Animal Kingdom

We spent our final day at Disney at the Animal Kingdom. The temperature was a lot hotter than the previous days of the trip and there was no afternoon rain to cool us off. Still, we had a really great time watching the animals and shows. The boys had a great time riding Expedition Everest and even Anna Grace got to ride on Kali River Rapids.

.

Our first ride of the morning was on the safari through the African Serengeti. We had all kinds of animals, including giraffes come very close to our jeep.

All 3 kids enjoyed the dinosaur themed playground in Dinoland where they got to "dig" for dinosaur bones. Mike and I also enjoyed it because we got to sit in the shade for a bit!

One of the highlights of the day was when we ate lunch at the Rainforest Cafe. It is a huge jungle themed restaurant that is decorated like the inside of a rain forest. The kids loved the monkeys swinging from vines in the ceiling, the huge tanks filled with tropical fish, and the gorillas that randomly beat their chests and made gorilla noises from time to time. Every once in a while the whole restaurant thundered like there was a storm and flashes of light filled the sky like lightning. Our dessert was a huge volcano cake!

After a long day of driving, we have made it home. We are exhausted, but we had a great trip. We loved staying in our camper at the Fort Wilderness Campground right across the lake from the Magic Kingdom. Because we stayed in our camper and saved a ton of money, we were able to use the Disney Dining plan for our meals.

I budget our meals and clip coupons all year long, so it was really nice to have everything paid for in advance and not worry about getting the kids to split an order of fries or skip dessert. We are sad that the trip is over, but because we went into the parks early each day, we were able to ride all of the rides that we wanted without long lines. Now that we are home, we are gearing up for vacation bible school and swim lessons!