Best Day Ever! (otherwise known as Animal Kingdom)

This is why I really wanted to go to Disney World! Since the odds of my ever going on an actual African Safari (a lifelong, completely unexplainable obsession) are slim to none, this will have to do. The Kilimanjaro Safari at Animal Kingdom was super, duper awesome, exceeded my expectations for sure. We got there early and headed straight for the safari (a long line forms pretty quickly and they can only do so many tours a day). Early in the morning is the best time to go anyway, because that's when the animals are most active. Honestly, I could have stayed there all day.

Those would be hippos

a real termite mound

baby giraffe walked right in front of us, mama giraffe thought we were a little too close

those are actual ostrich eggs!

Not just the safari, but all of the animal trails were great too. The whole park was great, nice a shady (unlike Animal Kingdom that's almost entirely asphalt and you feel like you're being cooked to death). We all loved this park.

two Hokie boys; there was way more commentary on Bubba's Hokie hat than my BYU hat

just some dragon feet

cruisin Silly

on the Maharajah Jungle Trek

 By now we knew the secrets to getting Bubba on those rides with the 44" height requirement, so we all went on Exploration Everest; really great ride, definitely worth riding once, but Bubba and I opted out of going back with Scott, Cakes and Silly. There's a part where it goes backwards, in the dark, and that doesn't mix well with my motion sickness and claustrophobia issues. Bubba very firmly said he did not want to ride it again.

Kali River Rapids was awesome. We went straight through with our FastPass and enjoyed it, everyone got at least a little bit wet. That was not enough for Audrey though. It was still early in the morning and there wasn't much of a line yet, so we went again. She was determined to get as wet as possible this time around. And boy did she get her wish. She got completely drenched. It's possible that she was entirely underwater at some point. We were in that park for most of the day, and I never saw anyone else even close to as soaked as she was. And she loved it.

soaked Cakes

 We explored the rest of the park; saw It's Tough to be a Bug, were pretty disappointed by Dino-Rama!, well not really disappointed, it's a carnival, and it was just like every other sketchy, crappy carnival you've ever been too. DINOSAUR was scary - we did not like it, particularly Bubba, and he didn't want to go on anything dark after that. The Boneyard was a fun place to play and take a break.

Then we had lunch at Flame Tree Barbecue which was pretty good. There was a band playing nearby and Bubba started dancing like crazy when they sang Happy - here's a little snippet of the tail end of his performance

best shirt ever - Cakes wears it all the time now and always gets comments on it

 We weren't planning to go to Rafiki's Planet Watch, but we wanted to ride the Wildlife Express, so we went, and the train ride was fun, but the destination was not so very exciting. We just wanted to get back over to Africa because we hadn't walked the Pangani Forest Exploration Trail yet.

our favorite sign - you can hold hands but you can't dance

Do you know what that is? That's an OKAPI, people! Who the heck has an okapi? They're practically extinct!

K, so I loved the safari, and I was amazed to see an actual okapi, but then, then, the most unexpected thing - NAKED MOLE RATS!!! My family loves naked mole rats! And I have instilled this love in my children, but they had never seen real, live naked mole rats before! Bubba slept with a stuffed naked mole rat for years. I was so stinkin excited! I think the man there at their exhibit was pretty happy to have a whole group of people standing there oohing and aahing over these ugliest of all creatures. This day was a real win for me - African safari? check! Showing my children a real life naked mole rat colony? check!

We spent a long time watching these gorillas too. They were pretty entertaining. The baby even looked at us and banged on the glass.

And I couldn't resist taking this picture. Like father, like son. :-)

We took a little break at our hotel, then set off to check out Downtown Disney. First for the unpleasant part, because I want to end on a happy note - do not go to DisneyQuest in Downtown Disney. We wouldn't have gone ourselves, but it was included in our park tickets, so we basically went for free. If we had paid to go in there it would have been over $200 and we would have been really mad at the money we wasted. It's like a horrible Chuck E Cheese pretending to be something awesome. Don't do it.

 Anyway, we had some good food at The Earl of Sandwich, bought some Ghirardelli chocolate, checked out the Lego store (The highlight of Scott's day) and I found what I was looking for - the seven dwarfs!

My family went to Disney World when I was about 8 and I got a set of dwarfs almost exactly like this and a Snow White dress (A real dress, not this dress-up crap they have now). I had already decided before this trip started that if I saw a set of dwarfs, I was gonna hafta buy 'em - I saw some, and I did. I even bought another one and sent it to my friend. :-) Now they hang out in my closet with all my other childhood stuff and it makes me happy!

