I'm combining the first two days at the park in one post. Because I'm lazy and I don't have a ton of pictures for those days. Something happened when I loaded them into the computer and I lost a bunch of pictures. I'm so sad that we lost pictures of Avery with Princess Tiana, Piglet, Eeyore, and our lunch in EPCOT. I love and hate technology. :(
Anyway here are two pictures from our breakfast with Pooh and friends.
This was Jude's first experience with the characters and he loved it. I loved the food. Even though it was a pain to get up early enough to get everybody ready, walk to the Magic Kingdom, get our tickets, etc... it was worth to have breakfast with the characters. We've done breakfast, lunch, and dinner with different characters, and I think the breakfast food is the best. Lunch, umm...not so much. Especially at Hollywood Studios. But this was the second time we've done breakfast at the Crystal Palace in the Magic Kingdom, and we really liked it both times. Fried french toast - YES please!!
This is the only other picture I have from our first day at MK. A red faced Grace with Pinocchio. :)
Kelsey and Joe came with us that day, and I am so mad at myself for not taking any pictures of them. It was a hot busy day, and I just forgot!
Our third day was split between EPCOT and our hotel. It was soooo hot, we only lasted a little bit after lunch before we called it a day and went back to the hotel.
One of the main reasons we splurged on the Contemporary hotel was the convenience of the monorail. It was so nice to just hop on the air conditioned train, that was rarely packed, and go from our hotel to either the Magic Kingdom or EPCOT. Totally worth it with two little ones who need to rest in the middle of the day.
Here's a picture of Grace waiting for the monorail and scoping out the EPCOT map. It really didn't matter because it was so hot that we didn't get to enjoy that park very much. We will avoid the summer months next time we plan a Disney trip!
I can't remember what country the drums were in, but I would guess Africa? Did they have an African section? It was seriously so hot, that I forget a lot about that day. But the kids had fun banging on the drums.
Jude had to give it a go too!
Jude and Nana in front of the big golf ball. ;)
After dragging ourselves around the park until we couldn't take anymore, we came back to the hotel for some swimming. Avery kept opening the bathroom door to make sure everyone was ready to go. She LOVES swimming and couldn't wait to get to the pool!
My little cuties.
The pool felt so good that day.
Cutie with her floaties.
This is what Jude did while we swam. He took a nap with Nana in the air conditioned room.
Can I just say that this trip would not have been fun without my Mom. Having a Nana come with you when you have two little ones is a must! Thanks Mom for coming and helping us stay sane while vacationing with a baby and a toddler. :)
During our afternoon of swimming we talked about what to do that night. We all agreed that it was too hot to drag the kids to another park. So Scottie called the Chef Mickey's restaurant, which was in our hotel, just to see if they had any openings. We weren't really expecting them to since this is a very popular character meal. But lucky for us they had a dinner reservation at 5:30. Woo Hoo!! After enjoying ourselves at the pool, we got ready and walked over to the restaurant. It was one of the best spur of the moment choices we made that week. The food was really good and we got to get pictures with all of the main Disney characters without waiting in long lines at the park.
**If you ever plan a trip to Disney with little ones, I highly recommend booking character meals. Yes, they are more expensive, but if you do the dining plan it works out pretty well. It's a great way to get pictures with the Disney characters without making your toddler stand in a ridiculously long line. If you have a toddler, you know how much they love standing in lines. ;)
A blurry picture with Donald Duck.
The girls loved Minnie Mouse.
Goofy was a lot of fun. You can tell Jude liked him.
Pluto was another fun character. We had such a good time at Chef Mickey's.
*Gracie is wearing her Disney lanyard with her new Disney pins. (it's flipped, so you can only see the back of the pins.) We decided to let her do the pin trading this year and she loved it. We cheated and bought a bunch of pins off of Ebay, and then she had a good collection started so she could trade at the parks. The pins have different disney characters on them, and then you can trade them with park employees who are wearing a lanyard. She had so much fun looking for certain pins, such as tinkerbell and the different colored puffels from club penguin. At the end of our trip she got to buy a 2011 pin. It was a lot of fun, and I think she was at the perfect age for it.
