to the trip. More to come....

Wrapping Up Summer Weekends in NH - Part 2

The next time we were up in NH, our friends, the Meyer's, drove up on Saturday to join us. Dylan and Libby have been in preschool together for the last couple of years and the parents, Kate and Matt, have become good friends of ours. Baby Caroline and Cade often hang out together when waiting to drop off or pick off their siblings at school. Between their afternoon arrival at our NH condo and nap times for little kids, we had a chill Saturday afternoon\evening that included a visit to the pool, a pizza dinner made on the grill, and board games for the adults after the kids got to bed.

Cade, Caroline, Dylan and Libby
Pre Bedtime TV and Snuggles

Cutie Close Up

Sunday morning didn't look promising. I mean, the mountains and the clouds surrounding them were beautiful, but it didn't make for a promising sight seeing day. Plus, miss Caroline didn't sleep too well at our place (so neither did her Mom) so the morning was looking iffy. We decided to roll the dice and divide and play\sleep. The Hines gang set out with Matt and Libby while Caroline and Kate hung back to get some much needed zzz's.

The 6 of us went to Clark's Trading Post. It's a cute place and makes for a nice, easy and fun morning. We got there right at 10am, stopped for a brief photo op with the stuff bears and then went and found a seat at the bear show where the MC was already half way through his intro. So, just in time to see the bears!

Libby, Cade and Dylan

Now, we've tried to take pictures of the adorable\awesome bear show many times in the past and have finally given up. Not surprisingly, the "stage" is enclosed in a sort of chain link fence. We haven't figured out how to get the camera to focus on the bears and not the fence so our pictures are always terrible. Lucky for you, I won't make you look at blurry pictures of fences for this Clark's visit. It did sprinkle on us just a wee bit during the show, but it was no match for our hooded jackets\sweatshirts. Right after the bear show, we headed over to the train which was waiting to take us through Wolfman territory!

Libby, Dylan, Cade and Me

The boys kept a close eye on that crazy Wolfman!

Wolfman wanted us to "Get off his property!"

Wolfman's Cool Car

After Clark's, we all met up for lunch. Man, it is a wild time sitting at a table with 4 semi tired kids. They did pretty well but it doesn't exactly make for a leisurely lunch for the adults. Then it was back to the condo to pack up. While packing up, Dylan asked to try out the bubble machine that I'd bought on clearance at Walmart the previous morning. Of course! It was really awesome and the kids had a blast with it. Well worth the few dollar investment. But man o man does it go through bubble solution quickly!

As you can see, the morning clouds had lifted and left us with beautiful blue skies which made a lovely background for cute kids to smile and chase after bubbles. Great ending to a brief weekend with friends.