Disney Day 2, Part 1 - Animal Kingdom

Wednesday was such a full, fun day that I have to break it up into two different blog posts. :)

After a good night's sleep, we ate some breakfast and headed out for the day.  Our plan for Wednesday was to head for Animal Kingdom.

All of the parks had a beautiful tree in front of them, and Animal Kingdom was no exception.

Family photo in front of the Tree of Life

Nana and Poppa in front of the Tree of Life

First we went on Kilimanjaro Safari.  The animals were out in force, it was fantastic.  The kids really liked it and were very excited to see the animals.  Here is a group of hippos.

There were a bunch of giraffes right next to the safari truck, it was so neat to see them so up close.

They were just walking around, hanging out.

Elephant mama and baby

Some warthogs

This gorilla had a blanket that he carried around with him, he covered himself with it and dragged it around after him like a kid.  Cam and Leah thought it was great that he had a "soft buh" (as they call their blankets).

Checking out some fish - Leah really liked watching them.

I think this was a hippo skull.  We tried to get Cam to put his head behind it, but he was not interested at all.  I think he was afraid it would bite him.

Cam is almost as big as the gorilla...

A baby gorilla!  It was SO cute!!  Leah really liked this little guy, I think she thought it was cool that he was about her size.

Leah and Cam met Turk from Tarzan.  Leah was okay with playing peek-a-boo from afar but didn't want to get any closer.

Cam was happy with a hug

Then he met Louie and Baloo from Jungle Book

Next we watched the Wonders of Flight show.  Daddy got to be part of the show.  They asked for volunteers with cameras, and Tim held his up high.  Not surprisingly, they picked him and his giant camera.  His volunteer job was to sit on a seat and a bird flew right at him.  He was supposed to take pictures of it, but he didn't focus on the right spot so none of the pictures came out.  Here is a picture of him with the bird coming right at him:

This is the bird that flew over his head:

After the show was over, they had some birds out that we could go look at.  Not surprisingly, Cam had a million questions about the birds.

Expedition Everest!  This was our first time riding on it and it was very cool.  Definitely a good addition to Disney roller coasters.

While Daddy and  Mama rode on Expedition Everest, Nana and Poppa took Cam and Leah on Maharajah Jungle Trek.  They got to check out some cool animal bones.

Leah the little scholar - it looks like she is raising her hand to answer a question

Cameron doing some African drumming.  He doesn't look too excited about it!  :-P

After the rides and jungle treks, we all met up to have lunch at Tusker House.  It was a delicious buffet, everyone found lots of stuff that we enjoyed.  I would definitely eat there again, the food was yummy.

After lunch was done, Erin and Reagan met us.  It was great to see them, and I think Cameron was jealous that Reagan lived close enough that she could come to Disney whenever she wanted!

There was a short wait to see some characters, so we took advantage of that.  Cameron loved meeting them all.  Here he is with Pooh

Leah meeting Pooh.  She didn't mind touching his hand but she didn't want to get any closer than that.

Mama and kiddos with Pooh Bear

Cam and Eeyore

All of us with Eeyore - notice that Leah won't look at the camera, she has to keep her eyes on those shifty characters at all times.

Cam and Tigger - he had no problem running up to the characters and jumping into their arms.

Mama, Leah, Tigger and Cam

After seeing the characters, we went to play on the Boneyard playground.  I think this was the favorite stop for all of the kids.  There were lots of places to climb, slide, run and jump.  Cameron could have stayed there all day.

Having fun in the Boneyard

Reagan, also really loving the Boneyard

There were lots of tall, twisty slides

Leah liked climbing up and down through this hole

All tuckered out, taking a rest before more running, jumping and sliding

We watched the Nemo show and then headed over to watch the parade.  We waited quite a while for it to start, so Leah was very excited when the music came on and the parade was starting

We got a few shots of the parade, but they were all into the sun (like the one above) so none came out very good.  Here is one of the few that we got that was okay - Santa Goofy

After the parade it was time for It's Tough to Be a Bug.  The kids really liked their first 3D movie and it was hilarious to watch them try to grab the stuff in front of them.

