Disney: Day 6

Friday was the day Chris had been waiting for all week! Star Wars Weekends at Hollywood Studios! :)

When we arrived at Hollywood Studios this is what we found standing on the roof of the entrance:
Star Wars music was playing, there were posters everywhere and every once in a while you would hear those storm troopers shout out orders to people! Chris was in HEAVEN!

Once inside, we were handed a special map for the events going on around the park and off Chris, Greg and I went with Kate to find some of Chris's Star Wars heroes while Grandma and Grandad took Daniel to ride the Toy Story ride again (Daniel's favorite!).

Chris meeting Pabloo...the Ewok...

Meeting Luke Skywalker...Daniel was back for this one and was telling him all about his hat!

Chris's favorite part....meeting Darth Vader! We waited an hour to meet this guy!!!!

After meeting Darth, we managed to meet back up with the rest of the family just in time for the Star Wars parade....Jedi Mickey led things off!
After the parade, Chris really wanted to meet Jedi Mickey but he actually ended up meeting Darth Goofy (love his boxers!) and Storm Trooper Donald....fun!
On our way out of the park, Chris and I met Ready Freddy Fiddlesticks who claimed he was waiting for a bus! Chris thought he was serious at first and was so confused! But once he figured out that he was an actor all was good and we were able to play along for a little while!
After spending a little time at Hollywood Studios, we park-hopped over to Magic Kingdom where we did a little relaxing and then hit the rides! We had just a little time at Magic Kingdom before we needed to head over to the Grand Floridian for dinner with Cinderella!

Hanging with Grandad....

Waiting for the train on Main Street...what a great view of the park! Look at that Castle!

When we arrived at the Grand Floridian, we changed Kate into her princess dress that Grandma Marshall made her...she looked beautiful! :) Here she is on the grand staircase (that's what the boys kept calling it!)....

This dinner was beautiful...Prince Charming, Cinderella, Lady Tremaine (the stepmother), Antastasia and Drizella (the stepsisters) were all there...Prince Charming told Daniel that he looked like a little Peter Pan! :) Daniel was THRILLED! Chris thought it was neat meeting a prince as well as a princess!

About 45 minutes into dinner, they announced a waltz and Prince Charming and Cinderella led it off then they all branched out and choose a child to dance with. Cinderella chose Daniel which was so fun and sweet!!!!! He had a great time!!!!
When they were done dancing, Cinderella gave him a BIG hug and then kissed him on the cheek!!!! :) He blushed when I told him she had left lipstick on him! :)
When dinner was over, it was time to go back to Magic Kingdom where we hung out and rode more rides like It's a Small World, Winnie the Pooh (it was the ten year anniversary of its opening!) and the ride Daniel was so anxious to ride....The TEA CUPS!!!!!

It was such a fantastically busy day....the kids got to see Star Wars characters and Princesses all in one day...where else can you do that in the world? :) It was a lot of fun....makes me smile when I think about it!

Next up: Day 7 at Magic Kingdom....our last day....

Disney: Day 5

So on Thursday of our trip, we headed back over to Epcot! Grandma, Grandad, Chris and Daniel rode Soarin' while Greg and I hung out with Kate at the exit...Disney does this cool thing called Parent Swap...if you have kiddos that are too young to ride the ride, you can get a ticket at the entrance to the ride and one parent or whatever can ride the ride in the normal stand-by line and when they get off, then the other riders can get on the ride using the FastPass entrance! Fantastic! :)

Kate and her cute pigtails courtesy of Grandma! :) Thanks Grandma!!!! Love them!!!!

After riding Soarin', we headed over to the Contemporary to have lunch with Mickey and Friends at Chef Mickey's! YUMMY!!!! It was still technically breakfast so we had delicious breakfast food for lunch! :)

Mickey Mouse!

Meeting Goofy....

Donald signing books....

Minnie Mouse! This was the only place we saw her so we were thrilled!

Kate giving Mickey a kiss! So cute....

The view from our table at Chef Mickey's....we could see the Castle and Tomorrowland very clearly from where we were!

On the way back to Epcot, the boys and Greg and I had the chance to ride with the driver of the monorail!!!!! VERY COOL! There is room for four people up front and so we each took a seat and it was almost like riding on a roller coaster! It was raining while we were on it but we didn't care!

Daniel was VERY excited because the monorail we got to ride up front on was yellow which was his favorite color monorail! When we got off, we each got a Walt Disney World Monorail co-pilot license....
Then it was off to do everything we didn't have a chance to do on Tuesday...the only problem being that it decided to rain....a lot! At one point we were back in the countries and decided to make a dash from Germany to the next country over and we got soaked! After the downpour stopped though the boys had fun splashing in puddles and the drizzle that was left afterwards didn't bother us at all!

