Vernon Volumes text

Vernon Volumes text

Monday, March 10, 2014

Animal Kingdom for Connor's birthday with Chris, Abby, Grandpa and Grandma


On Saturday, we went to Animal Kingdom to spend the day with Chris, Abby, Grandma Alice and Grandpa Rick. We had been planning to go as part of Connor's birthday celebration, so it was extra special to get to spend the day with everybody. Chris, Abby and the Grandparents had been at Disney for the last couple days at Magic Kingdom and Epcot and on Saturday we were able to meet up with them.

We arrived a couple hours before they did, so we rode the Safari Jeep and did some of the Wilderness Explorer badges with Connor.





Once we met up with everyone, Connor rode the Safari ride again with Grandpa and Uncle Chris and Aunt Abby.


Andrea, Grandma, Paige and I walked over to do the Dinosaur ride since our FastPasses were a little out of sync with everyone else. Andrea and I rode the ride while Paige napped, and then everyone else rode the Dinosaur ride after we met up with them.




While everyone else rode the Dinosaur ride, we played in the boneyard play area. Connor had a good time running around and exploring and Paige loved climbing on everything. She's turning in to a little monkey.







After the dinosaur ride, everyone went for lunch/snack so we rode another Dinosaur ride while we waited.


After we met back up with everyone, we weren't sure what to do next. We all had Fastpasses to Expedition Everest, but not for another 30 minutes. Connor said he wanted to play some of the carnival type games in the Dino area. We normally don't waste our time and money on them, but since it was for his birthday I thought I'd let him give it a try. I bought 3 tickets for him and let him choose the games he wanted to do. First, he did the basketball game and came very close, but none of his three shots went in. They all hit the rim and bounce out since the hoop is ridiculously small. Next, we did a ball rolling game where you compete against other players. He lost that one too. Last, he picked a ball throwing game where you toss balls and hope they go in to special colored cups.



The blue cup is for the smallest prize, but since he hit two cups they gave him a medium prize. Hurray!


Once it was time for our Expedition Everest FastPass, we went over for our ride. Grandma didn't want to ride it, so Grandpa sat with her and the kids. Andrea and I were very excited for the ride since we've been to Animal Kingdom a bunch of times but have never been able to ride it since the kids are too little for it.



Grandpa took a picture as we came down the biggest drop. We are near the rear third of the train in the pic. Great timing Gramps!


There's one point on the ride where it goes through a tunnel near the scary Yeti. The ride snapped an action pic of our terror.


After the rollercoaster, we went back to the Africa section to ride the train over to Rafiki's Planet Watch area.


We looked at some animals and went to the petting area.


Paige liked petting this big cow through the fence. Right before I took this picture she told me. "To get milk from the cow, you squeeze his butt!".





On the way in to the Rafiki building, Chip and Dale had gathered a crowd for a little dance party. I thought it looked too crowded so went past it, but Paige and Chris managed to squeeze in to join in the fun. They started off with the Hokey Pokey.



After the Hokey Pokey, they passed around a big nut and whoever ended up with the nut when the music stopped had to go in the middle to dance. On the second time around, the nut ended up on Paige. She was too shy to dance, but she pushed in Uncle Chris and Chris was a good sport about it and danced with Chip and Dale.





After riding the train back to the Africa area, we went to the Nemo show and then it was time for our dinner reservation at Rainforest Cafe. The last time we were there, Connor mentioned that he wanted to eat there for his birthday and eat the Volcano dessert. Andrea remembered and set up the reservation for him and he was very excited and had been thinking about the day for a long time.








After dinner, they brought out the Volcano. Andrea was sure to tell them it was for his birthday, so our waiter gathered up a bunch of servers and they all sang for him as well.


The video turned out a little dark, but once they light the candle you can see Connor's big smile as they sing to him.



Vooooooooooooooooooolcano!!! It was really yummy and there was plenty to share with everyone.


After dinner, Connor and Chris went in to the shop to look around. Uncle Chris and Aunt Abby had given Connor a certificate on his birthday that was good for a stuffed animal when they were at Animal Kingdom and Connor had been talking about it all week long. Uncle Chris was very sweet about it and told Connor he could pick out any animal he wanted. Connor picked out the biggest softest frog he could find and we were all very surprised when the two of them came back with it.


After dinner, it was time to say goodbye to everyone and head back to the hotel. Connor was very sad to say goodbye to his best guy Uncle Chris. We gave everyone big hugs and then drove back to the hotel. To try and cheer Connor up, we talked about what he should name his frog. He'd been calling Uncle Chris "Chrissy" and "Kissy" quite a bit, so we suggested "Kissy" would be a good name for the frog and he was very happy with that name.


Once we got back to the hotel we all washed up and went to bed. I wish we could say that was the happy ending to the happy day, but after the kids fell asleep Andrea went to check on them and when she touched Connor he felt wet. She turned the light on and found him asleep and covered in vomit. He'd thrown up all over himself and somehow fell back asleep. Thankfully he hadn't been asleep for too long in it, and thankfully Andrea checked on them. We washed him up and had housekeeping come to give us new bedding. While Connor was in the shower, Andrea asked him what happened and the only thing he remembers is having a dream about throwing up, but he thought it was just a dream. He was fine before his barf incident and all day Sunday he was fine too. He's had a cough lately, so it's possible one of his coughs got extra hard and brought up his dinner. Who knows, hopefully it was a one time thing!

Aside from the barf incident, it was a fun trip to Orlando. Paige and Connor were both very good on the trip and we were happy we got to spend another day with Abby and Chris while they were in town. They were both wonderful with the kids and we hope to see them again soon.

1 comment:

Richard said...

It was a super fun day. We are glad we got to share it with all of you! You captured many of the fun events of the day very well. Nice to relive them again.