Here is Mama in bug glasses

And Leah in hers

And Cameron in his

Another shot in front of the Animal Kingdom Christmas tree - Cameron and Leah with Nana and Poppa

Family picture in front of the tree

After Animal Kingdom, we went back to the hotel to drop off our stuff before heading over to Magic Kingdom for the Very Merry Christmas Party.  Pictures of that sometime soon...  :)

Disney Day 1 - Flight, Magic Kingdom, Whispering Canyon Cafe

Back in the summer, we decided that it was about time for a Disney vacation and that Christmas time would be the perfect time to go.  We decided on the week after Thanksgiving, so that the Christmas decorations would be up but (hopefully) crowds would be low.  We invited Nana and Poppa to come with us and started to plan.  We did not tell the kids right away because we didn't want to listen to months of "when are we going?" questions.  Finally, on Cameron's birthday, Mama created a countdown calendar and we "gave" Cameron the trip to Disney for his birthday.

One of Cameron's favorite parts of each day leading up to our trip was taking down the next Mickey head and making the countdown path to Disney that much shorter.  He constantly asked for clarification: "So, when I take the 1 off, are we going to Disney that day?  Or the next day?"  He found about twenty different ways to ask that question to make sure he really understood which day we would be going.  It was pretty cute, he was so excited.

Early on Tuesday morning, November 29th, we got up to take our direct (yay!!) flight to Orlando.  Here is a very sleepy Cameron taking off his last Mickey countdown number.

It was a good flight, fantastic because it was direct.  The kids were both really good and enjoyed watching TV (we were on JetBlue) and eating the snacks.  Leah even took a little nap.

Happy baby, ready to go meet Mickey!

We stayed at Port Orleans French Quarter.  It was a great resort, we were very happy with our choice.  Here is the  main lobby decorated for Christmas.  It was beautiful!

Check-in took quite a while because we were trying to get adjoining rooms - for some reason, that was really tricky even though we had requested it months before.  Luckily, there was lots for the kids to do - they watched a movie, colored and played with some toys.  For their patience, they each got a balloon.

 Greeting us when we entered our room was Mickey head towels.  Very cute!

We quickly dropped off our bags and headed out to the Magic Kingdom.  The theme of WDW this year is "Let the Memories Begin" - seems perfect!  Here is Nana, Cameron, Leah, Mama and Poppa in front of Magic Kingdom.

Daddy, Leah, Cam, Mama and Poppa

As we walked in, the kids got stickers and buttons.  Here is Leah with her "1st Visit" button.

Cam wanted lots of stickers and lots of buttons, so he got two stickers, a "Happy Birthday" button and a "Family Reunion" button.  He was a happy kid with lots of flair on his shirt.

Main Street USA was decked out in holiday decorations, it was beautiful.  Here are Nana and Poppa with the kiddos on Main St.  As you can see, neither kid wanted to be sitting still for pictures, they were not happy to be turned around so they couldn't see down Main Street.

Family photo on Main Street USA

When we got to the end of Main Street, there was a show going on in front of the castle that we stopped to watch.  It had all of the main Mickey characters, some princesses, some pirates, and some villains.

 Cameron was entranced with the whole show and Leah loved the music.

 Cameron's first character that he met was Peter Pan.  He was very excited.

Leah, on the other hand, was not so excited.  This was the start of a trend that continued for most of the week.  Leah did NOT want to be near the characters.

First we headed towards Adventureland and went on Swiss Family Robinson Tree House.  Cameron thought it was pretty cool.

Checking out the living areas in the tree

Mama and Leah

Next we went on Pirates of the Caribbean.  Both kids liked it, as long as we kept a running commentary about all of the funny things that the pirates were doing.  We also made sure to warn them about the "fun slide" (aka drop) at the beginning of the ride!

After exiting through the gift shop, in which Cameron wanted to buy pretty much everything, we ran into Pirate Goofy.  Cam thought he was pretty cool.

Our next stop was Jungle Cruise.  This was another fun one that everyone liked.

