Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Day Two Part Two

Feb 19, 2010

We arrived at Animal Kingdom. If you think Silas looks miserably tired it's because we actually took this photo at the end of the day.



After getting inside the park it took us about thirty minutes to actually get to an attraction. There is just so much to look at and everyone kept getting distracted.

One of the first things you see are these birds. The girls saw them right away and Cecily came to get me saying "Mommy,I found spoon beaks!" They are actually spoon bills and she learned about them from a magazine that our aunt Ambra gave us a subscription to for Cecily's fifth birthday. Thanks Ambra! Cecily insisted that I take a photo of them to bring home where you could see the beak.




The big landmark that they have for Animal Kingdom is this tree. It's just to look at but everyone it seems takes a photo there. We traded picture snapping with a couple who had an accent. It seemed almost everyone we encountered had some kind of accent and we didn't actually meet anyone from Texas.






Cecily wanted her photo "climbing this rock".

She also wanted it next to this termite mound.

At Animal Kingdom they have these little stations set up where kids can stop and learn about something. After they do the learning they are given a stamp on their cards. It was fun to try to find all the stations but I think we missed a few. Here are the kids feeling inside a log and trying to guess what they were feeling. They never noticed that all the things inside were set up on the table outside as well to give them clues.

Here is Clara answering some questions about what a turtle uses its shell for.

We saw the Loin King show and when we came out we met Minnie Mouse Thumper and Miss Bunny.
We just went in order of the attractions and the next thing was something called a jungle walk. It was kind of like a zoo. You just stay on the trail and look at the animals. The first thing we saw were these monkeys.

They were having a training session. They are trained to hear a bell and turn their backs so giving them shots is not a struggle. We saw the ladies ring a bell and the monkeys turn and then the ladies touched their backs with a stick to simulate the shot. Then the monkeys immediately turned back around for a treat.
Here is Silas looking at a giant slimy green frog.

I didn't take the time to write down technical names. You can see him on the left. The blob on the right is a rock but Silas thought it was another frog.
Next we entered a bird area. They have charts to help identify all the birds you might see there. There were also these fish which I think were for the birds to eat. They like to give the birds a natural feeling habitat and we saw some cranes swoop in for a snack.


Silas really liked the fish.

On the jungle walk we encountered this tiny anole lizard. I know what they are called because when Shiloh and I first got married we had these creatures all in our house. They would just come in when it got cold and snuggle on our walls. We didn't mind them because we had worse things as well.
Cecily really wanted to hold it so Shiloh helped her catch it. See him on her dress?


And for a close up.

Of course Clara wanted a turn. The lizard is to tiny its head is smaller than her thumb.

Then Silas tried to hold it. He is a fast little thing. See that green streak on Silas' arm? That's him trying to get away.

He finally got in a little pet.


When we came out of the jungle walk Cecily remembered I said if the face painting line wasn't too long she could get her face painted. So we went to do that next.
She chose a design called Tinkerbell. The girls who do this are very talented. She was done in about two minutes. Here she is just starting.







She couldn't stop looking at herself. Mirror mirror on the wall...


I wanted to get mine done too but thought I would find a souveneir that would last for more than just one day that I liked better later on. So I settled for a photo with Cecily instead.


Later on I took this photo of the girls together. Clara was too grumpy right after the face painting to take it then. She wanted her face done but wouldn't sit in the chair and the girl had to keep the line moving.

Here are the kids getting up close with some wildlife. The birds are pretty tame. They were feeding it some crust leftover from their sandwiches.

Clara was teasing this duck. It would jump to get the bread. I was afraid she would get a bite herself but she didn't.

We saw these ladies making flowers and they made one for the girls.



Then we found another learning station and they got another stamp.


Cecily knew from the planning video that she wanted to see the bats. So on our second jungle trek we found two sleeping bats and they were huge! We couldn't get a photo of the bats but here is a skeloton of one. She wanted to take a picture to bring home.

And then Clara and Silas finally gave out.

They slept while we rode a ride with Cecily and then parked for the parade. Clara woke up in time to watch. After the parade it was about time to leave. I think they only stayed open until 5 or so. But everyone was ready to leave. We had had an early breakfast.
When we got back to the cabin Cecily put on her tinkerbell costume we brought from home to match her face painting.



Then the kids hung out in the bedroom watching cartoons on cable. They got really spoiled being able to turn on the tv and have cartoons anytime they wanted. And it was nice in the mornings when they still woke up way to early.

2 comments:

CAB said...

fun fun! enjoying seeing what all y'all did - and no Texans? Imagine!!

Abbie said...

we should learn how to do face paint like that...would come in handy for the kiddos partys!! :) looks like fun...I love animals/zoos

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