Day 3 Part 1-Animal Kingdom

Thursday we had an early morning because we had to meet our group in front of Animal Kingdom to get in before the park even opened. Once our group was all there, they let us in the gate and the Disney guides took us directly to the Safari ride. This was our first experience being guided around the park (our guides did lead us to our spot for the fireworks show at Epcot but I didn't realize they would lead us around every park)and we began to realize how awesome that was going to be! Not only did we not have to wait in line for a single thing, we didn't have to figure out our way around the park. They just guided us the quickest way to get from one activity to the next!
Anyway, back to the Safari. This ride was very cool. Of course this was the first time our family rode that ride, but everyone who had rode it several times before said we saw a ton more animals than normal. Pretty cool! It was so helpful, our family volunteer, Rory, held Brooklyn so I could take pictures while on the safari ride (honestly if we were with the group I hardly ever had Brooklyn. Everyone loved her and passed her around and she was a perfect angel about it all!).
Here's a few of my favorite pictures...





I remember taking this picture and just thinking to myself..."WOW! Our family really is in Florida at Disney World with Kurt Warner!!!"
By the way, that is the back of Kurt's head on the right:)

When we were being guided around the park, we couldn't stop for the meet and greets because we had to keep up with the group. Caleb and Kyson spotted Chip and Dale and really wanted to go say hi but we had to keep going so I just took a picture.
After the Safari ride we headed to the Bug's Life show. That was pretty entertaining. I think the boys were a little scared because you wear 3D glasses and the bugs look like they are super close to your face! It was fun though.
When Bug's Life was over we headed to the Lion King show. Now this show was AWESOME! It was probably my favorite show of all the ones we watched. The actor and actresses were so fun to watch and they had incredible voices. I would love to see it again someday!
We got to our seats a little early so we had to wait a little bit for the show to begin. Kurt grabbed Kyson and had him sit on his lap and of course Kyson couldn't resist asking if he had an iPhone! I didn't even know he did it until I looked over and there was Kyson sitting on Kurt Warner's lap, playing his iPhone!

Here's a fun picture during the show.

Being with Kurt Warner always brought surprises every where we went. Our surprise at the Lion King show was that after everyone left besides our group, the cast came out to meet us. It was fun talking with them!
Both our boys really liked Timon.

It was actually king of comical. Kyson was throwing a bit of a fit about being in this picture. He was crying so I ran over to him to talk to him and try to convince him to go get in the picture. He was still throwing a fit when he saw Timon. His tears instantly stopped and he said..."I want to stand by him!" and then he put a big smile on his face and cooperated for every picture. That's our crazy Kyson for ya!

This picture has a funny story as well. This guy was trying to talk to Caleb so Jared picked him up and put him on his shoulders. The guy asked him, "How old do you think I am?" Caleb thought about it for a minute and responded, "100!" The guy chuckled a bit and said, "Oh, your sooo close! I'm 99!" Caleb thought that was pretty cool. Later on he was telling me about it and he said, "remember that guy that was 99?!?"

This is one of the few family shots we got while we were there. I wish I would have made it happen more often!

After the Lion King show we headed to the River Rapids ride. At first Jared and I had on ponchos because we didn't want to get wet. After some peer pressure :) we took them off. Of course we both got drenched! I was on the same boat as Kurt and the first time we went I definitely got the wettest. The funny part was when we got back Kurt wanted to go again so he told the worker and we didn't even get off the ride. We just kept going. Our boat took the exact path it took the first time around so I was even more drenched! I seriously shouldn't have given in to the peer pressure because I never did get dry the rest of the day!
Next, it was time to divide into the "thrill seeker" group and the "fun" group. At first I was going to stay behind with Brooklyn and the boys and let Jared ride the thrill seeker rides. Of course Rory was having none of that. He convinced me to go with Jared and he would handle our kids. I wasn't sure, but he said he would have help from some of the other volunteers so I decided to go. I'm so glad I did, we had so much fun riding the big rides together!
After we finished the rides we met back up and had lunch with everyone at the Rainforest Cafe.
Once lunch was over we had the rest of the day to do whatever we wanted. We decided to go do a few more things at Animal Kingdom. The boys picked out a couple souvenirs and then we headed out to ride a couple rides with our friends, the Arandas. As we were walking with them, a person from Disney saw our Make A Wish pins so he stopped us. He talked to Andrew and Kyson and gave them both a special pin to add to their collection. They both felt pretty special!
After a couple rides our boys were tired so we decided to head back to GKTW.
Day 3, to be continued...