Florida February: January 30, 2020

(click here for today's pictures)


Even with the extra three kids tonight, we still made it to rope drop this morning at Animal Kingdom. The park opened at 9 so we were almost in line at 8 which meant that we had to leave the house at 7:30. Unfortunately, that meant that we had to wake up at 6:45. Yikes!

It did help the girls waking up since they had buddies over here. Whitman completely put on his clothes and then climbed back into his bed and fell asleep again. Bless, this Disney stuff is tough. The kids found breakfasts, and most were even able to eat before we left.

It was a cloudy day today so it stayed just a little bit cooler than yesterday. However, as we were leaving the park this afternoon the sun came out, and it quickly warmed up almost too much. Most everyone is wearing pants and a jacket though during the day and evening right now. Anderson didn't wear a jacket tonight and was just fine. Meanwhile, I had one my light jacket plus my heavier one, but no hat and gloves. They may have to come out later though.

We worked so hard to make it to the park this morning early so we could ride the new Avatar ride. We call it "new" even though it is around 3 years old. We were not the only ones with that idea-about 10,000 others seemed to walk the path towards the ride this morning. I don't know if it was that many, but it was a lot.

We were in the park and well into the line by the time that park officially opened. The Crafts got a ride swap so Casey rode first, then Traci was able to ride with two kids riding again with her. Abigail and Graham were able to go so Graham was beyond excited about this. He had said yesterday that he hoped to ride two more times on this trip-he wasn't even thinking that it would be today and not just 2 but 3.

We were off the ride by 9:50 and then headed to the Boneyard playground. My kids love playing with their buddies so they were completely happy to play for a long while in the playground. Then we all rode the train to the petting zoo area. The kids found one of the Wilderness Explorer spots and got books to complete. They have stops all over Animal Kingdom where the kids can stop and learn something. This one was a scavenger hunt for animals so they certainly enjoyed that.

We then went to a drawing class and learned how to draw Ed who is a hyena from The Lion King.  I think that everyone really did good. Whitman was pretty frustrated, but even his looked pretty decent. The instructor did really well-it seemed quick a few times, but everyone was mostly able to keep up. 

Afterwards, we had to ride the train back and headed out of the park. We did stop for an ice cream drink-basically a Dole whip with strawberry syrup (maybe it was strawberry-it was red at least). It is certainly nice to take a break-you need a break when you walk over 20,000 steps in a day.

Back at the house, the kids did half of their school again. Really, if we could do half a day of school each day, I would be perfectly pleased. Everyone did their math so that was a lot of explaining and checking that I had to do. Campbell and Keaton were finished early so they swam and were done before Whitman and Graham were able to join them. 

Whitman did get into a bit of trouble today during school. That did light a bit of a fire under him, and he went to town so his stuff didn't take too crazy long. After he finished, I did make him lay down with me for 10 minutes. I was hoping that he would fall asleep since he really was acting like he needed a nap. He didn't take a nap, but I did!

After my nap, there was dishes to put away and laundry to fold. Robby heated up chicken nuggets and made mashed potatoes for supper. We ate and then loaded back up for Animal Kingdom. Tonight our first stop was the safari. None of us had ever done it during the evening time so that was certainly neat to see. The lions were sitting right on their rocks so we could all see them perfectly.

Then we rode the Navi river ride followed by another bite of supper in the Pandora area. The supper was pretty decent, but not nearly as good as Flame Tree. We were pretty scattered around, but right at 7:59, we ran to the Avatar line one more time. 

We were pretty much the last folks in the line, and I think that there were only like 20 of us on the entire ride. We were on the lower level tonight, and I believe that it was the best seats in the place. Once the ride was over, we left the park and walked the mile (seemed like it) to our car.

Back at the house, there was another load of dishes to empty, and Robby and I even made a batch of breakfast burritos before the kids went to bed. Today was pretty fun, and I know that my kiddos are exhausted!

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