(I failed to include a BIG moment from our first day ... a stop to meet some Princesses. Hindsight, I would NOT have waited the 30 minutes to do this had I known/remembered that our Princess Character lunch later in the trip would have meeting these princesses ... however, it was memorable and special. I was bummed that Luke did NOT decide to interact with Cinderella and Aurora!) Here are two photos from that at Magic Kingdom...


So on to Day 2. :)
This day we took a little slower approach to getting moving, simply because we had a late breakfast reservation at Chef Mickey's for 10:25am. (if I could do this over, I would have made the reservation for earlier, this was a late start and ate into our day ...) But, it was nice to have a "lazy" start to the day and the kids even went swimming in the morning BEFORE leaving! WIN!
My grandparents "winter" in Florida. Part of my planning this trip was so that we could enjoy some time with them while on the trip. They live about 20 minues from Disney property (hey, did you know Disney is 47 SQUARE MILES big??? HUGE!). Since my grandparents are so close, they joined us on ANY downtime we had at our hotel and went with us to this Character breakfast on Thursday morning. Chef Mickey's is at the Contemporary Resort. We had to take a bus to get there. Our plan for the day was breakfast, then heading to Animal Kingdom.


(note. Friends, I am NOT a glamour queen on this trip. Know that I hate that. But honestly, it is NOT a trip for that. I wore comfort clothes that could get wet, withstand caring for kids, walk miles upon miles a day and endure sweat with 95 degree temps. The pics are for the memories, not the glamour!)
I must tell you the CHARACTER MEALS ARE THE TICKET. It is the most convenient way to eat a good meal (really fill up actually) and meet many characters that COME TO YOU. They have ti all organized, you just show up. And that we did and met many Mickey and crew!

This next shot is a favorite! Noah doesn't miss a meal (he's sorta like his mama on that one!)


(the shot above is a good one of the shirts my mom got the kids ... Mickey, Minnie and Goofy bodies with no heads for the kids head. CUTE. Thanks Gaga!)
Although breakfast was good...we had issues here. The waitress completely screwed up our billing and we waited NO LESS than 45 minutes for bill issues. That was really frustrating and made our already "late day" start later. They "made up for it" by giving us more fast passes. Although it was a good gesture, the inconvenience was HUGE. After breakfast we had to take another bus to Animal Kingdom. There was a lot of shuffling around this day and that is hard sometimes.
But we made it!

First up we met some of our FAVORITE characters, Doug and Russel from UP! We love UP! It was one of Noah's early favorite's as a babe and so we all know the movie well...quote-ably well. Here is a tip. If you are meeting characters that don't speak (only princesses do) you can still interact with them. I found that quoting the movie lines and asking them movie questions made them interact in FUN ways. For instance, when I saw Doug standing there I yelled 'SQUIRREL!" And he did what he does in the movie. SO FUNNY. I also asked Russel where his "GPM" was and he mimicked that it flew out the window ... which is what happens in the movies. Although my mom said it was "sick and twisted" that I knew this much of the movies ... it made is SO MUCH MORE FUN for me! ;) And the kids giggled like crazy too.

We did the 3D Bugs Life experience which Noah HATED! "I don't wike dat bugs wife!" But it is a cute show that we easily walked right in for with a low wait.
We took a couple of little side treks to see animals and this cool bridge.

Then we took a safari. We had a fast pass for the Safari and it was at 3pm. I wasn't sure if the animals would be active or not, but to our delight, they were! :) It was a fun ride and the animals were pretty close.



And this crazy couple were always muggin' for the PhotoPass camera ...

And then we headed to the Lion King show at the end of the day. I only took one pic with my iPhone for that one and didn't load it yet. That show is AMAZING!! I know we did a bunch of other stuff this day but I either can't remember or didn't grab a photo of it. The day seemed short though because AK closes by 5 or 6 most nights. I still feel like we saw a big part of it but I know we did NOT see it all. In addition, it was another scorcher. The kids each bought those water spray fans that day with their money because they were sweltering. They DID help keep us cool though by pointing them on us!
That evening we ate a late dinner poolside with my grandparents. We had thought about going back to MK for the parade, but were just too tired. The kids enjoyed the pizza and pool party instead! PLUS, the next day was a BIG ONE and we wanted to get some rest.
Whew! Reliving it and sharing it is really helping me remember all aspects of this EPIC trip. (I didn't share Luke's epic meltdown upon entering AK, how Mike had to run back and forth from exhibitis to find his parents and make sure they were OK, how my grandparents sneaked my mom and dad some honey whiskey into the resort that night OR how my sister arrived on her late flight that evening! All in a days adventure!)