Magic Kingdom

I had read before I went that the time we were going was the absolute busiest time of year.  I was dreading it until Aydon broke his ankle and then realized with a wheelchair it would be better since 3 of the 4 kids would have a place to sit and hopefully the handicap pass would help out.  Boy, did it!  The park reached capacity before 11am and we were told they had turned 12,000 cars away at that point in the day already.  We got there at 8:15am, just 15 minutes after opening but because of the crowds only got to ride 2 rides before we had to leave for a couple of hours.  We didn't want to leave and knew that there was absolutely no way we were going to be able to get back in.  

It seemed that Disneyland's tree was bigger when we visited that quite a few years back.

 As we were walking out of the park a show was going on and we stopped to watch it.  

 Drew was dancing like crazy, as usual, on Preston's head.

 I love his little jacket that we bought him the night before.  So does he!

 Much to our surprise after being away for 4 hours from the park we decided we had to try to get back in and we amazingly were allowed back in!  Preston told me to get a picture as we were riding the ferry back to the park.

 Since it was 5pm there was hardly anyone around and we got some great entrance pictures.

 That also meant there wasn't anyone around to ask to get a family picture of us.  

I actually convinced my boys to ride 'Under the Sea' with me.  That's my favorite Disney princess movie.

Thumbs up for the Dumbo ride!  Drew was so excited to ride it.  

Zack & I rode together and he kept us all the way up in the air in the entire time.

Drew & I checked out Casey Jr's area while everyone else was riding 'The Barnstormer'.  It was a small roller coaster ride & they all loved it but I passed for the chance to ride Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.  On Thunder Mountain I tried to have Zack sit with me but he sat with Aydon and everytime I asked him if he was doing ok he said no.  :)

With the pass, we were able to ride all the rides we wanted to, which was the majority of the rides, and had a great time.  We stopped to watch the electrical light parade and that was the worst part due to the crowds and trying to find a spot so the boys could see.  

Drew hanging out while we were riding Space Mountain.

 They passed out hats and blowers to everyone.  The boys LOVED those blowers, mom & dad were done with those in about 2 minutes!

How many of you could run around shirtless on New Year's Eve?  He has been obsessed with taking his shirt off lately since he can finally do it himself.

 The color of the castle changed colors all through the night and I loved this deep purple!

The park closed at 2am since it was New Year's Eve and all the boys made it til 11.  Drew was the first one asleep and after I went to go buy us some funnel cake around 11:30 Aydon & Zack fell asleep while waiting.  So Preston, Ty & I got to have lots of funnel cake and Ty got to ride the last ride of the night with Dad.  We had to make one last stop to buy the trading pins we had put off until the end of the day and it woke Aydon & Zack up so as we walked out of that store at 11:50 we got to watch the most amazing fireworks show I've seen.  Because all four parks were doing the same exact show at the same time it was like you were center of attention with fireworks going off in a circle around you.  They were huge, loud and pretty!  It was the first time my whole family was all together and awake to ring in the new year!  Definitely gonna be the most memorable New Year's ever!

Leaving the park was a nightmare! Ty was super tired by this point (he's always the first one asleep and goes to bed early!) but had to walk.  We finally just told him to sit on Aydon's lap since he was fast asleep and wouldn't even know.  Preston & I had to take turns carrying Drew 7 pushing the 3 of them in teh wheelchair in the massive crowd.  It took 2 hours to leave the park and get to the van!  I was not looking forward to the next day.  A 5 hour flight plus 3 hour drive home on only 4 hours of sleep!  I don't think my eyelids have ever been so heavy!  It was worth it though.  Again, we were able to ride all the rides we wanted and had lots of fun together as a family.  I just won't ever go to a Disney Park again when it's busy season though.

Animal Kingdom

When we paid for our flights to Florida I told Preston I wanted to go to Disney World.  We decided with as much as it cost to fly our family there it wouldn't happen again anytime soon so we would!

  Animal Kingdom was the absolute must-do park for us with our animal loving boys.  

 We got there right as it opened and even got front row parking!  Probably because it was FREEZING!  The high for the day was goign to be 59 but at 8am it was around 40 degrees and all we had were sweatshirts!

Their Christmas tree was awesome with all the animals on it!  Preston bought our tickets and got our "1st visit to Disney World" pins as I was taking pictures.  

