Our last day at Disney!

Our family opted to spend one extra day at the Disney parks than the rest of our group, and I'm so thankful we did.  We had the best day! 

 Before the Calhouns and the O'Dells hit the road or the air, I should say, we enjoyed one last character meal at Cape May Cafe.  

 And then we had a good-bye photo shoot outside before everyone went their separate ways.  

 All the grandchildren with Papa and Gigi.  

 The Calhouns with Papa and Gigi.  

 Our party of six with Papa and Gigi.  

 We are so very thankful for these two!  Our Disney trip would not have been possible without them.  It was such a great week! Once we said our good-byes, we headed back over to Magic Kingdom for one last day of Disney fun.  

 Our first Fast Pass was to Enchanted Tales with Belle.  I loved it! We did not have a Fast Pass to this one on our first Disney trip, and the lines were always way too long to wait! It was so great! 

 Every child had a part in her story, and everyone got a picture with Belle at the end.  

 First the girls.  

 And then Carter. He was such a great sport seeing all these princesses.  The Lord sure knew what he was doing when he made this fella the big brother to three sisters!  He is such a good big brother! 

 We caught one last show on the main stage.

 And grabbed one more family picture in front of the castle.  Then, we used our hopper pass for the first time and hopped on the monorail and headed over to Epcot.  

 We wanted to get Papa and Gigi a thank you gift for taking us on such a wonderful trip, and we noticed that Gigi had been eyeing some Coke glasses earlier in the week.  

 We enjoyed a few samples while we were there! When we left the Coke place, we ran over to Paris because there was a coffee mug I wanted to commemorate our time at Epcot.  We also enjoyed Fish and Chips for lunch and some Gelato from Italy.  Epcot definitely has the best food for quick service meals by far! 

While we were on our way to Paris, I ran into one of my sweet college friends.  Laura and her family were just beginning their Disney vacation.  It was so much fun to see her!  I grew up with her husband in elementary school, and then all three of us ended up at UGA for college.  Laura and I both graduated from Grady college, we worked together at the off campus bookstore, were both involved in the BSU, and we played on the winning co-ed intramural flag football team!  So many fun memories with this girl! 

 We also grabbed some more caramel popcorn from Germany to snack on the rest of the day.  And then, we had a little photo shoot, ha! 

 Everyone wanted their picture taken on the blue wall! 

 Sweet Summer.  

 And Story's little pose ;)

 And Tilly.  We hopped back on the monorail and headed back to Magic Kingdom for the rest of the day.  

 With it being a Friday and the start of a new weekend, the lines were really long at Magic Kingdom this day.  We mostly only used our Fast Passes.  We did manage to squeeze in another ride on the tea cups, and lucky me got to ride twice ;) 

 And then came, one of the moments we had waited all week for.  We got to meet Elsa and Anna.  Sigh.  They were all soo excited!  Even Carter! 

 I absolutely adore how sweet Story is staring up at Elsa.  So precious.  

 And how funny is Carter here! He's trying to get a real good look at Anna! Ha! I'm so thankful we got to meet these princesses.  It was the perfect ending to a wonderful trip! 

 We finished off the day with one last electric light parade, Wishes and fireworks.  So fun! 

And then we said good-bye to Magic Kingdom til next time! Thank you, Papa and Gigi for a perfectly magical week!  We loved our time at Disney! 

Epcot!

Spring break would be the reason for the delays in postings, and there will definitely be a post on spring break, as we had just a wonderful week! 

Our fourth park to visit at Disney was Epcot.  I had never been to Epcot before until 2012, when we went on our very first Disney trip as a family.  I love this park!  There are so many wonderful things to see, and we always manage to find lots of characters here, so if you have little ones, it's a great place to fill up those autograph books! 

 As you can tell, the weather was just perfect for our day at Epcot.  

 And I just don't think the view of the ball ever gets old!  We had reservations at Akershus that morning, but we had time for a quick ride through the ball before breakfast! 

