Summer holidays - Animal Kingdom!

We spent a day at Animal Kingdom.  Great park for kiddies.  Not too big and it closed at 6pm so this was a reasonable and not too tiring day for us! 

We're here!

Amazing scenery!

Waiting to watch "The Lion King"

On the safari!

Hippos - can you see them?

Very friendly giraffe!

Lazy rhinos

Ellie!

Mickey and Minnie!

Hugs with Minnie

Hanging with Mickey

We found Pocahontas!

Beautiful ladies!

So pretty!

Daisy LOVED AK's bracelet!

Getting the autograph

Cuties!

Nemo - The Musical

What an amazing show!

Rides!

Whack-a-dinosaur!

Bowling

Sharp shooter!

Rainforest Cafe - went here for lunch on a recommendation - so much fun!

We were seated right in front of the aquarium

Gift shop fun

Drums!

Look at that sass in those hips!

Petting zoo

AK will be a great vet one day!

Fun ears!

Chip 'n Dale!

Hugs with Chip?  Or is that Dale? 

Doesn't matter, I'll hug 'em both!

More petting zoo hugs

These two guys were literally butting heads - aggressive!

Tree of Life

One last scene

Summer vacation - Downtown Disney

It's hard to believe we've already come and gone from our summer holidays.  It was a wonderful week together and it was amazing to experience Disney together for the first time! 

We decided one night to head down to Downtown Disney and slowly immerse ourselves in the experience!

Train Ride! 

The only time she tried on Minnie ears!

The Rapunzel nightie that she was in LOVE with...  but for $38US?  No way!  As a peace offering, a Frozen nightie was bought at Target for a much much much better price :)

Playing with Ms. Potato Head in one of the stores

Carousel ride - AK's favorite kind of ride these days!

Saying Hello to Mickey and Minnie!

Checking out the Christmas store - LOVE!

Waiting for the dance party...

...and more waiting!

Striking a pose with Aurora - Sleeping Beauty!

Up next - Hollywood Studios transformed into a Frozen Summer Celebration! 

Back to School - Grade 1!!!

So much excitement in the air today!  Here's to the first day of school, and to a year full of joyful learning!  

(Almost) Back to School!

Annabelle's school had an orientation last night.  She wasn't able to come, but Richard and I had a great time checking out her new classroom and meeting her new teacher, Miss Lewis.  Check it out!

Tomorrow is AK's first day of school and I am really excited for her to get back into a routine and learning lots!  Miss Lewis has a lot of energy and I think she's going to be a great role model for AK.  

Here's a link to the Grade 1 blog if you want to follow along during the year: http://fbcs.edu.ky/grade1/

Annabelle's desk - right at the front of the room!  Check out the stack of workbooks!

The classroom - looks bright and shiny!

I gave the desk a test drive...  comfy!

Tooth #2... what an adventure!

A few hours after the incident...

The next morning!

AK recently lost Tooth #2...  sure didn't fall out quietly and peacefully!

After one day of camp last week, we stopped by Dart Park for her to play and blow off some steam (sadly, camp didn't tire her out!).  It was all fun and games and slides, until she came running around the corner of the play structure with a bloody, sandy face...  ugh...  the poor girl had come off the monkey bars, intending to land on her feet, but landed on her face instead.  The first thing I noticed was that her loose tooth was no longer in her mouth...  so once I got her a bit cleaned up and calmed down, we went back to the site of the fall to see if we could find the missing tooth.  There were a couple of nannies there with their children who gave us a hand but one of them suggested that AK had perhaps swallowed her tooth as we couldn't find any sign of it.  Oops! 

We headed home and got some ice on the lip and nose and AK actually dozed off in my arms until I started to wonder if I should keep her awake in case she had any signs of a concussion...  so I woke a very sleepy little girl up and cleaned off her face.  Sand everywhere!  We washed as much off as gently as we could and left the rest to come out over time.  AK managed a bit of food and drink at supper that night and woke up quite happy and hungry the next morning!  By Friday, all you could see were a couple of scrapes on her face and the inside of her mouth was nearly back to normal. 

Here's to hoping losing Tooth #3 will be less traumatic! 

AK turns 6 - photo shoot