Saturday, August 23, 2014

Disney!!

WOW! I'm exhausted. It's been a long month--or there about. The last week of July through today has been a whirlwind!!! Especially these last three weeks. Disney one week and school orientations one week and school in-services and start of school for me. And I wont have a break til Christmas. It's good to be busy! Idle hands you know.

DISNEY. Oh my lovely Disney. We had a magical time. My daughter cried the whole time. Tears of Joy and Happiness. I don't really have the words to express it so I'll start with pictures and see what words come.


This is at the rest area just as you come into Florida from the Alabama side. It is just before Pensacola. Pensacola. My first adult home. I was married there and my first daughter was born there. It was hard not to stay there for a couple of days...maybe next time.


Ah, my "room key" from my last visit to Disney. It was my souvenir from Tower of Terror. My favorite ride. I just had to bring it along this trip.





We stayed at the All Star Movies resort. Toy Story was H's first Disney love. Actually Buzz and Woody were some of her very first words. We took this as soon as we checked in and put our bags in the room. It was late, about 10 pm. We had driven from Texas to Louisiana to spend the night with my sister. Then from her house to Disney. It was a long trip, I was beat but it was a fun drive.We listened to Disney songs the whole way....really, what else would we have listened to?

 First order of the first day....always have to get the Mickey waffle. There is no other place that can have a better waffle(ok, so some waffles may...just may...taste better at other places. But, and I mean But, NO OTHER WAFFLE IS BETTER THAN A MICKEY WAFFLE!)





Our first park visit was Animal Kingdom. My poor H. She wanted to desperately  to see and get Pocahontas' autograph. We couldn't find her anywhere.







 Our first ride. Expedition Everest. I was unsure if this should be our first ride. H is(was) not a roller coaster type of person. She was NERVOUS to say the least. It was early and there was no line. There was no time for her to prepare herself or even get worked up about being scared. Which she was. But excited as well. One thing that helped is the fact that she loves all things yeti and sasquatch. Oddly enough we had just watched an episode of Finding Bigfoot about the yeti a few days before we left. So we get in and she is nearly shaking...off we go. I have never in my life heard my H scream like she screamed. Oh it was priceless. She loved every minute of it. She was terrified yet we had to ride it again. We rode it three times. It was amazing.

We didn't do much at Animal Kingdom. We rode the Kali River Rapids...yes we got wet...and just basically walked around a bit and then headed on over to Downtown Disney for our afternoon reservation at T-Rex restaurant




T-Rex is just a dinosaur version of Rainforest Cafe. It was a must for H. Rainforest was one of her favorite places to eat as a kid. I would have to drive her nearly 3 hrs so she could have her birthday lunch there. I know, I know. That smacks of spoiling my kids. But it was summer time and all my girls b-days were in the summer so we would make a day of it. Also, dinosaurs are her favorites as well. Seriously, she could name nearly all of them when she was 5. Jurassic Park is one of her favorite movies. Yeah, dinos are her favorite. So naturally we had to eat there. It was SO crowded and typical of the restaurant genre. But it was fabulous....I must confess....dinos are my favorite too :). While there she had to get the build-a-dino. Yes, she is 19 and had to build-a-dino. It was really cute. And I love what she named it. Crichton. After Michael Crichton, author of Jurassic Park.

After we ate we walked around a bit at Downtown Disney....jeez louise was it ever crowded. There was so much construction going on. And by that time our legs and feet were hurting so bad. Note: if you are going to Disney start preparing yourself a year in advance. Walk, walk, walk!!






I found the legos fascinating! Especially since I never had the patience nor the talent to put more than two or three pieces together myself. And of course, I had to take a pic of the pirate!!!


After DD we headed back to Animal Kingdom to use our last FastPass on  Dinosaur. Oh, if I could only show you the ride picture. H wouldn't appreciate that :). Again, she screamed like no one has screamed before. And again, she loved it.

So that was pretty much our first day. I'm going to stop here and do our next day in another entry. Our first day at Disney was good...a bit sad because H didn't get to see Pocahontas but it was still great!