Disney Vacation - Animal Kingdom

Here's the last recap of our trip to Disney World that we took in March. If you'd like to read about the other days, here's the link to Magic Kingdom, here's the link to Hollywood Studios, and here's the link to Epcot.

Here's Mom and me with Tigger. We love Tigger.

I should mention that it's hard for me to say Animal Kingdom. I always want to say "amminal" Kingdom - saying animal the way Bailey used to pronouce it when she was little.

We went on a safari ride while we were there. We saw some crocodiles.

We also saw some giraffes. I wanted to show you this picture because in the background you can see the cars we rode in.

This is key because after we got off of this ride, and walked a bit away, Bailey realized that she didn't have her cellphone with her anymore. We panicked and searched all the way back to the ride. Of course the truck we had ridden on was long gone. But, lucky for Bailey, this kind woman had her phone. Bailey was thrilled.

I took this picture immediately after we got Bailey's phone back, just to see if I could get Rominal to lighten up a bit. He was a bit angry with Bailey for losing her phone. I didn't know this at the time, but apparently this was the second time she had left her phone on a ride.

I liked how Animal Kingdom had lots of trees everywhere. You really did feel like you were in the jungle.

We took time on this day to meet some characters. Here's Bailey and Mickey.

And all of us with Mickey.

Mom had to kiss Mickey - and he didn't seem to mind either.

Here's Bailey and Minnie.

And Rominal, Bailey and me with Minnie.

Rominal had said all along that he would kiss Minnie, and he was true to his word.

One of the key landmarks at Animal Kingdom is the tree of life. It's carved with all kinds of animals in the trunk.

Inside of this tree (yes, I said inside) was my favorite activity or "ride" of the whole trip. The 3-D show was It's Tough to be a Bug. Mom had seen it before so she was somewhat prepared for the show, but Bailey, Rominal and I were surprised by everything. I won't ruin it and tell you what happens, but I'm still laughing about it.

It got pretty hot on our last day here. And over the 5 days, we had done a ton of walking.

Saturday morning we got up early and started the long drive home. We ended up bringing some poor critters home with us.

It was a wonderful trip - I'm very glad we got the opportunity to see Disney. I'm also glad we waited until Bailey was older. We saw so many parents dealing with strollers, etc. and I was quite pleased we didn't have to do that.

Disney Vacation Continued - Epcot

Ok - back to our vacation pictures. If you'd like a recap, day 1 of our Disney World vacation is here, and day two is here.

On Wednesday, we took the day off from Disney and went to the beach. We went to Cocoa beach, and specifically to the Lori Wilson Park. It was great!



You can see Bailey is loving it.

Rominal is not a water person. He does not like it one bit.


This was as far as we could get him in the water, and that was with a lot of persuasion. We insisted that he put at least his feet into the Atlantic Ocean.

Bailey and I, however, love the water and we played in the waves for quite a while.

Once again, the locals game out to greet us.

On Thursday we went to Epcot. We started early to hopefully beat the crowds. Here's Bailey and my Mom.

And here's me, Bailey and Rominal.

The grounds were beautiful. We walked the most on this day, there was so much to see.

They were having their flower and garden festival, so it was extra beautiful.

We had lunch in Japan.

We all rode the ride Soarin', which makes you think you are hang-gliding over the United States. It was amazing. We knew that ride would get filled up quickly, so we got fast-pass tickets for that. I'm very glad we did.

We were amazed at their attention to detail.

And we love Pooh, so here's another shot of him.

And we couldn't leave Epcot without doing this.

Corny, I know.

I'll post the last day of our vacation recap in a couple of days.

Texas Bluebonnets

I'm interrupting our Disney vacation pictures to show you this because it's Spring in Texas, which means . . .



It means the bluebonnets are in bloom!



I found a field close to our house that has tons of them.


After much persuasion and fussing, I got my family to go with me so that we could take some pictures.

Here's Rominal and Bailey.

And then I took a lot of just Bailey.


It wasn't long before my family had gotten into the spirit.


I doctored this one of me and Bailey up quite a bit.

And here's me and Rominal.


The bees were amazing. They were feasting on pollen.

She didn't eat any pollen. We took her to lunch after this.

We saw lots of lady bugs too.


I "Googled" bees and pollen and I read that the bees have pollen baskets on their legs. You can see the pollen basket in the picture below, it's almost red in color.

Next post will be back to Disney. Pardon the interruption.