Disney's Animal Kingdom

We love living in Florida!! We spent the day at Disney's Animal Kingdom with the Tyre clan. It was our first time to the park and we had a great time. Ofcourse, our fun day was largely due to the company, but the park was great too. The kids really enjoyed the animals (including elephants, giraffes, hippos, gorillas, rhinos, turtles, birds, a porcupine, to name a few of the highlights), the parade, the carnival games, the 'safari,' meeting Disney characters and the list just goes on and on. It was a hot day but no one (well maybe Brandon but only to convince us we needed ice cream treats) complained about the heat - there was just too much excitement. Here are a few snapshots from our day. Hope you like them.

We were very excited to start the day! And it was definitely a wild time.


They are a good looking bunch, but you can see right away why it was a wild time!

The kids were very excited to meet all the characters. It was surprisingly easy getting them to pose each time. As you can see, we met Mickey and Goofy, but we also got to take pictures with Rafiki, Pocahontas, Jimminy Cricket and Koda from Brother Bear.

There was a fun play area with dinosaur fossils, slides, waterfalls, footprints, and climbing nets that the kids enjoyed. I think they just loved being able to run around without waiting in line!

At Rafiki's Planet Watch, they had several 'animal encounters' where the kids got to see some of the animals up close and learn about their habitats and other characteristics. (The adults especially appreciated that the 'Conservation Station' was air conditioned.) Here you can see MariCagle petting a Gopher Sea Turtle. It was so much fun seeing how curious they were about the animals and how much they actually paid attention and learned. MariCagle was quick to correct me when I mistook the tortoise for a turtle. She and Ward also loved looking for birds and matching them to the bird watching guide. We just had a great time! Thanks Tyres!

Before I wrap it up, I wanted to list a few things I learned today that I thought were interesting and a little surprising, at least to me....

• Hippopotamuses are nocturnal!
• Tortoises (and turtles too, I assume) can feel it when you touch their shell. The shell actually grows out of their spine and has nerves in it.

So now I can call this blog educational too huh?!? :) Hope everyone has a great week!

P.S. In case you were wondering what we did with our newest member of the family while we were gone all day...Albert had a babysitter. A boy who lives here in the apartment complex checked in on our pup throughout the day. It was a little amusing (to me at least) how worried Brandon was about leaving his baby. But Albert is no worse off for the day and we did have a fabulous time!