We started off day 4 with some horse-back riding at the Village. Both boys loved it and then they got a cowboy hat when they were done. So cute!
After that, we headed over to SeaWorld! This is what Carter had been waiting for, he was so excited!
This is the dolphin stadium where we saw a really awesome dolphin show. They had mccaws fly out over the audience and I'm not kidding, one was inches away from my head. It was really cool. The dolphins were so fun to watch.
After that we got to go feed the dolphins and even got to touch them. It was really neat. Carter kept saying that he wished he could swim with them but feeding and touching them was the next best thing.
Right as we were finishing up, one of the trainers came over and got a dolphin to come right up on this little shelf so Carter could touch more of him. He was smiling so big!
Then he waved "bye-bye" to us :)
We saw some sea turtles - they were so big!
This was as we were leaving, we were all tired.
This was actually the first thing we did. The pictures are out of order because my camera was drying out (someone - Jude - pushed it into a bowl of water) and so these first ones were taken with my phone. Anyways, we got to feed the stingrays and touch them as they swam by. It was really awesome.
There was a seperate pool with 3 baby stingrays in it. They were so small!
Both boys got an airbrush tattoo.
Shamu stadium!
Carter was really excited to sit down close where we would get splashed. The first little splash and he just lost it. He cried for the rest of the show. Good thing we had one poncho for all of us to hide behind whenever a big splash was coming.
The show was really amazing. I didn't get any pictures of Shamu because I was busy with make-sure-everyone-gets-hidden-behind-the-poncho duty. But let me just tell you, he is HUGE!!! It was really awesome.
This, obviously, was before he got splashed. I love this picture.
Our third day was spent at Disney's Animal Kingdom. The boys loved it. We thought it was pretty amazing, too. Both boys were excited to see this scarlet mccaw because they've seen one on their favorite show: Diego.
This is the tree of life, it's in the middle of Animal Kingdom.
This is a dinosaur puzzle where they had to match up the lower jaw with the rest of the head.
T-Rex bones
Jude didn't quite believe us that this dinosaur wasn't real. He was very nervous to get close to it for a picture.
This was all part of Dinoland in Animal Kingdom. Carter is climbing on a dinosaur with lots of other kids. They all tried to slide down his neck and it didn't quite work. Yet, they all kept trying it.
Some Apes. They were putting on quite a show for us. We stopped and watched them for quite a while. The boys were cracking up at them.
After DinoLand, we went over to "Asia". There were lots of tigers. We were so close to them, too.
There were three tigers in this area and there was a path that went right through their home with glass windows on both sides. While we were in there one of the tigers came right up to the window and put his paws up on the glass and just stared at all of us. It was AWESOME! My camera was not ready, unfortunately.
Carter got bored with the tigers and after looking at his map decided that he wanted to see the peacocks. Lucky for him, we walked away from the tigers and there was a peacock right in front of us. He was so excited.
Here they are trying to "spot" all the different fish from their fish guides.
After leaving the "Asia" section, we headed over to "Africa" and got on a safari jeep. Jude wanted to catch some lions and put them in this pocket. Uh.... ok....
Look at those beauties!
This was such an awesome ride! We just drove by all these amazing animals. We were so close to them and there was nothing separating them from us. It was really spectacular.
These are called "upside-down trees" because they look like they're growing upside-down.
There's a lion! We just drove right by him and his lady friends.
We wore them out!
Once we got back from Animal Kingdom we headed over to the pool. It was close to getting dark so it was cooling off pretty quickly. We didn't last long in the pool but it was fun while it lasted.
They had a cook-out by the pool that night and then we, of course, went to get ice cream.
Our first full day in Orlando was spent at Disney's Magic Kingdom. It was so much fun. There were tons of rides that we could all go on together as a family. We didn't have to wait more than 5 minutes for any ride because of our super special badge. It was awesome. I can't really imagine going any other way now...
Once you park, you get on a tram that takes you to a ferry boat or monorail which will then take you to the park. It was a lot of travel time but it was totally worth it. This was on the boat as we could see the castle getting closer and closer! Oh the anticipation :)
She is so dang cute.
Our first ride: It's a small world
They were all enthralled.
This is awesome!
Carter really liked the Peter Pan ride. We went on that one a few times.
Mr. Jude really loved dumbo. He cried every time we had to get off.
Around nap time we took a break in this Wish Lounge. It's right off main street in the park and it's for wish families to go relax. They had juice for the kids and a nice soft place to sit for us oldies.
She got some good laughs as she cruised around like this.
Emperor Zurg!
Carter saw someone with this hat on and told us, "I wish I had a hat like that." So we bought him one. This whole trip is because of him, afterall.
That night we got to see them light up the castle with Christmas lights. It was really beautiful.
This baby really loved the rides!
That looks like a lot of kids. Anyhow, this was the buzz lightyear ride. We got to shoot robots and stuff. It was really fun.
The teacups. Jude loved spinning us.
The Jungle Cruise was Jude's favorite. He thought all the animals we saw were real and they definitely were not. We went on it a few times and the last time the guide let both boys steer the boat. They loved that, of course.
We saw the fireworks and then they did The Magic, The Memories, and You (or something like that) where they project lights and pictures onto the castle. It was really cool but we didn't get to stay for the whole thing since they boys were exhausted and whiny and grumpy. So we headed back to the ferry boat with about a million other people.
It was a really long day but so so fun! I'm pretty sure we got ice cream when we got back that night, too.
And just fyi, I took over 350 pictures so I'm just gonna keep 'em coming :)
