Disney Day 6

Our last day at Disney was actually a last-minute addition to our itinerary. The kids were begging to go to Animal Kingdom because their friends at school said it was awesome. So Ryan and I decided to buy tickets at the last minute so we could all spend our last few hours in Orlando at Animal Kingdom.

I'm so glad we did. It was a lot of fun, despite what we had heard. I think Ella and Brooklyn's favorite part was the Wilderness Explorer badges they earned throughout the park while learning about different animals and animal conservation. Kendall and Hudson's favorite part was the Dino Land playground. I wish we'd had enough time to see and do everything at the park, but I think we covered plenty of ground!

One ride worth noting was the Mount Everest rollercoaster ride. HOLY COW IT WAS CRAZY SCARY - even for me. Not sure if I was scared about the ride itself or my fear of losing a kid on one of the sharp turns. Thank goodness Hudson wasn't tall enough to ride it cause Brooklyn and Kendall were practically crying by the time we finally got off. No one wanted to go on it again when it was Ryan's turn.

P.S. If you're wondering why we're all wearing cold-weather clothing (seven layers on me, in fact) in all of the pictures is because it was FREEZING cold five days out of the six we were there. That was the only disappointment on our trip. I was sooooooo hoping for warm, defrosting kind of weather like we had on our first day there, but we weren't so lucky!

Picking up our Wilderness Explorer booklets from the ranger station, we had to take an oath to be good to animals and keep them safe...

In the background is the "Tree of Life." At night they light the tree during a ceremony, which we heard is awesome. Unfortunately, we couldn't stay till dark cause we had a flight to catch back to PA...

Those of us who rode the Mount Everest ride and survived...

Dino Land ride...

My ride buddy...

We ate lunch at the Rainforest Cafe...

Another favorite thing we did while there was a safari ride through an animal preserve. We saw lots of new and interesting animals I'd never seen before, as well as some of our favorites like hippos, giraffe, elephants, alligators, etc. Can you see the baby giraffe in the background near the tree? That giraffe was born at Animal Kingdom about three months ago. It was adorable...

Who doesn't love seeing a family of elephants gathered around and protecting the youngest and newest addition to the family?! You can't really see the baby elephant in this picture that well, but he/she is in there and was born just a few months ago, as well...