A Trip to Animal Kingdom - One of the Best Days Ever!

Yesterday was probably one of the best days ever!  The weather was even great!  The only thing that was keeping it from being perfect was that Keith wasn't there too.

In the spirit of the Kolumbus birthday celebration, Annabelle has had a week-long birthday celebration ending yesterday with a trip to Animal Kingdom (THANK YOU MEGAN!) for Annabelle, Corgan, Grammy, Papa, and me. We had a blast... mostly because Annabelle, and even Corgan, absolutely LOVED it! From the safari with zebras (Belle couldn't wait to see the zebras) to the forest with the hippos under water (Belle couldn't wait to see the hippos either) to the train ride to the dinosaur flying-dumbo-like ride to the Nemo show to finally seeing Mickey Mouse in person, Annabelle had a smile on her face practically the entire day... which, of course, meant that we did too. Corgan even had lots of fun on many of these things and was absolutely in awe of the Nemo musical. He LOVED watching the bright characters on the stage and didn't make a peep the entire show. As as added bonus, both kids napped in the stroller at the same time without any crying!

The whole day was great (see the pictures for a play-by-play), but the icing on the cake was when Annabelle got to meet Mickey, Goofy, Donald, and Minnie! Not only did she admire them from afar, but she asked to take pictures with them. At first she was afraid of them and I didn't have any grand illusions that she would actually want to touch them or take pictures with them, but we let her sit there for a little while watching Goofy and Mickey hoping that one of them would wave at her as she kept yelling "Hi Mickey!" and "Hi Goofy!", but instead she saw how much the other kids were enjoying getting to meet their heros and she said "Annabelle take picture with Mickey!" Mickey's line was VERY long and Goofy's wasn't so we told her that if she took a picture with Goofy, then she could take one with Mickey. My mom went and got in the Mickey line just in case Belle actually took the picture with Goofy, and we got in Goofy's line. When Annabelle's turn came, she walked right up to Goofy, then asked for me to get in the picture too, so I did. And we took probably the best picture of the two of us in a LONG time! SCORE!!! So then we went to tell Grammy the good news and take our place in Mickey's line when the lady behind my mom mentioned that she thought there were other characters across the way from where we were, so Annabelle and I went to check it out while Grammy stayed put. We came back to report that Donald and Minnie were over there. Donald's line was shorter than Mickey's so we jumped in his line to try to catch a picture with him before Grammy got the front of Mickey's line. And we did!  SCORE #2!  As we were taking the picture with Donald, I got a call on my cell from Grammy saying that she was in the front of Mickey's line so we RAN across the way back to Mickey and got there just in time to get a picture with him too!  SCORE #3!  Then we ran back across the way to get a final picture with Minnie (note: All of this was at Annabelle's request... I was happy with just the Goofy picture.). As we got close to Minnie's line, I was happy to see that her line was pretty short. But when we got there to get in line, the Disney worker informed us that Minnie's line was closed. We had to wait for Grammy and Papa to catch up with us anyway, so I got out of line yet still stayed within earshot of the nice older gentleman who was the Minnie-line police. Annabelle played her part perfectly as she continued to say "Take picture with Minnie Mouse" and I kept telling her, things line "Minnie can't take a picture with you" and "Minnie has to go to sleep" and "Maybe Minnie will wave bye-bye to you before she leaves". My plan worked because the Minnie-line police guy snuck us into the line even though he had turned away like 4-5 other kids while we had been standing there! So we got a picture with Minnie too!  SCORE #4!!!

After all of this excitement, Annabelle was on a total Mickey Mouse high.  She didn't want to ride in her stroller after that and she even walked (and ran) all of the way to our car.  She was running and singing "Hot Dog" (from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse) with her Mommy right there beside her doing the same thing and there was just no getting the huge grin off of her face (not that I was trying to!)!  She was on cloud nine!

Check out the pictures from our wonderful day-of-fun that ended Annabelle's birthday week.  There are some great ones, but there are also some pictures that I'm sure would have been really great too that aren't in there.  Unfortunately I took a few pictures without a memory card in the camera before I realized my mistake.  I missed some good pictures of _____ and, most importantly, a picture with Miss Megan!  I'm just glad that I realized my brain-fart when I did!

Anyway, if you have a toddler who loves animals, thrills, and Nemo and you haven't taken him or her to Animal Kingdom, I highly recommend that you plan a trip there immediately!  I'm sure we'll be going back before too long!  Thank you again Megan!

5 comments:

ljkolumbus said...

Yes, it was a WONDERFUL DAY!! Grammy and Papa were so blessed to be a part of this wonderful adventure in the life of our Keri Doll and her real live dolls, Belle and Corgan!! What great memories we are creating with our grandbabies! Thank you Keri, Belle and Corgan for sharing your day with us!! We Love you SO MUCH, Grammy and Papa

Angelle said...

Looking at your pictures, I CAN'T WAIT to come visit you! I want to see those kids in person. Don't you LOVE having your parents do so much with you and your kiddos? I would take my mom everywhere with me if I could. :)

Christina said...

Amen for grandparents :-)

I can't wait to see everyone too. It will be fun to see all of the kids together.

I love all of the pics of the party and animal kingdom. It looked like so much fun...I'm a little happy I didn't have to embarass myself on roller skates though :-)

Kelly Albert said...

AW... I so wish we could have been there for Belle's bday week, but maybe another time! GREAT picture of you two and goofy! Smoozin her way through the lines- good job! Wait till she has to sell girl scout cookies and $10 gift card books :) Huh, Keri? hehe! Love you guys so much! Can't wait to see you again!

megAstar said...

Great pics! I'm glad you had such a successful day! I do love the Nemo show, also. It's so well done!
Come back any time!!!