Epcot

Katie was finally feeling better today and what a difference that makes! We took off for Epcot this morning and we were all so excited to see NEMO and his friends that I could hardly wait. Of course as you will see Katie loved it, I tried to take pictures along the ride but none of the pictures came out, bummer. Enjoy!

Grammy, Katie and Pop in front of Bruce the shark from Finding Nemo.

Me and Katie inside Bruce's mouth!

Our little family outside the Nemo ride and mini-aquarium.

Epcot has a great spot for meeting the characters, five at once in the same room so you don't have to go hunting for them! In addition to the ones you see here and below, Katie met Pluto, but she never really hugged him, just got his autograph and walked away! (guess she's not a big Pluto fan!)

Grammy, Katie and Minnie Mouse.

Surprisingly Katie was most excited to see Donald Duck, I don't know when that happened, but she went right to him and was really happy to see him!

Me, Katie and Goofy!

Me, Katie, Pop and Grammy outside Epcot......what fun!

Visiting with family.

After Gatorland we went to the other side of Orlando to visit with Nat's Great-Aunt Anna. We don't get to see her to often so it was nice to see her, as a bonus Katie got to play with her 3rd cousin Channing, pretty cute!

Gatorland.......the anti-Disney.

So today we decided to take a break from Disney World and take it kind of slow. We spent the prior evening deciding what to do and we finally came to the conclusion that Gatorland would probably do the trick, a little swamp fun never hurt anyone!

The first thing we saw was gator wrestling, only they call it wreslin'.

Crazy guy?

The emu at Gatorland.

They had a cute little petting zoo where you could feed the animals and as you can see she enjoyed doing it!

A funny sign off of the train waiting station.

Nat and Katie on the train, it was a cute little trip around the park.

A gator about to have a whole chicken snack.

A wild peacock, well wild in the sense that he wasn't in a pen.

Here is the highlight of the trip, feeding the birds in the bird sanctuary. The guide gave us each Popsicle sticks with birdseed smothered on either side and as you can see the birds just swarmed us!

Animal Kingdom

So yesterday afternoon Katie woke up from her afternoon nap struggling to breathe, she was gasping so hard she was dry heaving and throwing up, it was horrible and scary. My Mother quickly called the concierge here at the resort and got directions to the nearest hospital and off we went. After chest x-rays, a flu test and some Motrin and Tylenol we were told that she has croup along with an upper respiratory infection. Yuck! We started her medication last night and were expecting to stay home today and rest, but in typical Katie fashion she woke up and was bouncing off of the walls, so we packed up and took off for Animal Kingdom!

Katie and Grammy waiting in line for the safari.

Here are just a few of the animals we saw on our safari (the bus doesn't stop so some of my pictures didn't turn out); starting with the rhinoceros.

Some swimming hippos.

Some very big and somewhat creepy looking crocodiles.

I don't remember what these were, I'll see if I can update this later.

The giraffe were Katie's favorite, I think because they are so big and were so close to us.

This one was having a little snack.

A giant sleeping elephant, whom I thought was fake until he moved!

Two mandrill's, sorry the picture isn't that great.

A white rhino, this guy was very close to the bus; in fact Nat admitted he was a little to close for his comfort.

Katie and Daddy enjoying their ride.

Three ostrich eggs and a some kind of "bok", we couldn't understand what our guide said but we all heard bok.

Some ostrich.

The highlight of the trip thus far, when Katie met Mickey!!

Giving Mickey a HUGE hug!

Katie and the love of her life!

Another big moment, Nat, Katie and Goofy! The lines for the characters weren't that long but Katie was getting tired and we don't want to push her since she's sick so we figured later in the week we would come back and try to find more safari friends!

Magic Kingdom

Today we went to the Magic Kingdom and I was so happy to be there that I actually cried, really. Katie was so happy to see the castle and even more excited when we went to breakfast at the Crystal Castle to see Tigger, Piglet and Pooh.

Waiting for our name to be called for breakfast......not a bad view!

Katie and I getting Piglets autograph at breakfast.

Giving Tigger a big hug!

And a squeeze for Pooh.

Katie, Nat and Pop on the rollercoaster. (My dad's head and arm are right above the tracks.)

On the teacups.............weeeeeee..........

Nat teaching Katie how to drive.

Katie on the merry-go-round.

My seat partners on "It's a Small World". Katie LOVED it!

We all really liked the fall decorations.

Waiting for the monorail back to the parking lot, of course Katie had to have a mickey balloon.