Disney, Day 5 and 6

This was our last full day at the parks, and we had no agenda, which was great. We decided to go back to Magic Kingdom and just do what the boys wanted to do. This was by far our most favorite day!

 

We started with Haunted Mansion, which was one of the boys' favorite rides. They were not scared a bit! Then, we had an extra switch rider that someone gave us for Thunder Mountain so Joel did that with Hudson, and then I did Splash Mountain with him. I think I got the raw end of that deal...especially since they put us in the very front and we got soaked! :)

 

 We rode Goofy's Barnstormer again, the Little Mermaid ride, Pooh, and a couple of others, just in the morning! We really got a lot accomplished! Ha!

Then, we headed to Tony's to eat lunch in the Town Square and it was really, really good! We wanted to see the talking Mickey, which is right in the Town Square as well, so this was perfect. We ate and walked right over to see Mickey.

 Harrison's reaction to the talking Mickey absolutely made the trip. I've never seen a more excited little boy. This was his favorite thing all week.

 Mickey taught them how to walk like an elephant and they loved that!

 I highly recommend going to this! We waited maybe 20 minutes and were in a room with Mickey all by ourselves and got to spend a little more time with him than just taking a quick picture and moving on.

 It dumps you out right in a store, and Harrison immediately went and grabbed this stuffed Mickey and hugged and hugged him. We knew we had to buy this!

 He goes everywhere with us now and sleeps with Harrison too! It is so sweet!

 When we walked outside, Pluto was out there, so we had to get a picture with him too.

 We attempted to get a picture with the castle in the background...

 Then, we went and set up shop for the main afternoon parade. We wanted to get a good spot on the curb for this one since it was one of the last things we were going to do, so we sat (and melted) in the heat for about 40 minutes.

 It was so, so hot, but we survived!

 The parade was well worth the wait! All of the main characters in one place...

 We finally got to see Elsa and Anna!

After the parade, we went and rode Pirates of the Caribbean one more time and walked through the Swiss Family Robinson tree house, and then decided we had had enough! What a FUN day it was!

That night, we decided to go into Downtown Disney and go to the T-Rex restaurant. On the bus to Downtown Disney, Harrison finally caved...

 He wouldn't sleep the entire week, but he finally wore himself out enough that he couldn't take it anymore. He actually fell asleep sitting up in his own seat in the bus and almost did a face plant! I swooped him up and he never even woke up...not even on the 1/2 mile walk to the restaurant from the bus stop...if you haven't noticed, he's a load and this was the one night we did not bring the stroller. Bad move!

 T-Rex was so fun! The food was pretty good, but the boys had more fun walking around the restaurant looking at all the dinosaurs when they came to life than sitting at the table.

 Harrison still lovin on Mickey!

 Of course we had to make a stop by the lego store, and Hudson was in heaven. I've never seen a boy so obsessed with legos. If anyone has any lego storage ideas, please let me know! I cannot stand seeing little lego pieces scattered throughout my house.

Hudson wanted everyone to know that this is what he wants...

It's for 10-16 year olds, so we told him he had to wait a few years (however, I have no doubt that he could put this together now!).

Hudson fell asleep on the bus back to the hotel that night. It was definitely time for our trip to end. Everyone was worn out.

We did have one more half day at Epcot though. We had been trying to do the Soarin ride all week, but couldn't ever get to it, so we thought it would be good to just get a fast pass the last morning and knock it out. It was a fun ride!

We also saw Chip and Dale!

 We did Turtle Talk with Crush and it was hilarious!

And got in a shark's mouth...

Hudson also climbed OUT of the shark's mouth...ouch!

 

Then, we headed back to the hotel to grab our stuff and headed to the airport. The boys were just as excited to get back on an airplane one more time!

 

Joel and I are still talking about how much fun we had, and Harrison tells us daily that when he turns 5, he is going back to Disney World. We are definitely going to make that happen! We had a lot of people tell us to leave Harrison behind this trip because he was so young, but I am so glad we took him. There was so much for him to do, and despite his one meltdown on day 4 which was totally expected, he was perfect! Hudson did great the entire time, and I was so impressed with how adventurous he was. They were at a great age for all the characters too. I'm not sure how they will be next time...I know for a fact that I won't be able to dress them alike every day! Ha!

Disney, Day 4

We were up bright and early on day 4 to go to an 8 am breakfast with the Disney Jr. pals at Hollywood Studios (which means we had to be at the bus by 7--early!!!). The kids did surprisingly well. They could not wait to see Jake!

 

 I love this picture!

This was our favorite character meal because the characters actually sang and danced too (in addition to coming around to each table), and the kids were invited to join in. It was just a lot more interactive.

First up was Sophia! My boys love Sophia! :) Her head was humongous...

 Then, it was the main event for them...Jake! Harrison always wakes up STARVING, so he was not about to give up his breakfast for pictures with the characters.

 Don't worry, he was happy!

Doc McStuffins is also a favorite in our house too!

 I'm not even sure when Handy Manny even comes on tv anymore, but Hudson did know who he was so we must have watched him at some point before! Hudson loved how he wore his tool belt...just like his Pops!

 Then, it was onto Toy Story Mania, which was definitely a favorite ride for all of us.

 I sat with Harrison and he caught on so quickly to how to shoot! He scored a good bit of points!

 We found Sulley and Mike at Hollywood Studios...we first had to take a picture of the sign in their room. This was our motto! Ha!

 We all love Monsters Inc. so I was glad we were able to see them! They weren't able to autograph our books, but we had fun giving them hugs and taking pictures with them.

