Disney 2016 - Day 5

Thanks to park hopping, we bounced between Hollywood and Epcot today.

This was a day heavy on character meetings which Jake thought was delightful.  From start to finish of the trip, he was much beloved by the characters due to his cuteness.  He continually got extra time with them often holding up the overall line and many times had all the characters group around him at the same time.

He was also great at saying cheese repeatedly at picture time.  And, thanks to one character pointing out his Kermit shirt, he then began showing off his shirt (every day, regardless of shirt) to every character.

Events of the day:
Ben lost a tooth in Norway.  He wasn't doing anything specific, it just sort of fell out.  So, we got to clean that up in the Norway bathrooms.
All the kids loved Test Track the most.  That ride brought out their competitive nature as they constantly strove to outscore each other overall and on specific legs.
Jake's faves were Nemo and Frozen which were the first rides where he immediately said "Again" once they finished.
Upon meeting Goofy, Jake got to do the hot dog dance with him and he got extra hugs from Daisy.

Disney 2016 - Day 4

For the majority of this trip, let it be known that Ben did a fantastic job keeping up as the youngest walker in the group.  He was often at the front and worked hard to cover the same ground as quickly as the people with giant legs.  He hit his exhaustion point late on the final full day.  Kate and Drew both clearly started zoning out on the final half day at the parks. 

We took a complete non-park day today due to expected (and real) crowd levels because of the holiday.  We slept in a bit since the water parks opened later.  We hit Blizzard Beach and spent a long time there on water slides.  Jake played in the kids area and did the lazy river.  We hit every piece of that park with pretty short lines and only vaguely searing heat.  We took a sun break and ate at the Wilderness Lodge while also just hanging out in their awesome lobby.  Afterwards, we all shifted to DisneyQuest.  The kids had a blast, the parents mostly just had to follow Jake around.  He did have much fun in the little basketball shooting area and made quite a few shots. 

Fave rides - Kate and the Space Mountain Water slide, Drew was playing tennis at Disneyquest because the game went to deuce 7 times and he won, Ben liked the open water slide, and Jake still liked Hippos even though we saw none.

Disney 2016 - Day 3

Animal Kingdom all day

Our general day was going ride to ride.  For bigger events:
Ben got to visit the first aid station.  At the end of our day, we were heading out of the park, Ben was jogging to keep up and just randomly stumbled.  So, we got to bandage a couple of scrapes.
We ate massive piles of meat at the Flame Tree Barbecue while surrounded by bold cranes looking for a bite
to eat.
While riding the single rider line at Everest, Kate got shifted into a car with the japanese dudes.  Pretty sure they thought she was cute since they asked her age and then took a selfie with her on the ride.  Kate could not have been more uncomfortable and it was pretty funny to listen to her after.
The big 3 kids got to join the soccer party in Africa with goal scoring, headers, and general hilarity.
The bird show is always a big hit.  I got applause for not flinching from a bird flying right over my head.

Fave rides were the safari for Kate, Everest for Drew, Primeval Whirl for Ben, and the safari (hippos specifically) for Jake.

In reality, Jake's favorite is probably always just meeting characters.

Disney 2016 - Day 2

Thanks to hurricane remnants, half of day 2 was in a light to moderate drizzle.  Kept us wet and sometimes cold in a few of the rides, but it totally killed off the crowds which was great. 

We started our day at Magic Kingdom and did most of our normal path hitting big rides quickly and touching on others (especially Jake friendly rides) as time fit.  We also checked into our hotel for the trip (Pop Century).  After a hectic first group of hours at MK, we decided to have lunch at the Contemporary Cafe. 

Since we bought park hoppers, we decided to take full advantage.  We hustled over to Hollywood Studios to knock out a couple of rides like Rockin Roller Coaster and Toy Story Mania.  From there, we sprinted over to Animal Kingdom at night because there were no lines.  Did a couple of safaris and rode Everest three straight times in the dark.

From there, we went to eat at the Grand, were told their lot was full, so we parked at the Poly and walked the short mile jaunt at 9:30PM in an attempt to get there in time to watch the MK fireworks as well.  And we made it. 

Favorite rides of the day were Everest for Drew, Space Mountain for Ben, Rockin Roller Coaster for Kate, and Buzz Lightyear for Jake.

Disney 2016 - Day 1

On day 1, we headed out early Thursday morning because hurricane Hermine was scheduled to hit Florida that afternoon so we wanted to be done driving prior to the worst of the storm arriving.  Much of the previous day was spent figuring out timing and thankfully our final start time worked perfectly.  The drive was calm and easy and we arrived at our offsite hotel with ease.  Since we had a lot of time to kill, we visited the huge McDonalds and ate a little bit of everything then spent a couple of hours at Disney Springs looking at everything (including all the new stuff).  Jake got his first taste of Disney just from statues and piles of merchandise to look through.

Back to the hotel at night which is when the storm hit.  At full force, hotel power went out, the generator (and it's evil sounding alarm) kicked in, we tried to figure out where we were in relation to tornado warnings, and the rain came down in huge sideways sheets.  And all of this was from being in the secondary tail of the storm.  Getting hit by a cat 5 must be an atrocious experience. 

Next, on to the parks.

Salute

Jake and the green army man.

He loves these guys.

Tigger and Winnie!

Eating ice cream at the worlds largest McDonald's

Nine year interview

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Available until Sep 29, 2016

Happy bday drew

Drew at 9 years old

Wearing my 1986 celts t shirt

Ben in action

Sent from my iPhone

Ben's first travel soccer game. And his buddy Carson

Cute Jake Sayings

I know I need to get around to posting Jake's weight and height from his 2 year check-up, but I will get to that soon. I just wanted to write the cute things Jake is saying right now.

First, Jake and I went to wake up Ben last week and I said, "Benny, wake up!" and Jake said, "Ben! Benamin" From then until now, Jake has called Ben "Benamin" more than anything else. It's so funny because nobody calls Ben 'Benjamin' unless we are fussing at him about something (and we still don't often use Benjamin in that case).

I just looked at Jake while he was sitting in his chair eating dinner and said, "Jake, you're so special. Did you know that you're special?" He looked at me and nodded and pointed to himself and said, "God." He's hearing me because I often tell him that God made him special and that God loves him.