Disney Part 3 (Day 5 and 6)

We decided on Tuesday to go to Hollywood studios as there were many characters to see including Ariel!

Our first stop was "The Voyage of the Little Mermaid." Here we are waiting to get into the show:

We ate lunch that day at the Sci-Fi Theater! :)

Then Ellie played in the "Honey I Shrunk the Kids" play area with Lola and Siri while Tod and I did the "Rock 'N Roll Roller Coaster" and "Tower of Terror"

Then of course we did the backlot tour! :) (Ellie stayed on Tod's shoulders most of the Disney trip-Thanks, Tod!)

Here we are in line making our way through props to get to the bus:

And although there were huge explosions of fire and rushes of water, Ellie and Siri loved the tour and did not show one sign of fear the entire time, much to my surprise! It was scary!!

As we were on our way out of the park (it was getting late and we were ALL tired), we saw a small line of kids forming who were waiting to get their pictures taken with characters from Monsters Inc. We couldn't resist:

And then we decided that was it! It was a long enough day and the kids were tired! Until we saw.....BUZZ AND WOODY!

Even Ellie perked up to see these guys! :)

And now we're really leaving...

The next day we were off to Animal Kingdom! From what I remember, this park was new the last time I was at Disney so we didn't spend a lot of time there and I wasn't too interested in going back there again this time. But it was actually a lot of fun and there were plenty of kid activities! Ellie and Siri love animals (as I'm sure most kids their age do) so this was all very exciting to them!

Here's Ellie waiting for the tram:

I love all the green!!

We are bugs at the bug show! :)

We found a petting zoo!

I love this one of Ellie playing "Mancala"

Poor Siri is thirsty!

The last thing we did at the Animal Kingdom was the Kilimanjaro tour:

Then it was off to Epcot again to actually go on the Nemo ride; which was awesome, by the way!

The aquarium you see after you get off the ride was quite impressive!

They also had a lot of little fish tanks with all different kinds of fish in them. :) We ate dinner in Italy that night (AMAZING food) and then stayed around to watch the fireworks show:

Goodbye Epcot!

Disney Part 2 (Day 3 and 4)

Since the girls had officially taken a nap on Sunday we decided when Tod and my mom arrived that evening that it would be appropriate to stay out....way. too. late. But actually you probably wont' be able to tell from the pictures that it was way past their bedtime as Ellie and Siri were too excited to care!

When Tod and my mom came, we decided to go to downtown Disney and eat dinner! :) We went to T-Rex! It was a cool place with big dinosaurs and climate changes while you eat!

We ate in the "Cave" which changed colors while you were sitting there!

And here Tod and Ellie are under a huge octopus! It was really cool! :)

Then we walked around downtown disney for a bit passing by Cinderella:

And Sleeping Beauty:

And Ellie got new PJ's! :)

On Monday we decided to go to Universal Studios to get away from Disney for a while. We LOVED it and actually decided to go back as we didn't get to everything we wanted to.

Our first stop was the E.T. ride which Ellie still talks about to this day which may be because we went on it a million times in a row!

Then we saw a Curious George play area! It had a Curious George story written out on huge "books" where each station had a different page open (you couldn't turn the page as it was a statue of sorts).

Then we SAW Curious George (how appropriate)! Ellie and Siri were very excited, needless to say!

Then we saw a 4D shrek show that was so fun! The fourth dimension being jerking seats and water spraying. Siri, although scared at first actually really like it! haha! And Ellie thought it was pretty funny when Donkey's sneeze sprayed on her!

Then finally exhaustion set in and Ellie took a nap in the stroller while Tod and I ran around Hogsmeade! That was VERY cool, though most of the Harry Potter stuff was big roller coasters. They did have a shop called "Olivanders" but the line was too long for me to care enough to wait in, besides I wasn't going to spend $30 on a wand!

And since Ellie had had another nap that day and the park closed at like 6, we decided we needed to head BACK to downtown Disney as Ellie would need a halloween costume for the Mickey's-not-so-scary Halloween Party. And no, we did not buy the wig! haha!

More later! :)

A month come and gone!

Sorry to all of you faithful friends! We've had a busy month of October and things are finally feeling normal around here again with a few changes as usual! We started the month with a week long trip to Disney World thanks entirely to my mom and dad! :) So I'm going to post some of the highlights of the trip.

We all left on Friday morning, Joey, Ellie, Siri and I and arrived in Orlando Friday evening. So we went straight to bed once we got to the hotel. We had a very uneventful flight to FL with one stop in Chicago.

Joey could only stay the weekend as he had to get back to class on Monday morning, so we had a LOT to do over the weekend! We decided to go to Magic Kingdom on Sat.

We got the park at a decent time in the morning and were immediately greeted by a parade!!

We then decided Ellie needed to go on her first ride! Aladdin's Magic Carpet Ride:

And of course, we had to do Pirates of the Caribbean! (Ellie's a little excited!)

Then on to Tom Sawyer's Island:

After a few more rides (and lots of walking), by mid-afternoon we were ready for the People Mover:

And of course we had to take an ice cream break:

We did just about everything we decided was necessary in the Magic Kingdom that day including the Electrical Parade: (I'm kinda proud of this pic because not only was that thing moving, it was dark so the shutter speed was slow!)

Ellie got a cool light thing:

We were exhausted by the end of the day but we felt we had fulfilled all of our requirements (with the exception of Small World and Tea Cups which were both CLOSED! :( ).

Day 2- Epcot (1/2 day since Joey had to go home... ALREADY!)

First stop: The Nemo ride! One Problem: Line was 1 hour! UGH! Needless to say, we did not wait in line but rather decided to try again later (which we did not do that day), Ellie didn't seem to mind as she was very happy to be able to stand right next to and touch nemo:

And to one person in particular (Joey) the coolest thing about Epcot is the passport!! I've been to Epcot MANY times in my life and NEVER had a passport! Didn't know they had such a thing. But we decided we should get one for Ellie and it was VERY exciting and entertaining for her. Only regret: not enough time to complete the passport!

England:

France:

China: (Ellie took this pic)

We visited a few other countries that day, including Norway (don't you fear, Torgies!) which is where we ate! YUMM! :) We commented on the irony (sorta) of China and Norway being right next to each other.

About 1pm or so we started our journey back to the hotel to put the girls down for their first nap of the trip and to send Joey off to the airport. :(

So I'll stop here for now.