After that, Hudson and Joel went and rode Star Tours while Harrison and I went and played in the Honey I Shrunk the Kids playground. Harrison had so much fun playing, and Hudson really liked Star Tours! He kept asking Joel if they were really in space! And ever since then, he's been asking to watch Star Wars. We skipped out on the Jedi training this trip because Hudson has never even seen the movie, but it looks like we won't be able to skip it next time!

 We ate lunch at Pizza Planet (from Toy Story of course!) and Hudson played his first ever arcade game. I told Hudson all he had to do was pop a quarter in there and it would work...I guess times have obviously changed since now it costs SIX quarters to play! Geez!

 There was not a ton at Hollywood Studios for our two boys to do, so we had decided early on that it would be our day to leave after lunch and make the boys take a nap. They had done so well, but we knew they were going to lose it eventually, and guess what, Harrison LOST it on the bus ride back to the hotel! It was a major meltdown over who knows what and he screamed the entire way back. It was actually pretty humorous because everyone on the bus was kind of laughing at him, giving us the "we've been there before" talk with their overtired kids. It was bound to happen, and we could not believe that we made it all the way to Wednesday before it did!

 We ALL took a great nap, and when we woke up, the kids had been begging to go swim in our hotel pool, so we did that for a little while. It had a water slide, which both boys loved. After that, we decided we wanted to go back to Epcot to watch the laser light show and try to get in at the Coral Reef restaurant. We weren't able to get in, but we found something decent enough and then watched the show. It was great! We were so glad we went back for that.

This was a good day. It was definitely more relaxing than the others, which was much needed for all of us to re-energize before our last full day of the trip.

Disney, Day 3

We slept in a little bit on day 3 since we had stayed out late the night before. Animal Kingdom was a little bit further from our hotel than the other parks, so it took us about an hour to get there. We arrived around 10 and immediately went to do the Dinosaur ride. This was Hudson's favorite ride of the whole trip. Harrison wasn't quite tall enough, so again, Joel and I used the switch rider and we both got to do it. It was really fun! We had been warned that this one was scary for kids, but it didn't bother Hudson a bit! Harrison had fun playing on all the dinosaurs outside.

 

 

We had an early reservation at Tusker House for lunch. We were so excited to finally see Mickey and his friends!

 

First up was Donald!

 

Can you just see the joy in Hudson's face when he saw Mickey? These are the things that just made the trip.

 Then there was Daisy!

 And Goofy!

Harrison was ahem, under the table taking care of some business :) when Goofy arrived and of all the characters, "Doofy" is one of Harrison's favorite. He refused to come out from under the table, so we just had to let Goofy go. Thankfully, we were able to snag him again before we left. The Disney staff is so nice...I asked if Harrison could just take a quick picture with him since he missed him the first go around, and it was absolutely no problem at all. They were glad to do it. All was right in the world again once Harrison got that big Doofy hug!

 After lunch we happened upon Pooh and Tigger's hang out spot and there was only a short wait so we jumped on it!

 Harrison got a little intimidated by Tigger. I'm not sure why! We ended up taking a family picture with him, but it was completely blurry. Oh well! We got a cute one of just Hudson with him!

 We did another dinosaur ride that was similar to Dumbo and Harrison loved that. Then, it was time for ice cream to cool us off. This was one of the hottest days.

 We also did A Bug's Life in 3D and it was so cute! Harrison was terrified though and spent his time in Joel's lap! I don't know what they put in those seats, but there is a point where you get "stung" in the back, and it really hurt! Ha! You also get sprayed with water and at the end they do something with the seats that makes it feel like there are bugs crawling out through the seats. It was really great, and Hudson would have sat there and watched the show again if he could have.

 We had a fast pass for the River Rapids ride that afternoon (the wait was 2 hours so the fast pass was a must!). It was at the perfect time. We were so hot, and ready for a cool down. Boy, did we get it! Harrison was just tall enough to do this ride (he did have to it in a special seat with a bar though). I sat next to him and he and I really got the brunt of the soaking! Harrison got upset about it for a second, but recovered and when we got off, he was begging to go do it again! So fun!

We saw all the tigers, which was really cool (obviously we are big tiger fans!), and then headed to the African safari, which was one of my favorite things we did. We were so close to the animals!

Hudson begged and begged to do the Everest roller coaster, but it just looked like it would be too much for him. It had a pretty big drop. He probably would have been fine based on the previous rides he had been on, but it was definitely larger than the others. He was not happy about having to skip that one, but it will definitely be on the list for the next time! Joel and I both really wanted to ride it too!

We stayed at Animal Kingdom for most of the day. Our trip planner had told us that this would only be a half day park, and she had planned for us to go to Epcot that afternoon (next time, Animal Kingdom will be all day for us), and she actually had booked reservations at the San Angel Inn Restaurant in Epcot that night. We just were having too much fun at Animal Kingdom to leave when we should have, but we were able to hop on over to Epcot for dinner. We were glad we went! The restaurant was in the pyramid in Mexico and was about one of the best Mexican dinners we have ever had. There was a volcano inside that the boys could not take their eyes off of, and the atmosphere was awesome (and the margaritas were fantastic!!!). We were definitely tired from a long day, but it was a great end to the day.

The boys loved the big "golf ball" and were being so silly that night. They were completely delirious!

We also did the Finding Nemo ride that night before leaving Epcot and the boys just loved that ride! I have no idea why, but they wanted to ride it again and again! Ha!

We didn't stay for the light show at Epcot that night because we wanted to get back to the hotel (again, trying to stay on top of sleep--ha!), and Joel decided that instead of taking the bus back to the hotel, that it would be fun (and supposedly quicker) to take the monorail to the Magic Kingdom and then hop on the boat. The monorail ended up having a power failure and we got stuck! It was pretty funny. So we ended up getting back really late anyway, but we got to ride on the boat again! Oh well! It was another fun day and we had yet to see a fit out of either boy...it was truly a miracle!