Bowens in Hollywood

Hollywood Studios was the plan for Day 2. Like pretty much everyone else with children 12 and under, we wanted to sign our kids up for Jedi Training, so we had to get there right when it opened. I took the backpack and went through the bag line while Scott took the kids and went straight to sign up. Bubba wouldn't answer the questions to say he would participate, so they wouldn't let him sign up, but that's OK because he totally would not have done anything if we'd tried to send him up there. Once we got that taken care of, we hit some rides, starting with Star Tours. Of all the rides that I actually went on (I'm smart enough to know my limits, even with Dramamine) that one got me the closest to getting sick. Everyone else thought it was awesome. The Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular was pretty sweet. We did the Studio Backlot Tour (walking/tram ride, somewhat entertaining) and The Great Movie Ride (horribly, terribly outdated; Scott and I both walked out of there saying the exact same thing - that ride has got to be next on the list for an upgrade!) to kill some time before our next FastPass.

Scott took Cakes and Silly off to ride Rock 'n' Roller Coaster while Bubba and I took a little break. We were hot and wanted a treat, so of course I had to get him a Mickey Mouse ice cream bar. It was pretty messy, but he definitely enjoyed it. Thank goodness I brought wipes. I have to say, I don't think we ever encountered anything I was not prepared for. That backpack of mine was one well planned accessory.

Then Jedi time! Cakes was only so-so about it, and hates being hot, so she wasn't thrilled about wearing the Padawan robe, but she was a good sport. Silly was thrilled, but trying not to show it; pretty typical.

Pre-training lecture

 I just love these pictures of the two of them from the back. :-)

Scott had to get a picture with the AT-AT (and there's Bubba was my awesome bag)

Silly taking things very seriously

Cakes on the far right looking like she doesn't care

After all that hard work, we split up again so Scott could take the big kids to the Tower of Terror, while I took Bubba to the Disney Junior show. It was not all that exciting, and we picked a bad seat so we couldn't see much, but I would much rather have done that than fall down an elevator shaft. I went on that ride in high school and I believe I was shaking for the rest of the day. Once was definitely enough for me.

We met up for lunch then took the plunge to wait in the longest line ever to ride Toy Story Midway Mania. Here's where I should say that Disney also does an excellent job of making their waiting lines entertaining. There's a lot to look at and even some interactive things here and there, so you're not just staring at the back of someone's head for an hour. I think we waited about an hour and a half. We knew that's what it was going to be, so we just did it. The kids loved the ride, and it was pretty fun for grownups too.

The kids needed something active after that, so we went to Honey, I Shrunk the Kids Movie Set Adventure where they could run around and let off some steam after shuffling along in line for ages.

Then the craziest thing happened. We're leaving the play area, and who comes around the corner but one of my roommates from BYU! I'd seen on Facebook earlier in the week that she was posting about being at Disney, but I thought she was gone already, so it was totally unexpected to see her. We've kept in touch, but haven't seen each other in person since 1997! How could you not make a bunch of Its a Small World jokes after that?

That pretty much filled up the day, so it was back to our hotel (we stayed at Shades of Green, the military/gov't employee Disney resort) for some dinner and swimming. The kids got quite a show with their pizza when I little girl drowned at the pool. There were two men there, they clearly had a lot more training and experience than the two lifeguards on duty, who were able to revive her before the ambulance arrived. The hotel clearly had procedures in place for emergencies and carried everything out really well; had someone out front to get the paramedics to the right pool as quickly as possible. I actually wrote a letter to the hotel after we got back, saying I thought it was handled well, but I was concerned that they didn't have a cordless phone on sight so the rescuers on site could speak directly to the 911 dispatcher rather than having someone shout instructions across the pool. The hotel manager called me and let me know the girl recovered and that they had reviewed their emergency procedures. 

Finally, this happened. They were talking and giggling their little heads off, then suddenly, they weren't.

