Animal Kingdom

Our last day at Disney World was spent at Animal Kingdom.  The temperature had cooled and it was a little drizzly, which seemed to keep the crowds at a minimum.  By the end of the day, we practically had the place all to ourselves!

We started the day at an all-you-can-eat character breakfast at Tusker House.  Super cool!  Just like the princesses had done at Epcot, the characters came around from table to table for pictures.  As soon as I saw him I said, "That's the Mickey Mouse who was in Alison and AJ's honeymoon pictures!"

 It was so much fun that morning...

Below is the funniest picture of the whole week.  I had told the kids, "Let's do something different with Goofy: make your funniest face for the camera."  As it turned-out, John's "funniest face" looked very, very angry... Ha!

Likewise funny is the picture below, which makes Christopher look like he's wearing a safari hat.  In reality, Daisy was walking behind him at the exact moment the picture was snapped, and that's her hat.

 Yes, those are waffles shaped like Mickey Mouse.  They were yummy.

And a super big thank you to the characters for my birthday card and cupcake at the end of the meal!

How blessed is my life that when it came time to blow-out the candles I couldn't think of anything to wish for???

 To walk-off our breakfast, we took a walk along one of the trails at Animal Kingdom.

 Animal Kingdom was John's Day, because he loves animals so much.  He had a ball!  For whatever reason, this bamboo-cave structure cracked him up because he said it looked like "animal jail" where they put the animals who are bad.  He then made-up a song which he sang the rest of the day that started-off, "You're in animal jail 'cause you ate a gazelle..."  He and Christopher and Anna never tired of laughing about that song.  :)

  But of course the big attraction at Animal Kingdom is the safari ride.  Because the crowd was so low, we were fortunate enough to get to ride it twice. 

John had hoped to see hippos, so we were happy that he found these:

Nile crocodiles:

 Cheetas:

Rhinos crossed the road in front of us.

The funniest thing of the day happened when our safari bus was passing the lions.  Our bus was full of young school children on a field trip.  When they saw the lions, they squealed loudly.  The male lion raised his head and looked at them almost as if to say, "Mmmm.  Yummy children."

Below, is a Baobab tree, which is the kind of tree under which David Livingston - one of Tim's missionary heroes - buried his wife Mary in Africa. 

 Well, besides seeing wild animals, Animal Kingdom held the one ride that John came to Disney World to ride: Dinosaur.  He and Christopher and Tim tackled that one.  Us girls were too afraid.

 We enjoyed the Finding Nemo Musical, which from what I understand is similar to the famous Lion King production on Broadway.  (The Lion King musical was down for repairs while we were at Disney World.)  As a former drama teacher, I enjoyed the creativity Disney used in animating their characters onstage.

 We also got to eat ate Asian food a restaurant called "Yak and Yeti."   I have to hand it to anybody who has the nerve to put the word "Yak" in their restaurant title.

And the big thrill for the Barnette Fam that day was Expedition Everest, Animal Kingdom's biggest roller coaster.  From a distance, Expedition Everest just looked like a beautiful mountain in the distance...

 But once you got up-close, you could see that it was a roller coaster.

With such short lines, we were able to ride it twice. 

 So in the picture below you see Christopher trying to climb under his chair, John holding on for dear life, and me in the back sitting with a sweet girl who probably no longer has hearing after having to ride with me.

 If you want to experience the ride, here's a YouTube link. 

 Kudos to whoever held the video camera through that ride:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhPTWZ3pJ5c

Next Stop:  Downtown Disney.