Disney Vacation 2017 (Part 2)

For the first part of our Disney trip, you can find that post here. 

We took a "day off" from our Disney experience trip on Sunday. Joshua's aunt, uncle and grandmother live just an hour from Orlando. We drove there that morning, went to their church, went out to lunch and played games with them. We had pizza for dinner with them, and really enjoyed a day of rest. It was a joy to be at his aunt & uncle's house, see their plants, yard and just be together. They had a brand new game of "Ticket to Ride" and we taught them how to play it. It was a great day!

For our final Disney day, we went to Animal Kingdom, which both of the little girls really wanted to do. It was really neat! We did not go into Avatar, as we are not really interested in that. 

 Love the entrances!

 Inside Animal Kingdom, we liked the big tree, "The Tree of Life" which had cool carvings in it!

 We saw a tiger walking in the water. We also saw kangaroos, water buffalo (and sang the Veggie Tales song!) and lots of birds. We did not get a FastPass for the Kilimanjaro Safari, and waited over and hour to get onto that. It was a big truck with open sides, and you could see the animals in the distance. We saw elephants (my favorite!), ostrich, giraffes, okapi, rhinos (white and black), egrets and many more.

 We saw Russell from the movie "Up!"

We enjoyed the Lion King show, the costumes were amazing! There were people dressed up as all kinds of animals. The monkeys were very acrobatic, and had several minutes of tumbling that they did. There was also a lady dressed as a bird that flew using ropes, while she turned over and around. It was quite impressive! We joked that Olympic gymnasts could do that when they retire. 

 From most of the park, you could see "Mount Everest" which was a ride. We did ride the roller coaster, which was kinda scary! Part of it was in the dark and went backwards! We did several other rides there too, including a dinosaur ride. But our Bethany (age 8) started running a fever that day, and was just plain worn out. After lunch we took her to First Aid (again!) and she got some Tylenol, which helped her perk up for a little while. We ended up leaving the park earlier than we wanted because she wasn't feeling well. She was a trooper! We had dinner, and she crashed for 3 hours! Joshua took the big kids back to Disney World, where they go to ride "Pirates of the Caribbean," which we didn't have the chance to ride the first day. They all loved it, and got to see the nightly light show again!

Another thing that we enjoyed at Animal Kingdom was the "Under the Sea" exhibit. Outside there were fake seagulls that said "Mine, mine, mine!" like in "Finding Nemo". Inside we were just in time for a dolphin show, and got to see dolphins remembering different objects from window to window. We got a cute picture of them smiling at the end!

The next morning, we checked out of our condo, had lunch, shopped a little more, and went to the airport. Bethany didn't feel 100% until 2 days after we came home. We were not sure if she was exhausted or really had a little bug. We were all very tired, and glad to sleep in our own beds late that night! It was such a great trip, filled with lots of good memories. I'm thankful that we were able to go and have a real vacation. It was nice to be just the 6 of us almost every day. The kids were troopers despite their tired feet, long days, and being so done at the end of the day. But some evenings, when the rest of us were so tired, Caleb and Mallory went down to the pool!

We were home for 4 days before we went to the mountains for the Independence Day holiday with Joshua's family, but that's another post. It has been a wonderful summer so far!

Psalm 107:35
He turned the desert into pools of water and the parched ground into flowing springs;

Genesis 1:25
God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.

Genesis 2:19-20
Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals. But for Adam no suitable helper was found.