I had done some research and had a plan in place.  We went and rode Kilimanjaro Safari first.  Since it was so cold a lot of the animals were kept inside to stay warm for the day but the Safari was still good.  I've never been on any safari type rides before and we all loved it.  

 This tree was weird.  It looked like it was upside down and those should be the roots but they were the branches.  

 This cheetah stood on this rock in that pose almost the whole time we watched it.  Great pic!

 2 more cheetah's hanging out.

 Lioness & Lion

 This was my favorite part of the safari.  This White Rhino was chasing the ostrich and an antelope-type animal all over the place.  Since I was taking pictures Preston said it looked like he was chasing everyone from the hay that had been laid out to eat.  

 One of the ostriches stood in the middle of the road and our safari driver just had to sit & wait for him to move.  "Get out of the road Ostrich!"  :)

 Zebras!

 2 tigers

 One of the boys noticed the bananas in the bird part.

 This one was so colorful & pretty!

 Ty's showing the hippo that is sleeping under the water.  Hard to see at first.

 This one shows it a bit better.  

 The gorillas were not out when we first went by because of the cold.  We went back just before they would be put away that afternoon and got to watch them play.  

 That baby was so fun to watch!

 Loved this pose.  He had been digging in his ears then eating it and cleaning his nails & eating it too.  Such amazing animals.  

 I was so happy Preston bought this sweatshirt at Castaway Cay because it made him easy to spot!  

 Drew took an early nap and it was so cold so we bought him a towel to cover him up.

 Aydon checking out the birds on the bird guide.  We rented a wheelchair & a stoller for the 2 days we were at Disney World.  We should've gotten a double stroller and all 4 of the boys would've been able to ride.  Ty was the champ and did all the walking.  Poor little guy's feet were so sore the next day but was awesome and did it all day again at Magic Kingdom.  

 Picture with Mt Everest in the background.  Preston & the older two went on that ride while I sat with the other two and both of them were too scared to go back and ride with me so I had to ride by myself.  It was the funnest ride of the trip too!  Sure wish we could've rode that one again!

After riding Everest, we got our fast passes for Dinosaur and watched Finding Nemo the musical.  It was so nice to be inside for 30 minutes and warm up.  It was like one of the cruise shows so we all enjoyed it very much, including the bubbles they blew at the end. 

 They had a play area inside the Dinosaur area.  

 My favorite picture of Aydon the whole trip!  

We had some lunch while waiting for our fast passes for Everest.  

Zack had fallen asleep at lunch and felt a little feverish but my medicine was in our rental van and I told him just to hang on until we did this ride before our fast passes expired.  

Drew was content playing the drums like he saw on the ship while waiting for us to ride.  

Next we rode Dinosaur.  This time I rode first so I would have someone to ride with.  With much convincing, Aydon went back and rode with Preston.  While they were riding, Zack threw up.  Poor guy.  After he did he felt much better though and was able to enjoy the rest of the day.  I made him throw up in the bushes because I couldn't leave Drew and Ty alone.  It was funny though because as he started throwing up he scared a rabbit out of the bushes and that's his favorite part of the story to tell.  

 Us with the Tree of Life in the background.  

 We passed this cute set up on our way to watch Lion King.

 Since Aydon was in a wheelchair we got to be in the front row handicap seats.  They were the best seats!  I wanted to go back and watch the show again so I could record it but didn't.  I only took pictures with my cell phone.  The audience was divided into 4 sections, each represented by the following animals.  

 Timon hanging out with Pumba during the trapeze performance.

 Great Fire show

 Baloo & King Louie had parts in the shows on the ships but never had photo opportunities so when we saw them at Animal Kingdom they had to get an autograph & picture. 

 The tree of life.  While we were on the Disney Cruise Line transfer buses we had found out that there are 327 animals carved into this tree.  It was amazing!  We loved finding all the hidden animals.

We got to look for all these creatures after we watched the parade and when we were leaving the show "It's Tough to be a Bug".  It was a 3D show starring Flick.  They had one of the termites shoot acid at us (squirting water on us)-Aydon's favorite part, the stink bug sprayed us -Ty was holding his nose, and told us to let all the insects leave first and then our seats had knocking and shaking underneath us-Preston's favorite part (just imagine girly screams).  :)  

The tree at night

This picture and the ones we tried to get on our cell phones just don't show it.  All these white birds were asleep in the trees and because there were so many it looked like lamps in the trees. 

It was a PERFECT visit.  We got to ride all the rides, see all the shows and see all the animals we wanted to.