We headed back to the front of the park after the rain stopped to ride Universe of Energy (which quit working about 10 minutes in...bummer!) and to ride the Figment ride....right outside there were these neat water features where the water would "jump" from one to the next! The boys had a great time trying to catch the jumping water!
Towards the end of the afternoon, we headed back to the countries to find a spot for the fireworks show...we also went on the ride in Mexico which the kiddos LOVED! We found an amazing spot in Mexico and the fireworks shot right out of the ground in front of us a couple of times!!!! Talk about amazing!
Coming soon: Day 6 at Hollywood Studios and Magic Kingdom!

Disney: Day 4

Wednesday was our day to head on over to Animal Kingdom! We got there nice and early and headed for the Safari!The boys were very excited about going in the trucks and seeing the animals up close!!!! Daniel was really looking forward to seeing some elephants and Chris was excited to see everything! :)
The animals were all out and fairly close to the vehicles....a bonus for going so early in the morning!


We then headed out to Rafiki's Planet Watch area where the kiddos got to pet goats, sheep and even a cow! I told Greg that I felt silly that our kids had to travel all the way to Florida to pet a cow when we live in Missouri and there are cows EVERYWHERE! But they loved it!
The kids were also able to meet several characters including Rafiki and Jiminy Cricket!

While walking around the park, we came across this band playing! They were fantastic!

Greg, the boys and I headed over to ride the Kali River Rapids while Grandma, Grandad and Kate went to watch the Flights of Wonder show! The boys LOVED the river rapids! We ended up soaked which felt wonderful since it was 91 outside that day!

To round out our day, we watched The Festival of the Lion King which has to be one of my favorite shows at Disney World! :) The music is fun (and I can sing along and it's so loud no one can hear me!) and the show is fast-paced and the kids are entertained! Wonderful show!!!!
We headed back to the resort a little early and Chris decided to test his strength by trying to lift the star by the bus drop-off point! :)
We ate dinner at the resort and the boys were able to enjoy some VERY yummy desserts!!!!! Daniel had a huge, colorful popsicle!
Chris had a Mickey shaped ice cream sandwich....yum!
We then headed to Downtown Disney and visited the Lego shop and the largest Disney store in existence I do believe! :) We also wandered around a bit and enjoyed the cooler temperatures and all the sights to see down there!

Up next: Day 5 at Epcot!

Disney: Day 3

More prepared on Tuesday, I had the extra camera battery charged and ready to go in the diaper bag! :) We left the resort early because we had a breakfast reservation at O'Hana's at 7:45!!!!! We drove to the Polynesian because it seemed like the easiest way to get there and then we could take the monorail to Epcot! Breakfast was YUMMY! This was by far my favorite meal we had while at Disney!

Daniel eating his Mickey waffles!

Kate meeting Lilo!

Mickey Mouse!

Stitch!

Meeting Pluto!

:) Love this picture!!!!

After breakfast, we headed over to Epcot! The boys were so excited to see "the ball" from the monorail! It is quite impressive!
We immediately signed Chris up to join the Kim Possible team and help save the world from evil-doers! :) He was really excited to be able to be a secret agent and couldn't wait until his check-in time in France!
His check-in time wasn't until 11:30 so on our way to France, we stopped by the Coca-Cola Cooling Spot where you can try Coke products from around the world! Some of them the boys liked and some of them they really didn't! :) One was very much a ginger ale taste and both boys were brave to try it but immediately wanted to spit it out! There was a watermelon flavored one that Daniel LOVED!
Also on our way to France, we happened to meet Baloo coming out to greet people! The boys and Grandma got to walk him to his spot!!!!! How cool! :) They then were the first ones in line to get his signature and a picture with him!

Then it was on to save the world! Chris really thought it was neat getting to hold the phone that was the Kimmunicator and Daniel was in awe of how the whole thing worked! Chris followed clues the Kimmunicator gave him all over France and eventually was able to save the world!

While on our special mission in France, we saw Prince Phillip and Princess Aurora....Kate's first princess!!!!! She really wasn't sure what to make of the whole situation and didn't hang around long! Daniel was very shy and didn't want to go see her at all but Chris went on over, got their signatures and posed for a picture with them!

While traveling through the countries we had a great chance to see various people and things that you can only see in Epcot!!!!!

Colonial Fife and Drum Corps....

Greg and Chris in Canada!

Mary Poppins in Britain....

The Beast in France....

Mulan in China...

We all then headed back to the front of the park to ride Spaceship Earth! The boys were very excited to go for a ride in the "ball!"

After riding Spaceship Earth and playing the games, etc. at the end of the ride, we headed over to The Land to eat at the Garden Grill which is a rotating restaurant! The food was good and the characters were a lot of fun!!!!!

After dinner we did a little more wandering around, and then we found a spot to watch the fireworks and they were AMAZING! It was a fantastic day at Epcot...the most exciting part was that we had a whole other day that we could come back and see what we missed or do something again that we really liked! It was great knowing we had a lot of days to spend at the parks!

Up next: Day 4 at Animal Kingdom!!!!!