Disney World 2013: Day 3

We spent the third day of our vacation at Animal Kingdom.

Brian and I spent some time on the long drive home rating the parks.  At one point, Animal Kingdom would have been our second favorite park (behind Magic Kingdom).  But as the kids have gotten older, we've found that Hollywood Studios is actually a lot more fun for them.  Obviously we love the safari and Festival of the Lion King, and Reesie has developed a new found love for Everest, but after that it's just kind of boring (I should say that I think DinoLand is a throwaway place.  I just feel l like it's a waste.)   We usually hop right on the safari (which is what we did on this trip), but I also set us up with FastPasses to go back later in the day.  It was definitely interesting to see the animals up and moving later in the afternoon!  The new Avatar section will probably make for more fun as the kids get older!

The new FastPass+ feature also lets you set up FastPasses for character greetings, so we were able to see Mickey and Minnie with only a 5 minute wait (and we were dry this time)!

 He was NOT into a lot of character greetings this time, but he definitely still loved his visits with Mickey, Jake, Buzz, and Woody. A large part of our reason for going again is that we wanted to see him still be a kid who gets excited about visiting the characters.  It totally bummed me out when he didn't want to meet princesses, but I tried to remind myself that he's just a boy who doesn't like princesses (at least, not in public)!

 Reese was excited to meet Pocahontas!  That movie is consistently in the movie night cue (along with Mulan and Everyone's Hero).  Oddly enough, my kids actually like the sequels to Pocahontas and Mulan better than the originals.

 Everyone loves Chip & Dale!

 Animal Kingdom closes earlier than the other parks, so we went to Downtown Disney that night.  We took the kids back to the T-Rex restaurant this year.  They really like the atmosphere.  The food is average, but it's fun to watch their faces when a meteor shower starts!

See?

 We did a little bit of shopping that night.  Now that Wyatt is really interested in Legos, we had to check out the Lego store.  This Buzz and Woody were an instant draw!

 These pictures with Wyatt were kind of necessary!  I can't believe how little my Poohzie Woozie was on our first two trips!

 We stopped to see the Great Mickey Pumpkin on the way out...I can't believe they were still awake!  It was a long (and fun) day!

Disney World 2013: Day 2

Back to our Disney trip!  We decided to spend the second day of our trip at Epcot.  We don't ever need to spend an entire day there, but there are definitely a few things that we have to do!

With our FastPass+, I reserved times for Nemo, Turtle Talk with Crush, and Test Track.  Both Nemo experiences are crowd favorites (although I find Nemo to be a little boring).

After the ride we decided to take a look at some of the fish!

When we finished Test Track we walked over the the World Showcase.  Mainly because meeting this "princess" was a necessity.  "Fa Mulan" (that's what she call Mulan 2) is currently Reese's favorite movie.  And Hudson is a great little brother who loves to watch Mulan with his big sister!

 The kids are never really fond of the world showcase.  I think taking a trip to the food & wine festival might be a lot of fun at some point without the kids!  Brian and I love to stop and get drinks (I got a delicious lemon-wine concoction in Italy) or food (nachos in Mexico and sushi in Japan!).

The kids prefer to eat in America!  Ha!

Reese and Hudson marched in a little parade, and got their own copies of the Declaration of Independence.  Hudson got scared, so Brian had to go grab him.

 We also stopped to meet Belle in France.  It's very important that you get to meet her in her blue dress, too.  Or so says my five year old.

 Hudson also stopped to say hello.  He loves some princesses (and they all seemed to think he was pretty adorable, too).

 We made one last stop to visit Snow White (I had heard that the only place at Disney to meet Snow White and Mulan was Epcot.  Imagine my surprise when we met Snow White at the Magic Kingdom and saw Mulan at Hollywood Studios!).

 After we met Snow White we decided to head to Hollywood Studios.  You can actually take a boat from Epcot (it leaves from the back of the park in the World Showcase area) to Hollywood Studios.  It was fantastic.  It stops at three resorts before it gets to Hollywood Studios, but the ride is easy and there's lots to see!  And my favorite - no need to fold up and unload the stroller!

This picture basically sums up Reese's personality.
And who doesn't love Star Tours?
(Actually - that would be me.  It makes me sick.)

Going to Hollywood Studios was actually a really good call!  We were able to fit in Star Tours, Muppets 3-D, and we were able to ride Toy Story Mania before the park closed - with a minimal wait and no fast pass!

The rain held off for most of the day, but it was pouring when we got off of Toy Story Mania.  Fortunately Disney had buses at the stop for our resort really quickly, so we didn't get soaked again.  Thank goodness!

Project 365: Week 37 & Week 38

Yes, I'm interrupting our Disney recap to do this.  Partially because I want to keep it up, and also because there are lots of good Disney pictures on my phone!

Tuesday, September 10

I don't often look at my brown haired, brown eyed baby girl and see a resemblance to her strawberry blonde, blue eyed sister, but I definitely saw it in their faces!  And...Fin Tin Tin's first pigtails!

Wednesday, September 11

Spent the morning planning our FastPass+ schedule.

And yes, I will take this opportunity to complain again about what a waste of time this was, since Disney messed it all up.  Boo.

Thursday, September 12

Dave, Steph, and Natalie are moving to California (actually, they did move).  We were going to be on vacation the weekend of their going away party, so we all went to Red Robin for dinner.

Friday, September 13

I saw this hat at Target and I couldn't resist getting for this girl.  Adorable!

Saturday, September 14

Reese is one of the tallest kids on her soccer team...and one of the youngest.  She's in the 88th percentile for height, so that's not too surprising!

