florida vacation - part 2 - orlando and disney

we were treated to a fun filled day at disney's animal kingdom and magic kingdom thanks to our friend natalie's generous offer to let us in with her employee pass. none of us had ever been to the animal kingdom so we were kind of excited to check it out given madelyn's affection for the local zoo - i told her that it was "mickey's zoo". we planned on doing both parks in one day based on madelyn's recent flexibility with napping. (don't get me wrong, she needs her nap. this was just an opportunity that seems worth the risk of skipping it.) here are pictures and captions to share our disney day.

"miss matalie" (as madelyn says) with peter. this was peter's first trip to disney too. peter is almost exactly one month younger than mason. the first thing we did at animal kingdom was seeing nemo the musical. it was like a marathon singing version of the movie. i was really impressed with how much of the plot they squeezed into 40 minutes. madelyn loved it and it gave natalie and i time to nurse the babies.

we had heard a lot about the safari ride so had to check it out. madelyn liked seeing the baby giraffe and wanted to see the baby elephant too. she was doing a great job listening to our tour guide and the story for the ride was really well done. we have recently started to play "i spy" with her when we go for a walk and the whole time she kept saying, "i spy. i spy." followed by whatever animal we were told to be watching for by the guide. the other memorable part of the ride was when the bridge 'collapses'. it tipped towards madelyn's side and afterwards she kept saying "oh-no! we got stuck in the water!"

mason spent the entire day in his carrier and slept almost the whole time. this picture was of the only time he was awake. we had found a restaurant with air conditioning so that mason could nurse in comfort (for both of us). it was really convenient that we could take mason on all the rides we did that day (except the roller coaster) in his baby carrier.

we also lucked in to photo ops with the characters where we didn't have to wait more than 2 or 3 minutes. madelyn was so excited to see them all too! mickey hugged her so tight that this was the best picture. then with goofy madelyn wouldn't stop hugging his leg and basically had her face in his crotch. goofy had to pry her off a few times before she posed for this picture.

improvised naptime on the bus from animal kingdom to the magic kingdom. so sweet. matt was so good to carry her too. i think he called her "dead weight" because it was so hot and she was so heavy.

after leaving the parks for the day we learned that this was madelyn's favorite thing from our entire day - seeing ariel in the parade! if i had known i would have waited the 40 minutes for her to come back for pictures. oh well.

if madelyn had been wearing mouse ears, this would have been such a classic picture of cinderella's castle.

mason riding "small world" for the first time. you will just have to take my word for it because i couldn't lean back far enough to get any of the ride in the background.

i got the privilege of taking madelyn on her first roller coaster! we rode goofy's barnstormer. it was a more serious coaster than i was expecting, but madelyn loved it! she kept laughing while riding and cried when we got off because she wanted to go again. i can't wait to take her on more coasters in the future. it just occurred to me that i rode my first roller coaster at the magic kingdom too although my experience was not as enjoyable.

i was so proud and excited for madelyn to have her very first slurpie! we don't have slurpies up here (at least not anywhere nearby) and i love slurpies. madelyn told me that it was her "favorite" and had cherry coke like daddy. i opted for banana.

mason really enjoyed this toy of peter's and spent like an hour at a time happily playing under it. he would even grab the toys hanging down and you can see him concentrating on the one touching his belly. this was the first time that he has deliberately grabbed a toy. he also began scooting on his back on this trip. he would move off of his blanket and turn himself 90 degrees in the crib.

madelyn and natalie outside of the rainforest cafe in downtown disney.

mason 'wearing' his "first visit" button. natalie knew to get them for the kids and i was happy to have them. we got one for madelyn even though this was really her second visit.

before heading back to fm for the rest of our florida vacation, we stopped in to visit my friend lindsey. we tried to meet up with two other friends in orlando, but it didn't work out with our tight schedule. hopefully we will get to see them on our next trip.

we were all exhausted and looking forward to some down time at the beach. madelyn did so wonderful when you consider that she had now gone three days without a real nap. she was really hyper on the way back to fm and was a singing machine. i couldn't get it on video because it was so dark and difficult to hear her over the interstate noise (on the video anyway). she also had her only accident of the trip because we couldn't get to an exit fast enough. love.