More About Disney

Disney~Part 2

So after our yummy ummy delicious breakfast at O'Hana, the boys and I headed to Magic Kingdom. Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom are our personal family favorites. Since we love Magic Kingdom so much, we spent the whole day there. This day also happened to be my actual 30th birthday. If I had realized, at the time, that we were going to spend the whole day there, I would have taken advantage of the Disney deal where you get a FREE park visit on your birthday. I never printed my pass out because I was sure we would park hop. Well, we didn't, and I wasted a free ticket. BUMMER! Oh well. We had a blast anyway.

Here is a shot of Tristan and me on the Dumbo ride. Tristan is a good driver. :)
This trip, we actually got to ride the race cars (well, Tristan and Channing did. Since I am pregnant, it isn't recommended that I ride this ride). I got to watch, though. That was fun. On our other trips, the line for this ride was always so long, we just always skipped it. This trip was great, though, because the parks were not nearly as busy as the last two. Woo hoo!
Saturday night,we enjoyed a super duper fabulous dinner at Boma (I highly recommend. Seriously, the food was AWESOME!). Boma was located at our hotel, and it was a huge African-inspired buffet. The food was amazing. Even Tristan loved it. And since it was my birthday, I got a card from the servers, and this extra special dessert. I had already eaten dessert, and I'm not a huge chocolate fan, so I let my boys enjoy it. :) After dinner, we headed back to Magic Kingdom to watch the Magic Lights Parade and fireworks. The fireworks were so incredibly beautiful, and it was really cool to see Tinkerbell fly from the top of Cinderella's Castle (ok, this was a real person, and that is one high castle. There is NO way I could ever do that. She was attached to a cord, but oh my! Scary).Sunday was our last day at Disney. It was a quick trip, and we fit in as much as possible. We started Sunday with a character breakfast at Tusker House in Animal Kingdom. We tried all week to get reservations, but they were always full. Lucky for us, though, we just showed up, and they fit us in. YEA!!!
Here is a shot of my boys enjoying their breakfast. Notice Tristan has a musical instrument in his hand. The characters, and some of the patrons, were doing a parade through the restaurant. Tristan was way more interested in eating but made a little music on the side. :)A visit from Daisy:And Goofy:And since it's Donald's Tusker House, of course, he was there:A family shot with the host:And you always have to have a picture with Mickey!After a great breakfast at Tusker House, we decided to spend our last day at Animal Kingdom. First up, the Kilimanjaro Safari. This is one of our most favorite rides. You see so many animals, right outside your jeep. VERY cool! Here is a shot of the crocodiles. SCARY!!!Some of the African elephants:These trees are so impressive! I forget the actual name of the trees, but they're upside down trees. They look like their roots are coming out the top. I think they're beautiful!Reticulated giraffe. We had these at our hotel too. Incredibly beautiful:I think this is a kudu:Here is a shot of our family in front of the Tree of Life. It's at the center of Animal Kingdom and is really cool. It's got animals cut into the tree. Really neat!Ok, so at one point, I think after seeing the tigers, Tristan wanted to stop by a store. Mind you, it was our last day at Disney, and he wanted to spend his time playing with the store's dragons. Oh yeah. Just what every parent dreams of when they dream of taking their kids to Disney World...their kids wanting to watch tv or play with dragons. Grrrrreat.Here he is in his "sombrero". Yes, I know it's not a sombrero, and I told him several times that it wasn't a sombrero, but I don't think he believed me. Oh well.Here are my boys in Asia. This was taken right after seeing the gorgeous tigers, which we somehow missed on both our last trips. How? I have no idea.Ok, this was the coolest thing! Tristan told me his friend, D, from school was going to be at Disney during the same time, but I didn't really believe it. Well guess what?! As we were getting ready to leave Animal Kindgom, I heard a man say, "Tristan". I was sure it was someone who had heard me calling Tristan's name and asking him to speed up. I turned around, and I saw D's mom and dad. CRAZY! We could not believe that we ran into them. I mean, talk about small world!One last shot from our balcony before we checked out. A shot of my boys at the hotel in front of the animal exhibit:This was some big structure in the hotel lobby. It had something to do with Africa. It was really cool, so I had to get a shot. Of course, Tristan just wanted to get back to his favorite spot...Yep, this was Tristan's favorite spot...the t.v!The flight home...Tristan was exhausted! He passed out before we were fully in the air. One minute, he was watching the takeoff, next minute, this is what he was doing:All in all, this was a super quick but super great trip! It was such a blessing to be able to spend time with Tristan, doing what he wanted to do. You know, I figured he would be so excited to have a weekend focused solely on him, but he really missed Asher. Several times, he said, "I wish Asher was here. He would love seeing that." Or "I wish Asher was here. He really likes Mickey Mouse." Stuff like that. It was really really sweet. See, he does love his brother after all. :)

GREAT trip!

Turning 30...What to Do? Go to Disney, Of Course!

