Epcot Center

Our third day was spent in Epcot Center. The one thing that we loved about Epcot Center was the fact that waiting for rides was done inside. Very nice! It was nice to get away from the heat somewhat and stand in lines in a building. The ultimate favorite ride of Epcot was Soarin' Over California. Although Andy and I were a bit disappointed that they weren't a bit more creative and did Soarin' Over Florida. But Rachel LOVED this ride. Andy and I each took a turn going on this ride with her. It was so much fun to see her excitement. I was quite surprised that she liked it so much. Unfortunately Audrey was too short, so the next time we go...

Both of the girls also really enjoyed the Nemo ride - we went on that at least twice. We quickly discovered that getting pictures with characters in Epcot was much easier. So here are a few:

A few pictures by "bush" characters:
A picture with the new Disney bear, Duffy:

At some point in the afternoon Andy went on a ride called Test Track - which no one else could go on. The girls had fun playing in the water fountains while we waited for Andy:
Here are the girls having fun at Journey into Imagination:

A family picture:
We checked out most of the countries. We really enjoyed the rides in Mexico and Norway. We enjoyed a film in France. While in France we were able to grab a picture of Rachel with Sleeping Beauty (Audrey was sound asleep):

She's awake now and happy!
Here's Rachel in Japan:

We enjoyed dinner in Japan - the girls love chicken and rice! We also really enjoyed a candy-making demonstration. We watched this lady make all these figures (the unicorn was requested by Rachel):

Outside the Nemo ride:
Inside the aquarium area after the Nemo ride:
A quick picture of Rachel as we headed out of the park:

A picture of the girls and I. Andy went to fetch the stroller and caught us snuggling by a fountain as we waited for him to return...

We headed back to our hotel and were able to watch the Epcot fireworks from the balcony of our hotel room. :)

Animal Kingdom

Our second day in Orlando was spent in Animal Kingdom. Animal Kingdom didn't exist when I went to Disney World years ago, so it was a first for all of us. This day was a very low-key day. It was nice! The park closed by 7 PM and we had plenty of time to do and explore all that we wanted to. We enjoyed several shows that day - It's Tough to be a Bug, Festival of the Lion King, and Finding Nemo Musical. Not only were the shows good, but they were a nice break from the heat! Here's our day in a nutshell:

We first went to the Maharajah Jungle Trek. We walked through the jungle and saw different creatures - our favorites were the massively huge fruit-eating bats and the tigers. I was glad we did this first before it got to toasty. Here's a picture of the girls in the jungle:

Audrey and I then checked out some more animals belonging to the ape family while Rachel and Andy went on the Kali River Rapids. Luckily Andy did a good job of shielding Rachel, so she didn't get too wet... Andy then went on Expedition Everest (which none of the rest of us could ride). He really enjoyed this roller coaster and went on it several more times throughout the day. While he was on the roller coaster the girls and I explored and found some characters to take pictures with:

We then met up at the Kilimanjaro Safari. The girls and Andy went on the safari while I had fun people watching! :) The girls enjoyed seeing all the different animals on their safari ride. I believe they went on quite a bumpy road in a truck like this:

Somewhere we fit in some lunch. We then discovered the Triceratop Spin in Dinoland - think, Dumbo ride, but you're riding triceratops. The girls loved this ride and we went on it several times throughout the day. I made the mistake of sending Rachel with Andy on the Dinosaur ride - think Indiana Jones, but with dinosaurs... It was a bit intense for her. Andy had a very scared, sad girl on that ride. Sorry, Rachel! :( The girls still talk about Rachel going on the Dinosaur ride and crying. So, yeah, I should have done my homework a bit better on that one...

The girls really enjoyed The Boneyard in Dinoland - basically a dinosaur-themed playground. Their favorite part was the tunnels and then the water:

They would have spent a lot more time playing around in there, but we were hoping to catch a parade, so away we went... On the way to the parade we took a picture in front of Discovery Island:

We then found a nice shady spot and enjoyed the parade:

Although we probably enjoyed more watching Audrey's excitement as she pointed, danced, clapped, and blew kisses...

After the Lion King show, which we thoroughly enjoyed, the girls enjoyed playing on some drums:

We managed to get a family picture with Thumper and his girlfriend:

The girls and I headed back over to Dinoland to ride Triceratop Spin (while Andy did another Expedition Everest run). On the way we ran into Pooh and his friends...

For some reason Eeyore was just too much for Audrey...
We also couldn't resist a picture with Pluto and Goofy in Dinoland:

As you can see, character pictures happened a lot more often in Animal Kingdom. If we did wait for pictures, the longest we waited was 5 minutes... We then decided to not eat dinner in the park and headed to Downtown Disney that evening for dinner and some shopping. We of course had to stop by a Disney store to pick up a few souvenirs for the girls. By this time they were asking for things, so we got it over with and didn't have to worry about shopping while in the parks the next 2 days. And we had to grab pictures of the girls outside the store with Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty (no line here, either!).

