Day Two - Animal Kingdom

Our second day at Disney we ventured to Animal Kingdom. We got a bit later start {which might or might not have been due to the other half of our party's length of preparation time} and we had an early lunch reservation at the Rainforest Cafe. We ran to DinoLand and hopped on the TriceraTop Spin before heading back to the restaurant.

After our fun lunch, we walked the trails around the Tree of Life. These pictures do not do it justice but this creation is amazing! It is 14 stories high and 50 feet wide, and there are 325 animals carved in to the bark. We spent a lot of time just looking and finding all the different animals... until the first short down pour!

Another favorite was the Kilimanjaro Safari ride. We timed it right and were on this safari vehicle when there was a 10 minute second downpour. It really felt like we were in Africa! The animals were very beautiful and healthy looking, not like at a lot of zoos I've been too. And it seemed like they had a lot more room to roam. Elle loved that the vehicle road through the water. Doesn't take much to amuse these kids. Several times, Grady would call out excitedly something like, "Hey, look there's a gate!" Yes, kids, we came all the way to Disney World to check out the gates:).

We came out of the safari just in time for Mickey's Jammin' Jungle parade. I didn't get any pictures of this, but the costumes and parade "animals" were incredible. We tried an almost all-dayer-no-napper and by the time the parade was over, the kids were done. And so were the adults:). We didn't make the Nemo show, which I was a little disappointed about {and the kids wanted to go}, but I learned quickly that it's pretty close to impossible to do everything you think you're going to do. The best part was when we got back to our car in the parking lot, my windshield was cracked basically the entire way across from the heat. At least we ended up making it all the way home without it shattering...