Disney~Part 1
This month, I had the distinct pleasure of turning 30. It was something I dreaded for a whole year, but once it got here, it was ok...not nearly as bad as I thought. Of course, I may just still be in denial, who knows? For my monumental birthday, I was given a fabulous weekend trip to Disney to spend with two of my favorite boys, Channing and Tristan. We went last year (and the year before) but last year when we went, Tristan got sick and missed a couple of days of fun. It was so sad, so we really wanted to try to get him back there this year.
Here we are the morning we left. This picture was taken before 5:00 in the morning. Yeah...really early! Despite the early morning, Tristan was really excited!
Here is Tristan on the plane. He was enjoying his newest gadget, the Fisher Price kids' DVD player. This thing is the greatest! It was such a hit in our household, both boy had to have their own. Oh yeah. It's that great.
This trip, we stayed at the Animal Kingdom Lodge in a villa. The hotel was amazing! Here is a shot from inside the lobby:And Tristan's favorite spot...the lobby t.v. The child loves a cartoon. Every time we went down to the lobby, he had to stop, sit, and watch a quick segment of whatever Disney cartoon was on. Seriously, we were at Disney, and our son wanted to watch t.v.This is a shot of the view from our balcony. The pool was made to look like a lake. Behind the pool was a fence, and behind the fence were flamingos and other beautiful birds.A different angle from our balcony. Over our shoulders, was an area with all kinds of animals: giraffes, kudu, wildabeast, zebras...I forget what else, but it was so cool!Our first day there, we spent our time at Animal Kingdom. I didn't take a lot of pictures the first day because this was one of many visits we've made to Animal Kingdom, and I just didn't feel like having tons of repeats. I probably should have taken more, though. I made up for it the next day. I did, however, have to take pictures of what our son enjoyed most while there his first day. Was it the safari ride? No. Was it seeing the hippo swim right in front of us? Nope. The tigers??? Guess again. It was Dino Land...where we have to pay for him to play carnival games. GREAT! That's my boy!Our first night there, Channing and I planned a big surprise dinner for Tristan. He loves dinosaurs and has for the past couple of years, and prior to heading to Orlando, we found out about a new restaurant in Downtown Disney. It's called T-Rex, and it's owned by the same people who own The Rainforest Cafe. Instead of rainforest animals, this restaurant is all about dinosaurs. We knew it would be cool and that Tristan would be excited, but we didn't realize how cool it would be and just how much Tristan would enjoy it. It was FABULOUS! If you have kids who are into dinosaurs, and you are heading to Disney, you have got to make a point of going to this restaurant. Oh, and on a side note, I had the lasagna, and it was AWESOME!This dinosaur was HUGE and was right at the front of restaurant. It was a t-rex that moved and roared. VERY cool to a four, almost five, year old.This little dinosaur was at the foot of the giant t-rex. Tristan spent some time roaring back at it after it would roar at him. Good times. I'm pretty sure he freaked out a woman nearby with a baby. I think she thought my son was a total weirdo, but little does she know. One day her baby boy will be roaring too!Here is Tristan showing off his dino chicken nuggets. We were in the ice age room, or at least, I think that's what it was called. It was cool because the room looked like ice and would change colors every five minutes or so.Another shot at our table. Behind the boys was a big skeleton of a t-rex.The t-rex:Tristan watching more dinosaurs:The baby wooly mammoth:The next morning, we had a character breakfast at O'Hana. We dined with Lilo, Stitch, Pluto, and Mickey. The food was SO delicious! We've tried most of the character breakfasts at Disney, but O'Hana, by far, has the tastiest food. My fav breakfast spot!
Here is Tristan with Mickey:Lilo:Tristan thought this was hilarious! Pluto came and sniffed him as soon as he got to our table. He napped on a guy at a table across from us. We love Pluto!A family shot with Pluto:Us with Stitch:My sweet boy with Stitch:A shot, minus the yummy fruit, of some of our breakfast. It was so delish!Tristan serving himself. This restaurant is family style. And that juice is amazing! At O'Hana, they call it Stitch juice because "Stitch makes it every morning". At the Tusker House it's called something else, which has totally escaped me at the moment.All in all, our first day at Animal Kingdom and T-Rex was FANTASTIC! Our Saturday morning breakfast couldn't be beat! Stay tuned for more of our trip from Disney.

I am trying to get back to posting about my family. They were the main reason I started blogging. I blog because I don't scrapbook. This was my way to document their lives, yet I haven't done a very good job of it. This is Tristan's third trip to Disney, yet this is only the first time I've posted about it. My poor kids! I've got to get better at scrapbooking or something.

FLASHBACK:
Here is a shot from Tristan's very first visit to Disney World. It was the New Year's before he turned three...two years ago. I was preggers with Asher. Channing and I realized on this year's trip that now all three of our kids have been to Disney at least once. Tristan's first visit was at age two, Asher in utero (and then again last year), and Rhiannon in the womb. Very cool! If Rhiannon never gets to go again, I can always tell her she's been once. ;)