I only woke up one time last night and it was a good thing that I woke up when I did because Keaton was about to fall off of the bed. I grabbed her leg and moved her back closer to me and tried to wedge her in with a pillow. Around 5:30ish she was awake again and had her first bottle of the day. It was probably a good thing that she woke up then because I was able to cat nap until time for us to wake up for our breakfast.
If you want to talk about cruel we can discuss having to wake up 5 sleeping children-that is what happened this morning. A few were up and most were not dressed yet when Grannymom knocked on the door. She just mentioned that they were going downstairs and my boys started begging to go with them. So in 5 minutes everyone was dressed and Campbell, Anderson, Reagan, Graham and I were out the door headed to the bus stop with Grannymom and Grandpa. I went as the chaperone of the bus ride! Seriously, it was a good thing that I was mostly ready because we were out the door within minutes. Keaton stayed back with Robby who ended up filling the van with Dana and crew.
The kids acted as if they had never been on a bus before. I am surprised that no one mentioned it as the high of their day-seriously. They shouted about every bus, monorail and anything else that they saw. When we had just sat down on the bus, I told Campbell "let's write Daddy and tell him we are on the bus." I looked down to take my phone out of my pocket and was startled to hear Campbell shouting beside me. She had her hands cupped around her mouth and screamed "DADDY, WE ARE ON THE BUS." Never a dull moment with that child.
We made it to Animal Kingdom before any of the others but soon we are all at the gates and about to check in for breakfast. We had our picture taken with Donald outside and then were seated. Before we filled our plates, Mickey came by. Campbell didn't want to have any part in pictures with the characters and we didn't push it. Though I do have to get her picture and Keaton's picture with some of the characters either tomorrow or the next day. Next up was Goofy and Daisy Duck. They are all so happy to let them sign their autograph books (will be interested to see if the boys want the princess' signatures tomorrow).
The breakfast was really good. The buffet had tons of choices but the kids just ate the Mickey shaped waffles and the chocolate donuts. When breakfast was over we stepped outside and waited on Robby to return from getting fast passes and headed to the safari ride. Quite often during the day, someone will retrieve all of the cards and go and get fast passes for the whole crew. This saves us lots of time and it has been working out pretty well.
On the safari today, many of the animals were moving around. I guess since it was early in the morning we were able to see so much movement. After the safari we walked towards the Everest roller coaster. Graham wasn't tall enough along with Campbell and Keaton, Grannymom, Grandpa and Cash didn't want to do it and Robby and I stayed back with all the kids. I took Graham, Campbell and Keaton on the dinosaur ride and then Grannymom took them to the playground for a few minutes. Then the others showed up and they all headed to the Nemo show while Robby, Josh, Reagan, Cash (who didn't want to ride the roller coaster the first time) and I all went to ride Everest.
We then met up with Shelley who was also skipping the show and then met Les to was retrieving fast passes for another ride. We soon became the search party: Grandpa text and asked if we had seen Grannymom's purse and within minutes Les couldn't find Grandpa's card. The card problem was solved after a few minutes-Josh was given Grandpa's card by mistake. But the purse disappearance took a bit longer. Poor Cash and Reagan were with us and we had promised them a snack but they had to wait until all of our missing items were recovered before we ended up getting one. Finally the purse was recovered at Guest Relations, snacks were bought and by this time everyone was out of the Nemo show and we were all ready to go to the River Rapids.
I didn't think Campbell would be able to go on this ride so I took her to measure and her rubber band on top of her head pushed her over the limit. She was going to be able to ride and even got a bracelet and hand stamp. The lady said she would the be "princess of the raft." We were so proud as we went back to show everyone. It is been years since I have rode a raft like that and even though it went by a lot quicker than I remember it was still so much fun. Campbell was shocked the first time the water splashed on her but then she ate it up. Graham loved that ride! And Reagan had a ball too. We ended up wet but not crazy soaked-or maybe we were soaked but because it was 125 degrees here today we dried rather quickly.
After the rapids, we had a fast pass for the dinosaur ride. Les was in the front and our pass was about to expire so we sprinted (yes, sprinted) across the park to that ride. I had to hold Campbell so she could keep up and needless to say, I was pretty winded when we made it to the ride. Campbell thought the whole thing was pretty funny so when I threw her at Grannymom when we arrived she was still laughing and not noticing us going to ride a ride.
The dinosaur ride was fun but the most fun is watching the kids-their expressions on the rides and during the shows. They are having such a good time and I just wish I could capture it all. Sometimes I understand why people walk around filming hours of home videos. Anyway, after that ride everyone went their own ways and we along with Grannymom, Grandpa and Cash headed to the Bugs Life show. This was a hoot watching Reagan and Cash-they were so into it all. And when the bugs ran under the bottoms they squealed like you wouldn't believe.
Grandpa then headed back to the room and we bought a few pizzas for the kids to eat since it was around 3. We guessed that they wouldn't eat anything but the scarfed those pizzas down. Up next was the Lion King show (my personal favorite). Keaton really got into this show and enjoyed dancing along. When we finished the show, it was hot, hot and we trekked back to the car. It was quite a hike but we made it and then we squeezed Grannymom and Cash in (illegally) and went back to the hotel.
