Disney! Day 5!!! (Jeff's Birthday!)

Lots of people would DREAM of spending their birthday in Disney... Lots of people would call the trip in itself a gift! But Jeff is NOT lots of people :-). He is his own person, and as I said at the beginning of these posts, he was NOT thrilled to be spending spring break in Disney! So I tried really hard to find ways to make his day one that he would enjoy... starting with breakfast :-)

Typically, on Jeff's birthday, I buy him either Krispie Kreme or Publix (his fav!) doughnuts. But our resort didnt carry either of those as options ;-). So I went with the next best thing. Doughnut HOLES!
And we got him a post card as his card (remember, we had just moved so the things I had gotten in preparation for his day... like a card... went missing in the move). And of course we had to get him a yummy snack for the day. Snickers!

Knowing that he loves animals like he does, I intentionally planned his birthday to be our day at Animal Kingdom! And made a fast pass for the Safari which I was excited for us to get to go on!

Funny thing... I made sure we all got up and got ready early in hopes of catching some kind of opening show this day, as well. I was thinking that all the parks had an opening show, but I guess I was wrong? We got there at 8am (they opened at 9) and literally waited in line to get in. Irony is that there was no reason to wait in line. We had a fast pass for the safari. No reason to rush at all! So, lesson learned. But it did make for a relaxing morning as I didnt feel stressed at all about getting anywhere on time... we were early for everything!

When you first get through the gates the "tree of life" is in the middle of the park... I guess its the main feature of the park (like the castle or globe or magical hat...). I wanted a pic in front of it as a family but i saw ZERO cast members there to take pictures which was a let down! So heres the tree. HA!

Personally, I really liked AK! I loved how shaded it was and how it looked like you were just walking down the streets of Africa for a lot of it. All of it just felt really authentic, to me!

We headed towards the safari first and even took time for a bathroom break... but STILL had time before our fast pass. So we decided to take the walk around and see some of the animals on foot while we waited.

We pretty much stopped the trek on foot at the aquarium area, but not before checking out each of the reptile cages. Mack loved the turtles! And I about freaked over the spiders and snakes. AHHHHH!

We headed back for the safari and I made sure of one thing while in line: to request to sit in the BACK!
I had been told by several people that you get the best pics in the back and its the best place to sit. I could have sworn that Emily was one such person who advised me of that so when we sat down on the back row of the Jeep, I immediately texted her with my exciting news that "we are on the safari on the BACK row!". And her response cracked me up (b/c obviously I was mistaken). She basically said I needed to tell them I get carsick and stop them from starting, get off and sit up front! That the back is super bumpy and that I shouldnt be sitting back there while preggo! Um... scary! But we were already on the move, so I just went with it.

And I'm SO glad I did! YES, it was bumpy. But not bad, really. Mostly because the giraffes kept blocking the road and making us stop/slow wayyyyyy down! But we got to get some nice pics of the animals! And the kids loved sitting back there and getting to look behind us!

My big mistake of the day: I totally forgot my telephoto lens (55-200). So ALL of these were taken with my cheapo lens (18-55) w/ very limited zoom capability. Cool part about that... its obvious as to how close we truly were since I couldnt zoom much!

Hippos everywhere! (look for their backs in the water)

So, these trees are pretty neat because, as the narrator of the ride was telling us, they look like they are upside down... that the roots are in the sky with the bulk of the tree being in the ground! Neat!

The other strange thing is all of the termite mounds you see there. The guy said some get all worn down (like the one above) because of animals scratching their backs on the mounds...) while others are tall!

Isnt that a beautiful sight?!

As soon as we passed the giraffe's they were back out in the road, blocking the next round of jeeps! ha!

The Kids really did love being able to turn around and look out the back and take their time checking out the scenery we had just passed! It really is a beautiful property!

As mack says "El-a-flants!"

LION!

After the safari, we headed a little deeper into "Africa" to ride the train. The train ride takes you to Rafiki's island (an area with monkey's i  presume), however, we really just wanted to let the kids ride the train and didnt get off at the stop ;-)

Rhyan and Mack were being so sweet, playing together and tickling each other. Love those moments!

After our train ride, we headed on out to Dinoland. I was pretty excited about dinoland since Mack is SO into dinosaurs! I knew he would love it! And anytime Rhyan sees dinosaurs she automatically says "Oh! Mack would love that!!!". She's always thinking about things he likes :-)

Rhyan wanted to ride this one roller coaster called "dinosaur". Let me preface by saying that Emily had warned me to NOT let Rhyan ride it. I told Rhyan that I thought it was scary and that she might want to skip it but she insisted and Jeff said they would be fine... So they rode it. And regretted it ;-). Rhyan said it was SCARY!

But while they were in line and riding Dinosaur, Mack and I walked around and visited some dinosaur's of our own!

He LOVED this dinosaur! Sadly, we had a spanking moment in front of this fella ;-). Mack was pitching a FIT, not wanting me to take a pic of the dino. I told him that he didnt need to be in the picture and I just wanted the dino but he was screaming at me like nobody's business. Which earned his bottom a spanking. I HATED spanking him at Disney. But hello, he cant yell at us.

Luckily, we quickly recovered as we rode the dinosaur version of Dumbo and took a potty break. When we came out of the potty, guess who we saw?!!?!? GOOFY! That made this boy pretty happy :-)

There was a very short line so I called Jeff immediately and told him and Rhyan to come right on over so we could get some family pics... we had to let a couple of people jump ahead of us to wait for them, but that wasnt so bad! Mack was so happy to get to see Goofy!

Rhyan, on the other hand wasnt quite as thrilled. She liked them, but she wasnt jumping to hug them ;-)

From the family pics we headed on over to Finding Nemo, the Musical. Honestly, the kids were getting pretty tired at this point. It was hot and we had been there since 8am (it was now around 12:00 I think)

This musical was SO interesting. The "characters" were basically like stuffed animals but were carried around by the actors playing their part...who were also dressed similarly.

The colors were absolutely amazing in this musical! It was memorizing! And it was really a great chance for us to all sit down and relax for a little while... It helped the kids to recharge. And us!

Lunchtime was after the musical and I had been told by several people to try to eat at the bbq place at Animal Kingdom... so we did! I would say that it was definitely good!

We had fast passes for Jeff and Rhyan to ride the expedition everest (yes, Rhyan was tall enough and she LOVES roller coasters!) but JEFF said he was tired and didnt care to ride it and just wanted to head out. I tried to talk him into riding it... because I KNEW he and Rhyan would LOVE it! But in the end I just had to remember that it was JEFF's birthday... so, we left!

More to come about the evening... up next.