Disney Weekend Getaway - Animal Kingdom

On Sunday, we finished up our weakend getaway with a day at Animal Kingdom. The weather was perfect, not too cold, but not too hot. We started off by doing A Bug's Life 3D and then taking the train out to the affection section (fancy petting zoo). Delainey was very excited to meet Rafiki since we just watched the Lion King this past week. We did the safari next and almost all of the animals were out which was nice.

Then we headed to watch The Lion King performance and then ate some lunch. Dave & I separately went on the dinosaur ride, but decided it was probably better if Delainey didn't go. I went first to see how scary it was and came back saying no thanks we don't need nightmares tonight from D LOL. It was a pretty cool ride though. So while Dave rode the dinosaur ride, we headed to the kids area where we did a dumbo-like ride, dug for bones in the boneyard and ran around on slides and nets.

We headed home around 4 and the girls were beat. They just don't sleep great in hotels so add that on with staying up late the night before and all the activity from the day, they were both knocked out in 3 minutes. I took Dave's jacket and tied it around the carseat so Delainey's head wouldn't hang. Genius if I do say so myself haha.

This will be our last family trip to Disney until we go the last week in April for Delainey's big birthday celebration. I'm sure the girls will sneak in one more day in between then though :) Another great Disney weekend in the books. 

Disney Weekend Getaway - Dinner with the Princesses

 About 4 months ago I started looking into character breakfasts' to take Delainey too. They all seemed so expensive for literally 5 seconds with each character. I at least wanted a good meal out of it and not pancakes and cold eggs. So I started researching what characters were at what places and found out about the princess dining at Epcot at the Akershus restaurant. Apparently it and Cinderella's castle are the 2 best places to meet the princesses (which Delainey would much rather do than meeting Mickey & Minnie). So I booked dinner several months ago and the time had finally come. 

Honest thoughts, It wasn't worth it. I am so cheap and go to Disney so often that meeting the princesses is not that big of a deal. If you rarely ever go to Disney, it may be worth it. We walked in and met Belle right away and took a picture with her (you can meet her personally in Storytime with Belle at MK). Then we were seated and asked what drinks we wanted. Soft drinks were included alcohol or special drinks with fun cups was more. They had a buffet for appetizers that consisted of meats, cheeses, and seafood. Once we ordered our food we were free to go to the buffet as much as as we wanted. I ordered the sweedish meatballs (the restaurant is all based on Norwegian food) and dave ordered the pork chop. The meatballs were actually very tasty. Delainey opted for the kids mac n cheese with an upcharged lemonade since it had a fancy light on it. Dessert was a trio of rice pudding, apple pie, and chocolate mousse. Why I say it wasn't worth is goes back to me being cheap. I have a hard time paying $52 a person to eat some meatballs I could get at IKEA for $4.99. I was most outraged by Delainey's which cost $32 for some darn mac n cheese. Nutso! Next time I am not ordering her anything since she doesn't eat barely any of it anyway. 

 While we were eating all the princesses came by to say hello. They hug you talk to you for a few minutes, take a picture and move to the next table . We met Snow White, Aurora, Ariel, & Jasmine. I know you are guaranteed to meet at least 5 princesses, which ones are not determined though. After they went around to all the tables, the princesses did one last march through the restaurant and the kids could follow and dance along. 

Delainey loved meeting the princesses. She said numerous times that was the best part of her day, so all in all it was worth it.  I think if you are going to do a character dinner this would be one of the best ones to do.

In all my craziness, I already booked lunch at Cinderella's castle for Delainey's birthday after she gets her hair and make up done at the Bippidi Boppidi Boutique. I kind of would rather not waste the money on it, but I paid upfront and it will be nice to compare the two. So that pretty much sums up our dinner with the princesses. A dinner fit for a little princess too! :) 

Disney Weekend Getaway - Epcot Part 1

Who was I kidding in my last post saying I would be back on Sunday with a recap of our trip. This Momma was exhausted Sunday evening and I'm OCD everyone must be unpacked before I can head to bed. So needless to say there was no time to blog.
We had a wonderful weekend away just the 4 of us. I am so glad that Dave loves Disney as much as the rest of us. This was his first time visiting Epcot (or at least that he can remember) so that was really cool for him to experience.
Saturday morning we woke up, got dressed, ate breakfast, and hit the road to Orlando. We arrived to Epcot at noon, just in time for our first fast pass to meet Minnie & Mickey. Delainey was excited about it, but I secretly scheduled it because I wanted to see how Blakely would do and get her first pictures with the characters. She was not impressed.  As long as Mama was holding her she was ok. When I tried to reach her out to them she would cry. Oh well she will love them soon enough.

