Animal Kingdom

Our last day was spent at Animal Kingdom.  Honey bear didn't miss a beat that whole trip.  She kept up with us and probably did even better than we did,  I know I was pretty tired by half day everyday!

  If you know me you know that I hate athletic shoes, so they were not an option for me to wear.   I don't like them for me or for the kids unless we are going the park, it's recess day or I am working out.  I tell ya my combat boots were my comfiest shoes I took.

RAWR!

 I wanted a picture of just me and Pluto cause I have one from when I went to Disney when I was little.  It's one of the only moments I remember from when I went.  My mom has it somewhere but I haven't had a chance to find it to do a side by side comparison.

Finding Nemo quite a pretty show!

 This was probably our rainiest day and spent a lot of it in our rain jackets.

I want to be in the Lion King show!! The costumes were beautiful!

I thought this was pretty neat, they have a vet clinic/operating room that's completely windows so you can actually see them working on the animals!  They even do live surgeries in there. We didn't get to see anything unfortunately.  Here they are talking about this sea turtle they operated on and saved.  

On the Safari ride we learned that these trees only blossom a few weeks outta the year and the remainder they pretty much look dead, but they aren't, they are actually full of water!  Thought that was pretty interesting, it's so creepy looking.

Our last stop was meeting Safari Mickey and Minnie.

We cannot say enough about how magical this trip really was and how perfect everything went.  I mean perfect!  Normally there's some kind of hiccup but not this time.  When I first got there how I wished my sisters and mom could have been there too.  They were the ones I grew up with watching these shows.  It would have been so great to share this experience with them too since it brought back so many childhood memories :)  

We left with a feeling of such gratitude and thankfulness to have had the opportunity and money to do this.  I think people all to often forget that the usual things in life we get to do are not so usual to everyone.  Sure all my friends take their kids to Disney, it's what we do.  But what about all the thousands of kids around the world who don't even have food, Disney isn't even a dream for them.  I try to never forget that even the little things we have are luxuries.  Anytime we get another car or take a trip or splurge on something we want I feel so humbled to have even had the choice to do so.  Thank you Lord for this beautiful life we have, we couldn't ask for anything more.

Universal Studios

Day 3 was Universal Studios.  I have to say that nothing holds a candle to Magic Kingdom. 

Brielle wanted to wear her beautiful Anna dress from her Aunt Emily on this particular day because she knew we were going to see the Frozen sing along.  This is another dress that lights up and sings, it's just precious.

Landon and I were really really impressed with the shows, we expected to main ones to be magnificent but wow, there were ALL incredibly good! All. Of. Them.

My favorite part in the Mermaid show was the dog that came out at the end.  He looked so life like!  You can kinda see him on the rock below.

Beauty and the Best was beautiful and the loves songs are my favorite Disney songs.  Yes I cried when it was over.

One of my sorority sisters just so happened to be there the same week we were.   We didn't end up using those fast passes we received at Magic Kingdom for getting stuck on the ride, so I made sure to meet up with her so they could have them. Those things are like GOLD!

My favorite place in Universal Studios was the Pixar area.  I sooo wished my cousin Derrick was there.  His favorite movie was Toy Story growing up, he had the bedding and all :)  He would have loved this!

I heard if you yell "Andy is coming!!"  these guys drop to the ground.  Probably not true but I wish I would have asked some witty questions to the princesses and characters.  

The inside of the Toy Story ride was on point!

This ride/game was LEGIT!  Our absolute favorite!  We rode it 3 times.

Landon's favorite part of that day was the car stunt show.   It was cool,  I am so enthralled by people who have unique jobs.  "so what do you do?"  "Oh, I'm a stunt car driver for Disney World" I mean could you imagine!  The ratio of cool jobs to regular ole jobs is way to low in my opinion.

Brielle liked Lighting Mcqueen's appearance, the loud noises made her a bit nervous but overall she did great.

It's pizza planet! How cute is that.

Mom and Dad had to stop and rest their feet,  little honey bear waited ever so patiently while playing with her fairies.  She's such a well behaved kid I tell ya, always been easy to take anywhere!

Next was the long awaited Frozen sing along.  I have to admit the show wasn't that great and Olaf didn't even make an appearance, what?!  But the commentary's  were hilarious and made the show!

Brielle enjoyed it though and that's what matters most.  They even made it snow at the end.

We left pretty early this day.  There really wasn't much else to do and we were exhausted!