Day Four: Our Final Day

Where in the world has the time gone? Seriously, I can't believe it's taken me so long to complete our little journey on here. I really do apologize for leaving all of you in suspense. In my defense, though, the two weeks have been crazy! With a capital "C"! I was supposed to finish this up before our appointment at the hospital with the specialist for Will. However, my worry and concern definitely got the best of me in the day or two before the appointment. After that, we were in a flurry of activity hunting down Halloween costumes, helping prepare for and run a small game booth at the schoolwide Fall Festival at Ann Catherine's school, and preparing and purchasing all the goodies the kids were responsible for for their Fall Parties. Between Girl Scouts, Ann Catherine's class at school, her Aftercare program at school (the people who watch her until I can pick her up after work), and Will's daycare, we had four different parties to get ready for and, for each, I had at least one thing to send in. I think we spent $50 just buying everything needed for the parties, making sure to send in enough for 12 kids, and 25 kids and 15 kids (depending on who it was for!). Then, to top it all off, we actually took the kids trick-or-treating for the first time on Saturday (to be blogged about hopefully tomorrow). I think we've finally settled down for at least a week or so. Of course, coming up I still have to prepare for AC's birthday parties, buy presents, prepare for another bridal shower (not complaining, just saying), along with the parties that will happen at all of these same places for Thanksgiving!

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Back to Disney! Even though this was our last day at Disney, this was a day we were really looking forward to. The weather was beautiful (as opposed to the freezing cold days we had for our first two days where we had to wear jeans and jackets!), and it was the day we were going to spend our time slowing down and relaxing. The one big event we had for the day was breakfast with Donald.

There is a wonderful restaurant at the Animal Kingdom called the Tusker House. While lunch and dinner aren't character meals, they do have Donald and friends (Mickey, Daisy and Goofy) on hand for breakfast. And let me tell you, this breakfast was our favorite meal for our whole trip. So much food, so much variety...and, of course, Will would only eat a plate full of sausages. I'm sighing as I say that.

Anyway, our breakfast at the Tusker House was early enough that, once we got finished eating, it was just in time for the park to officially open. Since we were already in the park, there is a special place near the restaurant where we could stand and wait for the official rope drop rather than having to return to the park entrance. Lucky for us, it was right next to the Kilimanjaro Safari ride so we were literally the third people in line for this ride. We had heard that the animals are always a little more active in the morning and evening because it's not so hot. While we enjoyed having absolutely no wait for the ride, we were a little disappointed because we really didn't see very many animals. Plus, this seemed to be the one ride Ann Catherine was still a little afraid of so she wasn't too happy that we forced her to go. Our rule for the trip was that we wouldn't go on any ride the kids didn't want to go on and, for the most part, we stuck to that. However, I'm a HUGE animal/zoo fan and really wanted to see the animals on this ride again. Plus, how often can we say we got to be the third in line for it?! So, we confess: we forced her to ride.

Afterwards, we lazily walked through some of the animal areas, saw the Lion King show and then saw a few characters the kids wanted to see, we then over to the Dinosaur area. By this time, Will needed a playground break so, while he played in the little playground over there, Ann Catherine and I rode the ONE roller coaster that child loves: the Primeval Whirl. Since Will is still too short to ride it and it made Brian a little sick the last time he rode it last summer, I offered to take her over there. Yeah, I'm not passing up a chance to ride on a roller coaster - even if it is designed for kids! The two of us girls had so much fun laughing and she didn't even blink an eye when they put someone in the car with us. Given her many fears, it amazed me how brave she was on this roller coaster. It's designed for kids but it has it's own fair share of good-sized drops! And she LOVES them! I think this little girl is MUCH braver than she gives herself credit for. And the minute she decides she's old enough and brave enough for REAL roller coasters, we will SO be making the drive north to Sandusky!

After spending some time in the Dinosaur area, we grabbed some lunch at the one and only BBQ joint in all of Disney. I was craving their ribs after hearing rave reviews about them on the disboards. Oh my, they weren't quite perfectly Tennessean but they were very good!

The funny thing is that, even though the day was only halfway over, we looked at our map and realized that there really wasn't anything left that we REALLY wanted to do other than to go look at the one animal area we missed last year with the tigers. Other than that, we were all excited to go back to the resort and do the one thing we had purposefully left for this day: swimming in the pools at the resort.

After viewing the tigers, we headed back to the resort, grabbed our swimsuits and headed to the pools. We had such a nice, relaxed time in those pools and just enjoyed the little sunshine that was left for the day. All too soon, the winds picked up, the sun hid behind the clouds once again, and my son's lips turned blue as his teeth chattered (but with a smile still plastered on his face!). Yep, it was time to go inside!

But the nice thing about the time remaining was that we felt no pressure to go do anything. We spent a leisurely afternoon changing back into our clothes, taking a leisurely stroll along the lake next to the resort, and headed to the food court in our room and enjoyed a nice dinner, and then headed to the gift shop next to the food court. The kids had been begging to shop in there and we had purposefully left all of the major shopping to this evening. We spent a wonderful and very leisurely hour or two in that shop before returning back to our room and just enjoying the evening together. Let's just not talk about how much money we spent in there!!

The funny thing about this whole stay was that, despite how wonderful it was, once we were back on the road the next morning (for a full 12 hour trip home!), we weren't quite sure about our trip for next summer. This trip we had purposefully tried to relax and not worry about seeing it all because we knew we were going back next summer. But given Will's temper tantrums, we weren't quite sure if we were brave enough for the trip! Hearing him say, on a daily basis, "I wanna go back home" was a little unnerving (and tiring). Plus, we realized how blessed we've been over the past 10 years to have additional sets of hands to help us when the kids are driving us nuts because we've always vacationed with my family. So, on our trip home, Brian and I instead spent the time making up a list for the trip we DID decide on: our 15-year wedding anniversary. We are going to go back, just the two of us, and hit every ADULT ride we can find. We will ride every roller coaster and we will enjoy every meal that has NO characters! We will NOT ride Dumbo and we will NOT stand in line to meet any characters. And it will be heavenly.

So coming up tomorrow (just to give you one more day of suspense), I'm going to fill you in on our Halloween trick-or-treating experience (with pictures to enjoy) and, as an added bonus, let you know what our FINAL decision was on next summer.