Surprise Vacation

We've been talking about going to Disney World since about the time Bubba started walking. This might be the one and only time we ever go, so we wanted to make sure our kids were at the right ages where they could get plenty out of it. We tried to make it work in 2012, but we bought a house instead (darn priorities!) and in 2013 there was a lot of job uncertainty and threatened furloughs and all kinds of other fun stuff, which made taking a major vacation seem pretty unwise. Finally - 2014 was the year! We debated endlessly  about dates, wanting to avoid the worst crowds and heat, but not wanting the kids to miss anything significant at school. Worked out to be the first week of June - SOLs are over, learning has pretty much ceased at that point, and none of the fun end of school things happen until the second week of June. Then we found an awesome deal on plane tickets, and Scott did an extremely un-Scott-like thing and just went right on ahead and bought them without debating it for a week and a half, knowing if he missed it, that deal would never come around again. We decided not to tell the kids. (I don't know about Scott, but for me, that decision was completely selfish - I knew the kids would drive me nuts if we told them ahead of time.)

The whole surprise was almost ruined because Bubba is a sneaky little rascal and eavesdropped on a phone conversation I was having with a friend who had recently been; I told her pretty much all of our plans and she was giving me some tips while Bubba listened to the entire conversation from another phone! I came downstairs and he was just grinning from ear to ear, not looking the slightest bit guilty, and told me, "I know what you said." Rascal! I told him he better not spill the beans. When Cakes and Silly got home he said, "I know nothing."

I was doing all the laundry and secret packing their clothes into their suitcases hidden in my closet, but they kept asking me where this or that shirt or pants were, which they never do. They definitely knew something was up! I was trying to play it off that my youngest sister was coming to visit, and we might go do some stuff. When we woke them up early Sunday morning, the first thing we told them was they weren't going to be able to see her and her husband and little J; Cakes was pretty disappointed. Then we told them we weren't going to church, and they were less disappointed. When we told them we were going to Disney World, I don't think they believed us. They weren't fully awake yet. As we started actually loading things into the car and talking more in detail, it really started to sink in. Scott and I had wondered earlier if Silly might not be more excited about the flight than the destination. We got to the airport, checked in, cleared security and boarded our plan with no problem. Scott was more than happy to answer Silly's nonstop questions while they sat together on one side. I took my Dramamine and didn't have any issues.

Airplane selfie

We did a pretty good job planning. Checked into our hotel with no problem, then set off for Epcot. I was really impressed with the whole Disney experience. We had one issue with our passes; setting up our easy passes online I ran into a glitch entering Silly's birthdate, which you can't change, you just have to get a new card. I was sure that was not going to work out, that when I went to the ticket counter they would really give me a new card, but that it wouldn't have all of his ride reservations saved and everything would be messed up, but it really worked just like the lady on the phone said it would. That was a major relief! We were also really pleased with the food. It was way better than the usual amusement park food, lots of healthy options, and not outrageously priced. There are all kinds of price options; we stuck to the lower end and were never disappointed.

We stayed on the Future World side of Epcot since we only had half a day. Scott took Cakes and Silly on Mission:SPACE. We hadn't yet learned the trick to getting Bubba on the those rides that required 44" (the secret - put him in his sandals, not sneakers, and tell him to stand up really tall so his head is pressed up against the bar it the top of the measuring stick - if there's not space between the bar and the top of his head, he's good to go).

It was sprinkling off and on that day, but usually nothing major. Spaceship Earth, which goes into the Epcot ball, was fun. The kids loved Turtle Talk with Crush, and I have to admit it was way more entertaining than I expected. There were definitely a lot of outdated elements there. The highlight of the day was definitely Test Track. The kids loved being able to design their own vehicle. It was starting to get dark, and it had still been raining, and even with a FastPass there was still a line. We totally lucked out. We designed our vehicles, then went on the ride. Part of it is inside, then the high speed testing section takes you outside. Apparently while we'd been inside designing our vehicles, the weather went from drizzling to pouring down rain, When the outer doors opened we were getting completely pelted and soaked! Not meant to be part of the experience, but definitely made it more exciting. Even more exciting was that we were the last ones to ride it because they had to shut it down after that until the rain stopped. Bubba *loved* it. He still brings it up.

Checking out the Yoda car after riding Test Track

We hadn't even planned on riding Soarin'  because the line was long and it didn't seem like that thrilling of a ride, but it was actually pretty darn cool. We ended up in line for about 45 minutes, but we'd done a lot of rushing around by then, so no one really minded taking it easy for a bit. I gave everyone a bag of snacks for the week, so we had a little snack break while we waited. We ate dinner at Sunshine Seasons, and I think that ended up being the favorite for Scott and Silly.

Proof we were there