Disney World Day 2...Tuesday December 22

We went to the Animal Kingdom on our 2nd day in Disney. Our guidebook told us to get a Fast Pass for the big ride, Expedition Everest first thing. We trekked back to the mountain (that you can see in the background) to acquire our passes. The park was already pretty busy and there was a line just to get a Fast Pass. Bob stood in line while the kids and I went to look at one of the toy stands. Bob was to meet us when he was done in line. Somehow we missed each other. We kept waiting and waiting for him. We couldn't see him in the line anymore. We stood on rocks and trash cans and we couldn't find our tall dad with the orange backpack. I had not put my cell phone in my pocket for the day yet. We didn't know what to do. We prayed. Bob prayed. Finally the kids and I started walking toward Dinoland and we found him. Yeah!

It took us a little while to find our groove at the Animal Kingdom but once we did, we had a great time. We weren't sure that Parker was tall enough to ride Expedition Everest. You had to be 44 inches and Bob had measured him at 42 inches at home (after growing 2 whole inches over the summer!) We tried to prepare him that he might not be able to ride and he complained and whined about it all morning. "It's not fair that they get to ride and I don't. Blah. Blah. Blah." Bob ended up giving it a go to see if he could ride and he just barely made the cut-off with his shoes AND standing as tall as possible.

Here are the things we did at the Animal Kingdom:
Finding Nemo show (FANTASTIC!)
Jungle Trek (that our guidebook rated as BEST but it was not worth the extra trouble we went through to do it - we decided it must have been a misprint in the book)
Circling Dino ride (see picture with arrow pointing at Bob below)
Dinosaur ride
Lion King show (TERRIFIC!)
Safari (tried to get a Fast Pass but they were gone - stood in line for ~1.5 hours for this one)
dinner at the Tusker House (buffet-style)
Bugs Life 3-D show
playing at the Bone Yard - a big playground with fossils, slides, etc. (this was one of our kids' favorite things - it was nice to run and play and be free after being in crowds all day)
admiring the big carved tree (that you see above Bob's head in the following pic)

The kids each brought money with them to buy toys or other things they wanted that we weren't paying for. Caden bought this little stuffed toy near the Expedition Everest ride (which he was too scared to ride at the last minute). The kids carried "Stuffy" around all day. He was their baby and they took care of him. Parker bought a $16 spinning string machine and Allie didn't have enough $ to buy a Webkins fox. I still feel bad that we didn't work with her to find a way to get it. Oh, well.
On the safari.
We saw a lot of animals on the safari and it was a fun ride.

We especially had a blast at the Animal Kingdom after dark. The crowds cleared a lot and the kids loved running ahead of us or lagging behind for a few seconds and running to catch up. We stayed until the park closed at 8 and squeezed as many remaining things as we could. We only missed one thing thing that we would try to do next time - Flights of Wonder.

One more thing...my feet were SO tired after our day here. I walked A LOT trying to get Fast Passes this day and it is a big park.