Williams Family

Discovery Cove

Day 3 - Discovery Cove!

Discovery Cove is part of Sea World so as part of our tickets to this park we were able to get admission to Sea World too. It was a much smaller park which featured a reef pool that you can snorkel with fish, manta rays, sharks, and eels! It had a lazy river play pool, otter area, aviary, and dolphin pool! They also included breakfast, lunch, and snacks with our day! Part of going was to give the kids the opportunity to swim with dolphins. The dolphin encounter was really cool! I got to go with the older kids while Jeff hung out with the youngest since the kids had to be at least 6 to swim with the dolphins. Speaking of cool, there was a cold front blowing in that day so the weather was cool, however the wet suits they provided really helped with that too! The lazy river was also heated so overall it was a great day! Here are some of the photos of our day:

Jeff getting Clark suited up with his goggles.

Such a silly boy

Mhari

Jeff and Clark

Sandra

Lorna

Jeff went around on the lazy river with some of the kids - second time around. They had a lady taking photos at the waterfall. So cool!

While at the dolphin encounter everyone had a turn to kiss our dolphin, Marea, as well as go for a ride hanging onto her dorsal fin. They had photographers there and since our camera was acting up we got a photo package to be sure we had good pics to keep :)

Talmage

Mhari

Sandra

Grant

Our group photo with our dolphin, Marea

Petting her tummy

Talmage going for a ride

Grant

Sandra

Mhari

At the end of our dolphin experience they invited Jeff and the little kids in for a family photo! They got to pet the dolphin and everything! It was a pretty cool experience!

Animal Kingdom

Day 2 was Animal Kingdom! Our kids LOVE animals so I figured they would really enjoy Animal Kingdom :)

Everything went pretty well at the Animal Kingdom, no lost children this time!

The things we did: Dinosaur ride, Expedition Everest ride, Safari ride, water rapids, It's tough to be a Bug show, Birds of Prey bird show, Dino dig site, Triceretop spin ride, flying triceratops, and more Dinosaur ride.

The kids favorite thing was Everest, dino spin ride, and Dinosaur ride!

Clark and Lorna waiting while Daddy was in the Dinosaur ride with the older kids :)

Clark by a cool fossil

Clark and Lorna climbing

The older kids while we were waiting in line for the Everest ride

They had a ton of display stuff about Everest and the Yeti. My favorite thing at the park was the yeti. We bought one of the cute yeti ball stuffed animals for our souvenir!

While on the African Safari ride we saw lots of animals...
like crocodiles

lions

zebra and rhinos

ostriches and more!

There was a really cool dino play area. The kids really loved it. We were on constant watch for the kids to be sure we didn't lose any :)
So handsome!

Lorna

After playing for a while Talmage found the dino dig area. The kids really enjoyed this. They spent a lot of time just digging up the cool mammoth fossils!

Lorna learning to fill up her own bucket of sand

All of the kids hard at work!

Love him!

One of our last rides was this triceratops ride... it was just like the Aladdin carpet ride. I think it's funny to see how my girls pose for photos... Mhari especially.

too cute!

We ended the night with dinner and then headed out to relax at the hotel. Our feet were worn out and ready for a break from all of the walking!

The big family vacation... Disney World!

This year we decided it was time to take the kids on a big family vacation... well, every year we want to do something big. This one was especially big since we went to Orlando, FL and spent 4 days doing as much as we could! The two day drive just getting there was fun times :)

Lorna did really well in the car (mostly) as did all of the kids. There were cranky times when kids got sleepy, as Clark is showing off in this photo :).

We had lots of fun planned. Our first day was Disney World, Magic Kingdom. It was quite busy. We did the Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor, Space Mountain, race cars, tea pots, haunted mansion, splash mountain, Pirates of the Caribbean, Swiss Robinson tree house, Aladdin magic carpet ride, and the jungle safari ride. I may have missed something, but that seems about right :). I got to take the older kids to Space Mountain while Jeff took the younger kids (Clark and Lorna) to get fast pass tickets to Splash Mountain. I enjoyed getting to go on the bigger rides with the kids. I really like roller coasters :).

While Jeff was waiting for us he found a little play area. Clark went to play while he got Lorna out of the stroller, put her shoes on, etc. When he turned around Clark was gone! Oh, man. He looked everywhere and involved the Disney staff. There is a found kid location down by main street and I was still gone on the ride. I made it back as fast as I could and we kept looking while Jeff made his way to see if Clark had been found and returned to the lost kid location. Someone did find him and the staff got him back to Jeff. We were so grateful and had several prayers answered! Clark had a potty accident while lost and Disney gave Jeff new underwear (a 7 pack) and new sweats for Clark to wear at no charge. He even had a new toy that is a fan with lights and a sucker on the bottom! Not that I would suggest having a lost kid, ever, but really, that was pretty awesome of Disney to help Clark like that!

That was probably the most eventful part of the day. We did lose Clark again later, but recovered him quickly. It's amazing how difficult it is to keep track of kids in such a crowded place. I'm sure his age plays into why he kept getting lost too. Jeff and my feet were really tired after the day at Disney! Man, we sure did a lot of walking!

Highlights of the day. I loved Space Mountain. The kids loved the race cars and Space Mountain and Splash Mountain, we enjoyed the Mickey and Minnie Dance party, the Cinderella castle all light up, and eating a huge turkey leg for dinner!

Here is the photo evidence of our fun day!

Just getting into the park :)

Waiting to go to the Monsters Laugh Floor.
Lorna

Riding the tea cups

Rapunzel's tower. We missed seeing all of the princesses. Mhari was sad about it and I would have enjoyed seeing them too. I have a feeling the lines to see them would have been really long!

Lorna took a nap :). She slept the whole way through the Haunted Mansion. She only woke up when Jeff tried to put her back into the stroller. Poor baby. Trips are hard on the little ones!