Disney's Animal Kingdom

This was our first day with out our expert tour guides. Dan's dad and mom went to the scouting booths this morning with tentative plans to meet us in the afternoon. We started out a little sketchy. Dan has a hard time following a parking assistant dressed up in safari gear insisting that we park immediately next to the hopped up tourists in front of us. We had to remember were we parked, it seemed this day might not be rained out and there were a lot of cars!!!

We walked throughout the Oasis Exhibit and the Discovery Island Trails finding more and more carvings from the Tree of Life. The kids really liked that they could touch all of the carvings.

We happened on the bird show just before it was scheduled to start. Dan had a hard time keeping all of his tree hugger remarks under his breath. Every time they mentioned endangered species or donating to save the rain forest, I thought he was going to just burst. {If you ever want to have a deep and intense conversation, ask Dan how he feels about Global Warming!!!} It was quite entertaining with the birds swooping right over our heads and Chloe thought it awesome that these exotic birds were our bird, Beaker's friends!

Flights of Wonder Bird Show:

There were many shows at the different theme parks that were 3D or 4D. I loved the little extras that made these so much fun. We went to the bug show with Flick hosting in 3D. Between getting stung by a bee in the back or misted with water and our seats moving it was pretty cool. It was really funny to watch Seth reaching out, trying to touch the image floating right in front of him! Here we are waiting in line to see It's Tough to Be a Bug:
Still no rain so far today! We went on the Tricara Top Spin before we passed on the Kali River Rapids. Dan vetoed water rides in favor of staying dry!!! We headed over to the safari ride and were bombarded again with saving the world propaganda. Dan really just wants to turn the entire planet into a huge Dirt Bike track and would like the opportunity to roost anybody and everybody who would defy him this wish...

Kilimanjaro Safaris:

This little guy was a Thomson gazelle or something, nicknamed Tommy:

We saw the gators and the elephants:

I loved the giraffes & the upside down trees with their roots growing up to the sky:

Here I am pointing out the lions:

Unfortunately it started to rain and rain and rain. The downpour was not letting up. The last thing on our list was the musical, Finding Nemo. The show time was two hours away and the rain was not letting up. We decided that Seth falling asleep was an omen and booked it out of the park.


The rain just kept coming and once we made it back to our room we watched out the windows and couldn't see much. Then we watched the TV and they were reporting on the news that many of the roads have been or will be closed and that they had received as much rain or more than they get during their tropical storm seasons...

We had gone to Downtown Disney to do a little shopping and the kids were content to play with their new toys. Seth picked out some Lego's from the way cool Lego store. Dan helped talk him into having a kung fu grip on a dirt bike Lego for ages 8-12, which he wouldn't put down or get talked out of for nothing. We had to get him some he could play with too ~ spoiled! Chloe found the Belle set of Polly pocket type toys and then kept doing this little excited dance when she laid her hands on the Prince Set version. They were all there: Prince Charming, Prince Phillip, Prince Eric, and Aladdin!

I loved this picture of Seth with the sucker Grandma got him. There is a real scorpion in it...