Day 3: Animal Kingdom

So by the end of day 2 I was tired but feeling good illness-wise. We went to the Animal Kingdom. It was my favorite. I thoroughly enjoyed the massive amounts of shade. That heat really got to me. It's exhausting. I mean sure I grew up in GA, but you stay inside or in the pool at all times.

Anyway, the first thing we did was "It's hard to be a bug." The line for it winds you around under the "Tree of Life" so you get to see a lot of the carvings up close. It was amazing. Made the quick moving line enjoyable. Finally, you end up under ground where the bugs reside. It was my favorite show! It's a 4D with out of control effects. In part of it, the bugs try to attack the humans. There was smoke or "poison" and it totally looked like the bug was on top of us attacking, so cool. The kids didn't like it so much. They usually freak out at the tiniest of spiders and individual ants... it's pathetic. Both of the kids hated it, but Chloe at least knows it's not real. The next show we sat down for, poor Everett was all "are the bugs gonna get us?!" He was brave and didn't freak out, but he did NOT like it.

After that, we ate at the Rain Forest Cafe. These are the stools at the bar, different animals. And there was a rain water feature partition that was pretty cool. It separated the restaurant from the store/entry. The rain would fall along the vines...

Anywho, every 20 min. the animals would wake up and start making lots of noise, and thunderstorms would roll through. We sat beside the apes and they were especially loud. Everett didn't like that. Ok, he was sleep deprived. They're both still trying to catch up. But it was a fun place to eat and the food was really good.

After lunch we went to the Festival of the Lion King. That was a pretty great performance! They started in a bare auditorium and gradually built a stage. There were acrobatic "monkeys," and a guy that did a flaming baton and spit fire. But the coolest was the birds b/c they really looked like birds, especially when the girl was strung up high like that.

After that we went to a birds of prey show. It was cool. As we sat down, a flock of white birds flew right over us. And he had this HUGE bird fly to the back of the audience and then right back at these two women - yikes! They had to quit early though b/c apparently there was lightening somewhere in the state of FL, picking up my sarcasm? They cancelled stuff all the time for cloudy weather. Oh well. He also had the little parakeet interact with him as he spoke. It was cute.

So we just chilled for a while. The kids played the drums and we had a snack in a really pretty outdoor restaurant.

We watched a one legged crow find food and Everett started pouting and hid behind this chair. He had to take a break for a diaper change. But as soon as that was done, he went right back to his spot. Weird. Like I said, he was sleep deprived.

After that we went on a safari. It was cool seeing all the animals...

... and an upside down tree. To save water through the summer these things shed their leaves.

... and the geysers.

Last we went to dinoland. The kids rode this thing. And we went to the bone yard.

It's a cute playground with slides and a little waterfall. Everett got soaked right away, losing his pants and everything. Then it started raining a little. They shut down the slides, but we kept playing for a bit before going home.