 One of my very favorite character meals is Akershus at Epcot.  I'll talk more about it in a later post, but this is the one where you get to meet so many of the princesses!  It's a must if you have little girls!

 We had a fast pass for the character spot at Epcot, which was so great because we got to meet so many characters! 

 We also got to meet Goofy! 

 I love this picture of our four with Minnie, so sweet! 

 Here's the whole group with Minnie! 

 Epcot doesn't really have too many rides, but our favorite by far is Soarin'! I love love love the smell of the landscape as you're Soarin' through the air.  So fun! 

 We got to meet Chip and Dale! Carter was really excited, as he had been looking forward to meeting them.  Story! Can you believe she is right in the middle of them all by herself?! We've come such a long way since our first trip! 

 I've already forgotten this cute bear's name! It will come to me.  I took these three cuties over to meet him.  

 And then, they got to walk him to his bear cave for a break! 

 I stood in line with these two girls for quite a while to meet Mulan.  She is one of Tilly's most favorites, so meeting her was a must! 

 And Belle, we really love her! I had never seen her in this costume before, only the yellow gown.  So pretty! 

 Alice was very cute and funny! Please notice Tilly! That girl! 

 Thanks to Uncle Cory, we were able to meet Jasmine and Aladdin.  We were one of the very last ones to get in to see them! 

 Each time we have been to Disney, Tinkerbell has come to see us while we sleep.  She leaves a little gift for the children, kind of like the Tooth Fairy.  She also cleans our room while we are gone each day! So fun!  One of the gifts she left the girls was a fan from China with their names written in Chinese characters.  She also left Carter a Chinese flag with his name written as well! Such a fun gift! 

 The fireworks at Epcot are really grand, too!  

One last picture of the big golf ball before we left the park! We opted to spend only one day at this park, but I could easily have spent two.  There are so many things to see and do!  Our family did sneak back over on our last day.  I'll share about that in my next post! 

Animal Kingdom!

Animal Kingdom is one of, if not our very favorite park.  I am not sure why either.  Maybe it's because on the day we went on our first visit it was just the perfect day or maybe it's because of Everest - our very favorite roller coaster.  At any rate, we love Animal Kingdom! 

 One the way into the park, we decided that the big 3 and I would make a sprint into the park to try to ride Everest as many times as possible before our breakfast reservation at the Tusker House.  

 And that's just what we did!  We sprinted from the parking lot to our favorite ride at Disney and got in two quick rides all before breakfast! So.  Much.  Fun.  

 These three are rock stars! 

 We had breakfast at Tusker House.  

 All the grandchildren with Papa and Gigi.  The dresses the girls are wearing were from Papa and Gigi and came from Target.  They were so cute! Carter is wearing an Angry Bird Star Wars shirt from my mom.  

 The whole family!

 Right after breakfast, we hit up the safari!

 We were able to see so many animals, too! 

 Pretty Summer. 

 My sidekick and mini me.  I am so proud of this girl.  On our first trip, she barely came out of the stroller and was terrified of all of the characters.  She was such a big girl on this trip, hugging the characters, riding all the rides, and just being her sweet self.  

 She did take a long nap in the stroller while were at AK.  David took the big 3 to ride some rides while I sat in the sun and let Story sleep.  

 Pocahontas is one of Summer's favorite princesses, and we did not get to see her on our first trip, so it was very exciting to find her in Animal Kingdom.  

 She was just beautiful and so sweet with the girls.  

 I love this picture of Summer with her.  Summer was telling Pocahontas that she is her favorite Princess!  Sweet!

 Next we met some of the characters from Up.  

 Our party of six.  

 David and Russell.  

 The Lion King show at Animal Kingdom is one of the best.  The colors are so beautiful and the music is awesome! 

 And once again we found ourselves back at Everest.  

 Do you see us in the middle?

 We shut down the park on our favorite roller coaster once again.  We rode Everest 9x, beating our previous record of 6! Such a fun day! We headed back to the hotel when AK closed for an early supper at the hotel and an early bedtime.  

Cake is just better when it's shared.  Next up, Epcot!