After meeting the characters we went off to do some rides. We went on living on the land, Journey through Imagination with Figment and watched a few short films in 3D which were actually really cute!

Then we went on the Finding Nemo ride, explored the aquariums (it happened to be feeding time right when we were there so that was cool to watch), and then D & Dad did the Test Track ride. She was nervous because it was fast, but she came off the ride skipping. She clearly loved it!

We completed most of the rides that D was tall enough for so then we decided to walk the World and look at all the countries before dinner. It really is a cool place especially for those people who have never traveled outside of the USA. I told Dave we were 100% going down to the food and wine festival this fall! We went to dinner at the Akershus palace and met some of the princesses (see separate blog post) then decided to call it a night. The temperature had definitely dropped by the time we finished dinner. We hit up one last ride in the Epcot ball on the way out and headed back to the hotel.

Dave and I were talking on the way home Sunday that we really need to just plan a day to stay and play at the hotel on our next trip to Orlando. Delainey is absolutely obsessed with them! At one point during the day at Epcot she asked if we could leave and go to the hotel LOL. I can't say I blame her, I love staying at hotels too. (well the nice ones that is) She jumps on the bed, takes showers by herself, asks to swim in 45 degree weather, snuggles in bed with her Dad, she just loves everything about it. We finally had lights out by 10 pm and were sound asleep to prepare for another fun day at Disney. This time...Animal Kingdom.

Drive-In Movie Night

Tonight we went to an event held at our church for preschool aged children that was themed Drive-In Movies.  The kids got to make their own car out of a cardboard box, get some treats of popcorn, candy, & juice, and they they sat in their cars and watched the movie Cars 2. It was such a cute idea and Delainey loved it! The movie itself was short lived by majority of the kids. Delainey was over the movie and went on a search for miscellaneous objects and kept taping things on to her car. It turned out pretty cute. Here are some pictures from the night.

I love our church and am so glad they do fun activities for the kids. 

Tomorrow we are headed for a little mini family getaway to Disney! We are going to Epcot tomorrow and have dinner planned with the princesses. Sunday, we are going to go to Animal Kingdom and then headed home. It should be a fun little weekend with just the 4 of us. I'll be back with some pics on Sunday night, but in the meantime you can keep up with our fun on my instagram account! I hope you all have a great weekend! 

Ringling Brothers Circus

Thursday Night, I took the girlies to the Ringling Brothers Circus. I was so excited because it was my first circus ever (unless I went to one as a child that I don't remember). Last year, we bought tickets and I had to go to Morgan's bachelorette party on the same day so I had to miss it. Well this year I bought tickets for a Thursday so the whole family could go and of course, Dave had to go to Ft. Lauderadale for his Stryker annual meeting so he missed it. It was sad Dad couldn't come, but not too sad for Delainey because she got to bring her bestie Collins in Dad's place. The girls did really well cooperating and listening. I was a little nervous to have 3 kids by myself but it was great! Guess I'm ready for #3! haha Not quite yet...but soon. 

 We took our seats (which were dynamite by the way) and "the greatest show on Earth" began. I thought the Elephants looked gigantic and so sweet. The lions and tigers scared me. I was very concerned one was going to bite the trainer. In between the big acts. were clown and cirque de soilel performances. I couldn't believe how many people fit on 2 bikes; the strength they have to support that is nuts!

 Delainey loved the trapeze and the dogs that were doing tricks. She'll tell you her high was when the little puppy went up into the skyscraper and then jumped down to the trainer. Really felt like a Dumbo story making that poor dog jump from so high. :(  He didn't seem to mind though.

It was a very long circus. Almost 3 hours, but all 3 girls pushed through and watched the entire thing. As soon as we got to the car all 3 passed out so I had a nice quiet ride home. I was really impressed and would highly recommend it for anyone who is on the fence. Thursday was perfect too because there was barely anyone there. That is only if you don't have school or work on Friday morning which we didn't. I'll be doing it next year again for sure.