Disney's Animal Kingdom

I am so far behind on my blog it's not even a bit funny. I fell behind initially and then had so many photos on my camera (over 1000) to edit that I lagged even more. Sad day! Here are (lots) of photos from our trip to the Animal Kingdom. I look like such a mom in this photo with my dorky Ann Taylor shorts; it's sad.

See, Emma, I put up photos of you!

I got some really cute ones of Dora. We had a few miscalculations while we were there. Instead of going to see the characters first (what we should have done), we booked it to the same place as everyone else--the safari ride. We got a fast pass, but didn't realize that you can only get one at a time. So, we hiked all over creation to get another set of fast passes, only to discover we weren't eligible until we used our first one. *Sigh*

So then we took Eli (my mom stayed with Dora) to go on the Water Rapids ride (I forget the name) and when we got to the front he freaked out and wouldn't get on. Awesome. So, Whit nobly volunteered to let Emma and I ride and take Eli back. We got on and realized neither of us really even wanted to do the darn ride! So, we ended up DRENCHED all day from the get go. Great. If I look soggy in these shots, it's because I am. (Also that one up above of Dora and me--yeah I was already waterlogged.)

The animal safari was really neat, and we loved it. It really felt like we were on a safari (until we saw the fake baby elephant the "poachers" tried to steal.) But, we tried taking Eli to the bug show. MISTAKE! Don't take your kids if they are under 7! It was scary! This enormous grasshopper yells and threatens to eat the audience, and these bugs "Spit Acid" (while throwing water at you) and it's dark and scary. Eli is pretty tough but he mostly just cried... It might not have helped that we were on the front row.
No I did not tinker with her eyes at all. They really are that color.

We stopped to get lunch and Whit got a shredded pork sandwich and I got turkey. Big mistake. His was way better than mine; so good in fact that when he got up to go get some straws, a duck swooped down and ate the last half of it. I maintain that the reason the duck left mine alone was its aversion to cannibalism. Whit is still mourning its loss. I had lost my appetite though, so I generously gave him my whole sandwich.

Dora enjoyed the french fries, which we let her dip herself!

Eli enjoyed Emma and my mom's fruit plate...

Dad played with Dora...

Eli saw Mickey, far away...

And close by (on the bag).
All in all we had a good day.
And we got to see Mickey one more time on this trip. I was really sad I didn't have my camera ready, because Eli ran up with glee and gave Mickey a big hug when we first got there... I missed it!