Day 3: Animal Kingdom and MY BIRTHDAY!!

Tuesday September 13th was our third day and my birthday! I wore my birthday pin and Armour yelled to everyone "She is 33 now-pretty old-older than dad again!" Funny!

As mentioned we were going to spend the day of my b-day in Epcot with all the other extra magical hours resort member peeps, but decided to try Animal Kingdom instead in hopes it was less busy. I think it was a good choice. We liked the whole fell and theme of the Animal Kingdom, but for me it felt a bit like a poor man's Omaha Zoo with the addition of a few awesome rides and a killer show! I loved, LOVED the Nemo live show-SOOOOO good-go see it if you are at WDW anytime when it is still there. Seriously awesome...I have NO pics of it though...I was too enthralled by it to take out a camera (plus flash photography is not allowed).

The park is only open from 9am until 5pm. We only did maybe half the stuff, but we enjoyed it. (After we left, we took the bus to Downtown Disney and walked over the the Hilton to eat at Benihina...the most expensive Benihana EVER. Even with my $30 birthday gift certificate we still spent like $130 on ONE meal...Wes will never let me live that down, especially since we could have eaten for free with our dining plan...I will post Benihana pictures in a separate post!) I will review the things we did in the Animal Kingdom in another, later post, but for now, enjoy some of the pictures I took in the Animal Kingdom.

First I should note we felt really welcome...they even made a sign especially for our baby:

Ok, maybe it wasn't FOR him...it may have been part of the Expedition Everest ride sign, but still awesome! Here are a few other Expedition Everest pics (BTW-probably my favorite ride at WDW):

We actually met Pluto and Goofy when a nice employee pointed us to where they were headed and we were first in the massive line to see them totally by happenstance:

And I took the most pics on the Kilimanjaro Safari:

Did you make it through those? Did you note the baby elephant, then the baby Everest?!  :)

Now, look at what Everest and I were watching as we waited for the others to come off of Kali River Rapids (which was the longest line we actually waited in the whole trip at a whopping 45 minutes-no fast passes were available and the kids REALLY wanted to go):

As you can see, Everest liked watching monkeys as much as his momma! I love little Monkeys!
Here we are in front of Mt Everest:

We also accidentally walked into a parade so we had to stop and enjoy it:

And here are a few other random shots of Animal Kingdom:

Again a great fun day and we had time after to go check out Downtown Disney (post on that coming soon) and to go eat at Benihana (Ouch---that post also coming soon to a blog near you). So, Keep your arms and legs in the boat at all times and enjoy the ride as I continue posting a little later on!!