Trying to not get wet!

One of the big things leading up to this trip was Cameron's height.  At Disney, you need to be 40 inches to ride on any of the somewhat exciting ride.  As of Cam's four year old checkup (about four weeks before our trip), he was 38.5 inches.  We told him he needed to grow another inch and a half to be able to ride on the good rides, so much of the month of November was spent eating food to make him big (lots of meat and veggies!) and drinking tons of milk.  Between that and having shoes with a decent height sole, Cameron was able to ride on the good rides.  He was very excited!

His first real grown-up ride (a ride that Leah couldn't go on) was Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.  He looked so tiny getting into the line with a bunch of grown-ups.  He was very excited to be going on it, although definitely a little nervous.  Here is Daddy, giving Cam a few final words of encouragement before we got going.

During the ride!  Bonus points to Poppa who snapped a few pictures while we were riding.

 Nana and Leah waited at the end of the ride, and Nana managed to get a picture of us on it:

What, can't see Cameron?  Okay, here is a blown-up image of our train car.  Daddy and Cam are in the front of the car, Poppa and Mama behind them.

After the first ride we switched up and Nana got to ride.  Again, a bit hard to see us, but if you look close, Nana and Tim have their hands in the air.

This is what Leah did while we all rode on the ride:

The next ride was Splash Mountain.  After much hemming and hawing and an aborted attempt, Cameron decided not to ride.  Daddy, Poppa and Nana took a ride instead.

Here they are going down the big drop.  That is Tim in the front with his hands in the air.

While we were in the Frontierland area, we stopped at Haunted Mansion.  They had a cool new section where you can play instruments that are on the wall, all you do is run your hand across the picture of the instrument.  It was really neat.

By the time we were done on Haunted Mansion (which everyone really enjoyed), it was time to head over to Wilderness Lodge for our dinner reservation.  We decided to go to Whispering Canyon Cafe for dinner that night and then make it an early night.

We rode the water taxi from Magic Kingdom over to Wilderness Lodge.  It was a very nice ride.

The sun was setting and it was beautiful.

Daddy and kiddos on the boat

Wilderness Lodge was a huge, beautiful hotel.  The Christmas decorations were amazing.  Here we are on a bridge in the hotel, overlooking a geyser.  We could not get Cameron and Leah to look at the camera, they were too interested in keeping their eyes on the water.

There was a HUGE tree in the center of the lodge.

While we were waiting for our reservation time at the Whispering Canyon Cafe, there was a table with Lincoln Logs to play with. Cam was so happy and had a great time.  He was quite annoyed when our name was called and he had to stop playing.

Dinner was good.  We had a nice waiter who called himself Geppetto.  He was very good with the kids, even sitting down next to Leah at one point and playing a game on the iPod Touch with her.

One of the things they do during dinner is have a horse race around the restaurant.  All of the kids get hobby horses to gallop on.  Cameron liked it but he was pretty tired out at this point, so he sort of just walked around in a daze after the other kids.

Hopefully he was having a bit more fun than it looks like here!

When we made reservations at Disney, they asked if we were celebrating anything.  We told them that we were celebrating Poppa and Cameron's birthdays, since both were in November (although  Poppa's birthday was actually the day before the trip, instead of a month before like Cam's).  Because of this, Cam and Poppa got buttons to wear all around.  It also meant that they got birthday treats at pretty much every place we went, and entire restaurants sang to them.  Cam thought it was pretty awesome.  Here he is, very excited about his first cupcake.

Leah was very happy about the cupcake as well and helped Cameron finish it up.

Yummmmmmmmmmm, frosting!

Got to make sure I get every last drop off of my fingers!

On the bus ride home, three kiddos conked out.  Here are two of them:

The end of a very fun first day!

Disney Pictures Coming!!

We got back from our trip to Disney World on Sunday night.  It has been a very busy week, but we are starting to work on pictures and will get some posted soon.  For now, to wet your appetite, here is an adorable video of Miss Leah showing off one of her new words that she learned while we were in Disney.