where the wild things are

disney day 3 was spent at the animal kingdom. it was the warmest hottest day we were at disney and the humidity was ridiculous as it rained the next day. almost immediately after entering the park we knew this would be our hardest day-it was hot, the park is really spread out and we were starting to drag from our long drive/lack of sleep/immense disney fun.

look who we found at the gate!

miller wasn't really sure what to do with goofy

after making lunch reservation at the rainforest cafe, we attempted a picture in front of the tree of life. i think this sums up everyone's feelings about the heat. and, yes, this is the best picture we got. 

our first attraction was kilimanjaro safaris. as josh said, it made the entire day worth while. it was amazing to see the animals so close. the kids were in awe.

when we were finished, we headed to harambe train station so we could catch a ride on the wildlife express to rafiki's planet watch. we had heard the affection section contained exotic breeds of animals for the kids to see and pet.

 here is one of the exotic breeds. looks like a sheep to me. it was a long ride and walk for miller to pet a sheep. 

in fact, all the animals looked just like the ones happy times farm brings to the preschool each fall.

exotic, huh.

the most amazing details of the animal kingdom are in the street scenes they have created in africa and asia. you really feel like you were on another continent. miller and carter found the african drums on our walk to asia. because josh has been to india, he really wanted to see how the disney created asia compared to the real thing. 

from here, we headed to the festival of the lion king. it was amazing. spencer spent most of the time trying to crawl out of the sling so she could see more of the entertainment. our stay at camp minnie-mickey put us past due for lunch. so, we hurried out of the park to have a little lunch break. we definitely cooled off while watching the animals in the rainforest. since we had never been to the rainforest cafe, the kids were fascinated. we left with just enough time to ride the triceratop spin before traumatizing miller at dinosaur. because he reached the minimum height requirement and loves dinosaurs, we thought why not? ooh, why did we do that? it was one of the roughest, scariest rides especially for a 3 year old. the ride occurs in complete darkness. we rode in an atv that herks and jerks down a path while life size dinosaurs come at you (complete with disney breath-in-face effects). i literally spent most of the time trying to protect miller from the craziness while he buried his head behind my arm. sweet carter just looked at her daddy and asked, "are they real?" to which he replied, "no, sweetie, they are like big toys." after all that, we finished the day with finding nemo-the musical. the big kids loved it, so much so they still sing several of the original songs from it. 

"just keep swimming . . ." 

favorites:
carter: dinosaur (brave girl!)
miller: triceratop spin and kilimanjaro safaris
spencer: kilimanjaro safaris and the rainforest cafe

favorite ride: kilimanjaro safaris

yes, somehow we took very few picture, like we should be ashamed so few pictures. after our miserably hot, full-of-walking, exhausted-looking kids day, we decided to take a disney break. our vacation day four plan was sea world. sea world on february 24th. because they were predicting rain, we opted to hit the outlet malls instead. we are so thankful were not at the park on that traumatic day. we already knew we would have to explain the death of my parents' cat eventually, but we didn't want to have to explain the unexplainable.