At the hotel, we all changed again to go swimming and the kids again enjoyed the slide....for awhile. Anderson, Campbell, Graham and Robby were near the slide. Keaton was with Grannymom and Reagan had to go potty so I took her. As we were on our way, we heard the life guard blow the whistle, the music stopped and the pool became silent. I looked around for a bit but could see nothing so we headed into the bathroom. Reagan was in their for awhile but when I came back all of the cousins were trying to tell me something, Robby was shaking his head and Anderson was sitting out of the pool sobbing.
I could only get bits of pieces from what the cousins were shouting but the words I heard didn't sound good "lifeguard," "slide," "Anderson"-my word, what had happened is what I was wondering as I approached Robby. He shooed everyone away and told the story. Anderson had been going down the slide without his floatees and Robby had been grabbing him. He would go under, kick and then grab on to Robby. The last time he did it, he pushed Robby away and kept going-oh, by the way, he can't touch right at the slide but can touch a few feet from the slide. Robby was two arm lengths from the slide when Anderson came down the next time. Robby saw Anderson and said that he did have a bad expression on his face but was fine in the water but the life guard must have disagreed because he blew the whistle, which stopped the music and slide water and jumped in. The life guard jumping in and grabbing poor Anderson scared the living day lights out of him and so embarrassed him. Robby said that Anderson hadn't swallowed any water and really was just fine.
I hate all of that happened because Anderson's was crushed. Robby tried to explain to him that he wasn't in trouble and he had been doing well swimming away from the slide. But he just cried and cried. As Robby was trying to coax him back into the pool, the nice lifeguard came and offered to jump in the water with him and then told him that it was a rule that he had to go down the slide now. So Anderson dutifully went up the slide again (wearing his floatees). He didn't forget about it all but he did end up having a good day at the pool after all. I tried to ask him about it in the room later and he said that he didn't want to "remember it at all." I do wish that the life guard hadn't jumped in and scared the boy but I am thankful that he was there doing his job (even if he was a bit on the overly cautious side).
We actually were just causing havoc at all sides of the pool today because Campbell did her business in the pool again today. She was wearing a swim diaper so it was not too big of a deal but did mean that she had to get out and was not pleased about that. (And a poopy swim diaper is the nastiest thing because it...well, you probably don't want to know the details). So Robby gave everyone the 5 minute warning and I started drying the little girls off.
We picked up our laundry on the way back from the pool. We had washed and dried it while in the pool and it was a really good thing that it was dry or we would have had nothing to wear after swimming today. Then it was back to the room for a bit of rest time-which is not really a "restful" time at all. During "rest time" all of the kids have to have showers, Robby and I shower, new clothes for everyone, putting up the swimming stuff, washing bottles and cups from the day, folding the laundry and repacking bags. There is no rest in rest time around here.
It was after 6, when we loaded up to go back to Magic Kingdom. We rode the boat over and were soon walking through the Swiss Family Robinson house (remember we watched the movie the other night). The kids remembered lots of things from the movie and Reagan was really excited about seeing the kitchen. By then we were hungry and found some food at the Columbia House. We had chicken nuggets and Anderson devoured his. Keaton also ate quite a bit of chicken. A lady beside us said "we have this meal plan and can't eat all of our food, would anyone want this dessert?" And Graham's hand shot up like a firecracker. So instead of my crew each having a 1/4th of the chocolate cake, they each had 1/2. This couldn't have been better. Soon Campbell needed to be hosed off. She had cake all over her body-it must have been really good cake to get that messy with that little of amount.
Next up was some pin trading and then on to Pirates of the Caribbean. They enjoyed that but everyone really loved Aladdin's magic carpet ride. We even rode it twice. On the ride and then in front of the ride there is a camel that spits water at you. So that was lots of fun trying to get wet but they spitting camel.
The highlight of my evening was going through the Jungle Cruise. It is a bit different feeling at night and was very funny. What was really funny was watching the kids-I have one picture of them all ducked down and it was because the skipper had told everyone to duck down and they took him seriously. You should have seen how serious they were when they listened to him. Wished they listened to me like that!
This evening at Magic Kingdom, I gave Reagan a few life lessons. The first one was "never wear shoes just to impress people" and we then discussed wearing comfortable shoes when you have to walk a long ways and wearing fancy shoes to fancy places. And then we had a second life lesson about keeping your underwear under your clothes. Important lessons which are never too soon to learn. Back at the hotel we had a third lesson about not having temper tantrums after seeing an 9 or 10 year old have a fit and run away from their dad.
We were able to see quite a bit of the fireworks. Actually we saw more than usual and Reagan had to walk backwards while staring at them less than what she is used to. We are usually running out of the park when the fireworks go off to beat the crowds and she has to look over her shoulder to see them. This time we did stop for a bit so she could see them.
When we were on the boat, Robby promised the kids that we would go and get ice cream if we made it back to the hotel by 11 and everyone was still asleep. We did make it back by 11 but Anderson had fallen asleep and then woke up, and Keaton and Campbell were asleep as well (and never woke up). They still got their ice cream and were sitting around the table planning tomorrow.
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