Way Back When... We Went to Florida

With all of the sudden trips last fall, and then the holidays, I never managed to catch up here on the blog. I'm going to attempt some of it.

If you remember, we went to Florida at the beginning of October. After a fun day at the beach with friends, we got down to the real business. Disneyworld. We spent the week with my mom (Grandma L), her husband (Grandpa T), T's oldest daughter's family, and a friend of my mom's from New Zealand. Quite a crowd.

We did it all. Magic Kingdom (the equivalent of Disneyland for you westerners), Epcot, Animal Kingdom, even a water park. (Did you know Disney had waterparks? I did!) Plus, we went to the awesome Halloween party at the Magic Kingdom. Seriously so fun.

I would share horror stories, but there really weren't any. No one was hurt or became violently ill. No one got lost. Even the babies were angels the whole time. We had a great time.

(Our only recommendation when you have a large group of varying ages is to not try to stay together too much. Split up for a few hours and meet back up. There are things to do together, but everyone will have more fun if they have some time when they can go on the rides that THEY want to go on.)

Here are some snapshots from Epcot, and then a character breakfast and the safari at Animal Kingdom.

Us in front of the iconic Spaceship Earth

Ethan was a little bit freaked out by the shark teeth

John and Ethan with Goofy (you can see some of the "cousins" as well)

The whole clan with Mickey

Edward being adorable at breakfast.

The Safari ride at Animal Kingdom is my all time favorite.
You actually go through the habitats, getting amazingly close to the animals.

This rhino was a troublemaker. He has been known ram the jeeps and often stands right in their way. We had to stop and wait for him to move and then he stood about three feet away eyeing us while we inched by. I was so busy holding onto the kids I didn't get any up-close pictures.