Minding The Pod: Disney World- Animal Kingdom

This post has taken me forever to get finished. We went to Animal Kingdom on Day 4 of our adventure. Mom and I had been in 2004 on our trip, so we knew somethings that we wanted the girls to see. Also Jarrett and Miriam had just been in November for their honeymoon.

The weather was perfect in the morning. We put on our sun hats, sunscreen, and went through the gates.

It has been almost a month since our trip, so I don't remember all the animals in my pictures!

This was a pretty pink bird with these beautiful splotches of color

This is the Tree of Life that is the center of the park. It is man made, but unbelievable. It has all these amazing carvings.

I knew we should do the Safari, so mom, Carly, and sleeping Bennett and I ran to the Fast Pass area to make sure we could get a space. Carly stopped to play these drums.

Different musicians would play them throughout the morning and it was really cool.

As we were walking back to meet the guys and Joiner, we noticed that the Lion King show was about to start. Jarrett loved this so we ran to get the others and got into the auditorium as it was starting. It was really awesome with great singing and props.

Bennett woke up as we were coming in and he was very interested in the noises and sights. Look how big he looks! We would joke that he must be tired of going to sleep one place and waking up in another:)

Daddy, Carly, Joiner, Gigi, and Grumpa enjoying the show

This was one of the "floats" with Pumba and Timon.

This elephant was right beside us and kept moving. Mr B was entranced! The dancing was also really great. It was almost like Cirque D'Soleil.

A fire thrower!

Dancers

After the show, we made our way over to the Safari for our ride. Here is Bennett in line.

Joiner with Grumpa on the Jeep

Gigi and Joiner

This is a great experience where they drive you around in these Jeeps to see the animals and tell little stories and fun facts. There is even a little story about an elephant who has been taken by poachers. The funny thing is that our NC zoo is so amazing that most of this we have seen before without the ride!

There are some Rhinos if you look in the middle by the tree.

Look carefully and you will see all the crocodiles lying on top of each other.

This is a Baobab tree. We read about one in a favorite book called Hug Time so it was funny to see.

So close to this animal (some kind of gazelle or something:)

We could have reached out and touched this African cow.

You know what these are:)

Check out the baby playing with her mama

Carly's favorite, the flamingos

Ostrich eggs

Mama and Daddy lion on a break on the rock

More white Rhinos. Apparently they are almost extinct and Disney is one of the few refuges for them.

This is mama ostrich watching us pass

Now her neck is really up! Yikes!

Again, really close to whatever this is!

This is that baby elephant that they got from the poachers. The girls liked this part.

Our friend Ainsley at church and our cousins, Brooks and Madelyn, all had their hair wrapped at DW. Joiner knew she wanted to do that and I said she could. We found a place at Animal Kingdom and she picked out her colors and sat patiently while the girl wrapped her hair. Carly saw the clip-in varieties with a lot of beads and decided she wanted that. Grumpa was very generous and got them each what they wanted. The lady told us that it would last 2-5 weeks if she didn't play with it. It is exactly 4 weeks today and it is still holding strong!! We are all interested to see what the hair looks like underneath.

The girls with their choices.

Joiner and Carly

Bennett needed to eat about the time that the gang was headed on a train to see a reserve part of the park. So he and I headed to the Baby Care center to hang out. After he ate, he and I headed back to the resort to nap. Since it was the last day, the others stayed at Animal Kingdom a little longer.