Sunday, September 15

Trying on the baseball equipment at Dick's!  It's probably sad that I know we went there for something, but I have no recollection of what that thing was!

Monday, September 16

All smiles after his second soccer game!  He scored a goal!

Tuesday, September 17

Playing at the park!  

Wednesday, September 18

Ready for school!  I don't know why she insists on pictures before school almost every day!

Thursday, September 19

Another tooth lost!  This is his third.  I think the missing tooth matches the hockey shirt!

Friday, September 20

We had to go pick something up from Brian at work.  This little guy was not very happy to leave Daddy.

Project 365: Week 35 & Week 36

Tuesday, August 27

Our Magic Bands came!  They were color coded and our names were printed inside.  I was so excited! Disney messed that up at check in.  Womp womp womp.

Wednesday, August 28

She made herself a salad for dinner.  Seriously.  On the spectrum of foods, this girl couldn't be farther away from her big brother!

Thursday, August 29

Caught on camera.

Friday, August 30

We had the meet and greet with Wyatt's teacher.  He enjoyed checking out the library and meeting his teacher!

Saturday, August 31

Enjoying some popsicles on the last "movie night" of the summer!

Sunday, September 1

Reese's Teddy looks just like this guy, so this is what she chose to get for Finley for her first birthday!

Monday, September 2

Going through her readers on the last day of summer vacation.  She likes to go back to school prepped!

Tuesday, September 3

Finley's birthday dinner!  Sofia and Jake were special guests.

Wednesday, September 4

First night of baseball and soccer for these two.  It was the night Wyatt caught for the first time!

Thursday, September 5

Hanging out in the living room, after school snacking...in catcher's gear.

Friday, September 6

I told Hudson it was time to go to bed.  He said that he was going to sleep with Reesie.  Convincing!

Saturday, September 7

Wearing some of her favorite party favors from a birthday party!  I love this shirt!

Sunday, September 8

Reesie and Teddy are BFF's.

Monday, September 9

Hanging out at the doctor's office - she was diagnosed with a double ear infection.  I was pretty sure that's what she had after our rough night before, and Dr. Jones confirmed it.  10 days of antibiotics and she was all better!  I continually marvel at the fact that the baby that I've breastfed the longest is now on her second ear infection.  Reese is the only other one of the four who has had an ear infection - and she got it when she was 4!

Disney World 2013: Day 1

I know that I've been MIA - obviously vacation was a HUGE part of the reason for that! We left for our Disney World vacation on September 21st after a day full of sports.  We stopped overnight in South Carolina and made it to Orlando the following afternoon.  We spent Sunday exploring our hotel and getting settled, and we finally made it to the Magic Kingdom on Monday, September 23rd.

That's right, the first day of our Disney World vacation was our seventh anniversary.  To celebrate the milestone, I ordered shirts for Brian and I to wear to the Magic Kingdom.  My shirt has the names of all of the princesses, and his has the name of their princes.  Precious and adorable, I know.  I'm just happy he went along with it when I surprised him with the shirts on Monday morning while we were getting dressed!  Paired with our happy anniversary buttons, we were perfectly matched for our anniversary.

I've always read that the very best thing you can do to avoid crowds when you go to Disney World is to walk in and turn left into Adventureland instead of heading into Tomorrowland.  That is never in the cards for us on our first visit!  As soon as our kids hear the words "Disney World" they see themselves walking right on Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin and the People Mover!

 We read that Space Mountain was going to be out of service for some of our trip but we were still surprised when we rode through that section on the People Mover.  It's typically pitch black (and always makes for good naps for little ones.  Amazingly enough, Hudson and Finley are both 13 months in the photos), but it was completely lit, and we could see everything!  Kind of amazing to get a glimpse of it!

 We were able to test the new MyMagic+ system while we were on vacation.  I will probably bore you with my review of it at some point, but one thing that I liked was that we could reserve Fast Passes for 3 rides per day in advance.  On our first day I had already scheduled Dumbo, Enchanted Tales with Belle, and the Journey to the Little Mermaid.

Dumbo was all Hudson talked about, so he was definitely ready to climb on board!

We had to stop and take a picture of this girl in front of Rapunzel's tower.  She LOVES Tangled!

 At this point it was raining lightly, but I'm not kidding when I tell you that we were about to get drenched. We road Big Thunder Mountain and then realized we had a surprise fast pass to meet Mickey Mouse, so we booked it over in the rain.

 As you can see, we didn't let the rain dampen our spirits at all.  It was a little chilly, but who doesn't love meeting Mickey Mouse!?

 It was still pretty rainy when we were done with Mickey and Pluto, so we decided to take the train around the park a few times to stay dry.  Plus, every one in this house loves train rides!  

 It was on this trip around the park that we discovered that lines had gotten short and people were leaving.  We decided to take full advantage of the lack of crowds and jumped off the train in Fantasyland.  We road the Barnstormer roller coaster over and over again.  The kids love it!  In just a few hours we were able to ride things it may have taken us all day to do if there had been lines - Big Thunder Mountain Railroad again, Splash Mountain (we were already soaked), and more People Mover and Buzz.  Plus, we still had to visit Belle's Enchanted Tales.  Poor Reesie.  Honestly, there was a huge mistake made (by Disney) with our Magic Bands, otherwise I may have moved that to a different day.  She was able to be in the "tale," but she was soaked and freezing.  But it helped her play her part pretty well - she got to be Maurice, soaked and freezing in the Beast's dungeon!

We spent a little time on Main Street that night, and then headed back to the hotel.  These kids definitely needed a hot shower and some Disney movies before bed. I loved that our hotel room actually had two bathrooms and a couch/living area for us to hang out in.  This pulled out to the bed that Reese and Wyatt crashed in every night!