Today we are recovering from yesterdays LONG day at Disney...but what a FUN day it was! We had a BLAST!! WE woke up at 6:30 am and got everyone ready. My brother TJ, his wife Mary Beth, and their son Gavin arrived at Dads (the place we are staying) at 8:00 am and we made the drive to Disney's Animal Kingdom. We arrived right at 9:00 but it took 20 minutes to get to the entrance to the park because of the 17,000 people strong marathon that was running RIGHT infront of the entrance. My Uncle David met us at the entrance and got us in for a day of fun!

We rented a double stroller, let all 3 kids pile in, took a look at the map and decided to head to Africa. We went on a safari and saw LOTS of cool animals. We all had a B LAST spotting animals! Melisa, Cali and Gavin got SO excited to see the elephants, giraffes, lions, and monkeys. It was fun watching the excitment on their faces! We walked around looking at some other aniumals until we were all hungry (we had all skipped breakfast). So, we ate a VERY early lunch...yummy pizza...before heading to the Magic Kingdom.

At the Magic Kingdom it didn't take long for us to make our way to fantasyland where we headed straight for Dumbo the Flying Elephant Ride. The wait for Dumbo was pretty long and HOT so we ended up hitting Ariels Grotto to get slushi's and pretzels...unfortunately the Grotto where you visit Ariel was closed for remodeling so Melisa didn't get to see her favorite princess. :-( She cheered yo when we headed to the Tea Cups. The kids giggled and screamed the whole ride!

Next it was off to Toon Town where Melisa got her face painted...Gavin and Cali weren't too sure about it, so they passed it up. When Melisa was looking like the most beautiful swan princess ever, we headed to Minnie's House to take a tour. TJ even sat down at Minnie's table and had tea...LOL...the loving sister that I am HAD to get a picture! My personal favorite was next though, a visit to Mickey's House for a tour...for those of you who don't know, he was my first love...LOL! THEN, we got to do something even MORE exciting...we went to MEET Mickey Mouse! We stood in line and got to go back and have our pictures taken with the Mouse himself. I was in heaven and Clark wasn't the least bit jealous...he knows I love him!

We headed back to fantasyland where we road Winnie the Pooh's Adventure with our fast pass tickets (I LOVE fast pass tickets). Next we made our way to Tomorrowland for a ride on Buzz Lightyears Space Ranger Spin. I think the adults enjoyed it more than the kids...you get to shoot things and we had a competition going on...Clark won and TJ came in 2nd...Mary Beth and I just had fun trying...LOL! When that was over, we headed to the other side of the park to ride the new Pirates of the Carribean. Unfortunately Gavin started getting really tired durring the wait, so we decided to get out of line and walk them to the front of the park. They have anual passes and decided they could come back out any time and thought it would be best to get him on home. We were sad to see them go, but we completely understood.

We asked Melisa what she wanted to do and surprise, surprise, she wanted to go to the Hall of Fame Tent and see the Princesses! We must have waited for an hour and a half...Cali even fell asleep as we waited...but the joy on Misa's face when she saw the Cinderella, Snow White and Belle was worth it! She was in heaven! She talked to them all and had her picture made with each one. It was her highlight of the day! :-)

Next it was off to ride Snow White's Scary Adventures and Cinderella's Golden Carrousel. We then made our way back over to Adventureland to ride Pirates before we headed home ourselves! We can't believe how realistic the Jack Sparrow "puppets" look throughout the ride. They did a VERY good job. After Pirates, we started the walk back to the main entrance and along the way we came upon the show at the castle, so we stopped to watch the end of it. We always LOVE watching the shows so it was a fun way to end the day.

We made our way through the crowd and road the monorail back to the bus terminal and took the bus to Animal Kingdom and were finally on our way home at about 8:00 or so. It was a LONG but FUN day!

The girls are really blessed to get to go to Disney as often as they do. Thanks SO much Uncle David....it always is such a special treat! There is nothing quite as awesome as watching the excitement on their faces as they experience everything there is to do at Disney! I probably shared WAY too much detail, but we just had SO much fun, I couldn't help sharing! Hope you don't mind. The pictures are on my camera and I will try to get them off soon to share!