Once again, we enjoyed our day. Animal Kingdom was fun!

Magic Kingdom

Our favorite park was definitely the good, old classic Magic Kingdom. We spent 2 days having fun in Magic Kingdom. There were lots of rides that we repeated several times and the girls loved it. Our first day there, Monday, wasn't too busy so that was really nice. We utilized the Ridemax program to plan out our day and it worked out well for us.

Here are the girls riding the parking lot tram, anxious for their first Disney experience:

As we walked into Magic Kingdom we headed straight back to Fantasyland where was spotted Pinocchio before anyone else did. The girls were thrilled!

Dumbo ride! I believe this was our first ride and quickly became the favorite. We repeated this ride (along with other variations) several times...

We got a lot of rides in the first 2 hours we were there. The girls loved Winnie the Pooh and Peter Pan. They were not fans of Snow White (I think the Haunted Mansion was less scary to them). The carousel, of course, was a hit. We also went to a show called Philharmagic, which Rachel enjoyed and Audrey tolerated. We repeated it on Thursday though - we quickly became fans of shows during the hot afternoon hours. Audrey did have fun sporting the 3-D glasses before she knew what they were capable of:
Here's Rachel near the carousel working hard to pull out the sword:We headed over to Tomorrowland and tried out the speedway. Watch out, Rachel's got control of the race car!

A picture with Alice before we rode the teacups:

The girls' favorite ride in Tomorrowland was Buzz Lightyear. I kind of wished they had incorporated more of the characters from Toy Story, but I think Buzz is definitely one of the popular characters. As we left Tomorrowland, we grabbed a picture of the girls and I on a bridge with the castle in the background:

On our way over to Adventureland we were able to snag one of the few spots left in the shade and watch "Dream Along with Mickey". The girls enjoyed seeing the princesses.

We discovered Aladdin's Magic Carpet ride in Adventureland, which is pretty much the Dumbo ride...

We enjoyed a little ice cream break in the afternoon:
The girls and I on the Jungle Cruise:
Playing after the Jungle Cruise:

We enjoyed Pirates of the Caribbean as well. That afternoon we also watched the Country Bear Jamboree. Audrey really enjoyed this show. It was one of the few shows that she didn't ask when it was going to be over. I think she really liked the bears. We went back to Tomorrowland in the early evening. We did a few rides for the second time. We even did the somewhat dull Carousel of Progress. But hey, there was no wait and it was a cool place to sit for a good chunk of time. That evening we stayed around for the Electrial Parade. Of course we didn't get the memo about having to line up along the parade route at least an hour before the parade began. So the girls watched the parade on our shoulders and they looked awfully cute in their new Mickey Mouse ears:

We then headed back to our hotel. Audrey crashed on the way back to the hotel room. She was exhausted! Totally unresponsive, which is very uncommon for her. And of course Rachel had to pretend to be asleep as well:

Thursday we spent our second day in Magic Kingdom. I was grateful it was our second day, because it was much busier. And really the only ride we needed to go on was Splash Mountain - all the other rides were repeats. We definitely just headed back to the girls' favorites. First off was Fantasyland. Andy made a run to get fast pass tickets to Splash Mountain while the girls and I stayed in Fantasyland. We grabbed a picture with Mary Poppins:

This time we grabbed pictures of the girls on the carousel. We rode the carousel several times that day!

Our Ridemax-scheduled day got a little messed up due to Splash Mountain being closed for a few hours. But oh well, things still worked out. Rachel said Splash Mountain was fun, but she didn't have any desire to go on it again.

Our most unique adventure that day was deciding to duck into Monster's Inc. Laugh Floor. This didn't get great reviews, so we weren't planning on it. But after riding the Buzz ride again and it was the hot afternoon, we decided to enjoy sitting down in a cool place. Well, it didn't disappoint because they were scanning the crowd for a two-headed monster and Audrey was on my lap, so we were selected. We got to answer a few questions about where we were from and the girls thought it was pretty cool to see Audrey and I on the big screen. They also thought it was pretty funny that they thought the Eiffel Tower was in Houston, since they actually know what the Eiffel Tower is and where it is... :)

We did several Dumbo rides again on Thursday. Here's Dumbo, Andy, and the girls:

We hung around until about 7:00 because we had to wait for our fast pass for the Peter Pan ride, which the girls love! After that ride, we grabbed a picture in front of the castle and then headed back to the hotel. We decided to take a quick swim that evening, since we were all tired of being hot and just wanted to enjoy playing.

Andy on the Monorail ride, passed out (pretending to be asleep, of course):

We loved Magic Kingdom. The girls are still talking about rides, characters, parades, etc... Rachel keeps on saying, "When I go back when I'm 6..." Not sure we'll head back next year. Maybe when Audrey is 5 and Rachel's 8... I was a bit nervous about Audrey possibly being too young, but she really enjoyed it and did well. And if you go when they're under 3, they're free! We also enjoyed Epcot and Animal Kingdom. So, more pictures to come...