Disney, day 4

On Thursday, we headed to Epcot. Mike and Julie and the girls went to have breakfast with the Princesses, so we headed up there alone in the morning. Right when you walk inside the gate, there are hundreds of flowers and topiaries...Disney surely does everything up right!

When we were walking back to a ride and to meet up w/ the Turners, there was a woman who was just opening her stand that sells these really cool balloon balls. Jeffrey and Josiah were in the right place at the right time because she needed a couple of hands to put her HUGE bouncy ball in its holder...

She let them bounce it a couple of times...she didn't have to ask twice! :-)

And then they hoisted it up into the stand. The question still remains if she really needed help or just wanted to let them help. Either way...it was fun!

Then we headed over to (one of my favorite) a ride called "Test Track". It was awesome to get to ride in a car (like a convertable) that goes super duper fast. Awesome! If Michael had been driving like this car was, I would have been in tears screaming "Honey, PLLLLLEEEEASE slow down!" But since I knew there was no way we could crash, I lived in the moment and enjoyed the really fast ride!

Nearby was a sprinkler thing that the younger set really loved. It goes without saying that by the time this was over, no clothes were dry!

Over in the World Showcase, one of our favorites was Norway. We HAD to take a picture with some Vikings in honor of our friends of Norweigian ancestry...you know who you are! :-)

Such warriors!

And goofballs!

Epcot is certainly a place where you can spend lots of days, because we felt like we barely scratched the surface of all there was to see. Maybe someday we'll get back there.

Tomorrow....Day 5, the return to Magic Kingdom

Disney, day 3

On Wednesday, it was off to Magic Kingdom! One thing has changed since we've been to Disney...it takes a really llllloooooonnnnnnngggggg time to get to Magic Kingdom...a car, to a tram, to a ferry (or monorail), then walk to the entrance, check your bag, then finally get into the gate! But what fun awaits once you finally make it!!


Here's Julie with all the kiddos at the entrance. Doesn't Daniel know how to do a great cheesy grin!!

Me and Michael and the boys. Everyone wasn't actually as grumpy as this picture might portray! :-)

Since our boys are a little past the age of going crazy about getting pictures taken with Pinocchio, or Jasmine, or any various Disney characters, there weren't lots of photos taken at Magic Kingdom. We loved Splash Mountain...rode that one several times thanks to the fast pass and the wheelchair line....and the boys' favorite hands down was Tom Sawyer island.

There were lots of trees, forts, caves, paths, running around and more than one plan/dream of buying an island just like that one for the boys' personal use! Any idea what the going rate is for about 10 acres of wooded property smack dab in the middle of Disneyland?? I'm thinking it's a little out of our price range! :-)

It was on Tom Sawyer's Island that Jonathan experienced the only real drawback of having surgery...it's just not as fast getting around the island with a crutch! And mom and dad wouldn't let him "lose" the crutch and start running around. So, he hobbled...and had a great time!

That evening, we stayed for the fireworks show (thanks to Julie and Mike for holding a prime spot on the curb for a really long time!) which was really great...corny, but spectacular nonetheless.

Tommorrow...Day 4, Epcot

Disney, day 2

Back to Disney....
Our second day in Florida we went to Disney's Animal Kingdom. This park wasn't even opened when we went before, so we were all very excited to see what it was going to be like.

On Tuesday, our adventure started even before we got to the park. Since we had a total of 14 people, we needed two cars to get around. We rented a Homeschoolmommobile (AKA a 12 passenger van) and a regular car. The funny thing was as we were in the van following the other car driving into the park, we realized that the van was following the WRONG car into the WRONG park. Oops, so our spy skills need to be a little beef-ed up! What can I say...all the "spy wannabes" were in the car, not the van.

We finally made it to the park and went inside. Very cool!...Literally...lots of shade and trees! There was this large tree called "The Tree of Life" with all kinds of animals carved into it. Here's part of our crew hangin' with the gorilla.

I think there is something in this picture...but I don't know what it is! :-)

One of the fun things we did at this park was a drive through safari. There were a lot of cool animals that we saw on the safari. Like one of these pretty birds called ????????

And one of these cow-type thingys (OK, should have listened more to the tour guide!) But look at those long horns!!

And at one point, our tram had to come to a complete stop to wait for this guy...yes, I know that's a giraffe!...to cross the road. After the safari ride, we went to the Lion King show. We actually met some friends at the show who we knew from when we lived in Houston before. We haven't seen them in about 8 years, but due to the magic of Facebook, we found out we were going to be at Disney at the same time. So we were able to meet up and see them and sit with them at the show. That was fun! And the show was AWESOME! And even better, Josiah, Lauren and Katie got picked from our section to get up at one point and play some instruments....hakuna matata!!

Here we are stopping for some goofy photos!

One of the favorite rides of the day was the Expedition Everest rollercoaster. It was fun...but I'm old! and riding it two times in a row left Julie and I both feeling very sick...so sick that we had to go home early. Getting old is a real bummer sometimes! But dad, Mike, Michael and the boys and Lauren had a great time for the rest of the day....but I had the camera, so no more photos.

Stay tuned...tomorrow is Day 3, Magic Kingdom.

We interrupt this Disney tour...

for a very gross happening at the house . Jeffrey and I were in Castroville running errands and when we got home, Josiah showed us this little video he took. Believe it or not, he had the presence of mind to go and grab his ipod nano, which has a video recorder on it. Watch...but beware!

Yep, that little jewel was in MY BATHROOM!! I don't know if you heard it on the video or not, but Josiah said "Mom, is going to freak out when she sees this!" Does he know me or what??!! And yep, he was right! I just couldn't believe that Jeremy didn't kill that booger. He just took it outside and set it free!!! He didn't even feed it to the chickens! So somewhere out there, is a snake that knows how to get into my house!! Well, I let it be know that snakes are NOT allowed in my house. I don't care if they are little, if they are non-venomous, whatever. NOT WELCOME! Thankfully we've been blessed (the boys don't think it's exactly a blessing, but I know better!) to have only very occasionally seen snakes on our property in the the two years we've been here. And they've always been little like this guy. But we even got cats to take care of these nasties...Trixie...Snowflake..GET TO WORK!!