Butterfly Release

As I said in a previous post, we ordered a butterfly kit and it arrived during Elijah's last week of school.  Yet unfortunately, we forgot about our Disney trip when we placed the order.  We got to watch the caterpillars eat, grow, shed their skin, eat, grow, shed their skin and finally build their chrysalises.  But, when we left for Disney, none had turned into butterflies yet.  Fortunately, as usual, Bapa and Dendi took care of Kodi and our plants while we were gone, and they agreed to add butterfly duty to their roster of jobs.  As we expected, all five butterflies emerged from their chrysalises while we were in Disney.  But thankfully they were so well taken care of that they survived until we got back and we were able to release them.  Both Elijah and Keira enjoyed participating in the butterfly release, although it was slightly anti-climactic as the butterflies seemed perfectly content to stay in their cage.

In the end, one of the butterflies was so reticent about flying out of his safe place that Scottie had to flatten the cage for encouragement.



Disney World, Part V -- More Downtown Disney and The Ride Home

No visit to Downtown Disney is complete without visiting our favorite, mini train.  On this trip, Keira started with being a little nervous, and wanting to ride with me.  While Elijah, confidently rode on the Caboose all by himself.

After enjoying her first ride accompanied by me, Keira decided that she felt brave enough to ride in caboose with her brother.  She had extra incentive, since parents are only allowed to ride in the cars.  If kids want to ride in the engine or the caboose they have to be brave and ride without their parents.  As Keira struggled with her buckle, her wonderful big brother immediately jumped in to help her.  Both kids enjoyed many more solo rides in the caboose and engine.

After her independent experience on the train, Keira was disappointed that I had to join them on the carousel.  But, I kept a bit of distance to continue her "big girl" experience.

After they ran out of their allotted carousel and train tokens, we headed to the van to begin our long trek home.  All in all, our car rides were enjoyable and calm.  The kids have gotten to be much better travelers as they've gotten older.  Keira played with lots of toys, looked at books and requested music, while Elijah spent most of his time reading the directions to his Star Wars paper airplane book over and over again.  We stopped for dinner at an older Chick-Fil A that had an expanded, outdoor play place that Keira loved.  In fact, she loved it so much that she's requested going back several times since.  At dinner, Elijah lost his third tooth eating a french fry.  In the car after our fun experience, I got a picture of our happy car girlie, while Elijah took a few self-portraits of his new grin.



Disney World, Part IV -- Legos and Posing with Statues at Downtown Disney

On our last day, Daddy surprised us all by pulling into the Downtown Disney parking lot instead of onto the freeway.  We had talked about visiting Downtown Disney earlier in the trip, but we got side tracked by other fun.  Fortunately, Scottie didn't forget, since it seems like no trip is complete without a visit to Downtown Disney.  Once there, our first stop was the Lego Store.  While the Lego Store has always been a big draw for Elijah (and Daddy), Elijah's interest in Legos has  reached almost mania proportions so he was sucked in like never before.  He spent an extra long time engrossed in making his own creation in front of the store.

On the other side of the entrance, a Duplo table was set up for the little ones, and Keira spent a little time building as well.

Keira enjoyed building with Duplos, but she was ready to move on in a matter of minutes, while Elijah was still happily creating his Lego spaceship.  Keira decided she wanted to take a picture with the Lego statue in front of the Lego store.



After having fun posing for that picture, Keira and I looked through a few stores and looked for other statues for her to pose with.  We found Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, and Mickey and Minnie.

When we headed back to join up with the boys, the kids found a squirting statue of Stitch on the front of one of the stores.  They spent a few blissful minutes, giggling and cooling off.

After Stitch, we decided to get some lunch.  While we waited for our pizza, the kids invented a milk carton game.  I love to see how much joy they get from each other and all the little things, like empty milk cartons.  :)

Disney World, Part III -- The Magic Kingdom

While we had a wonderful time with all our free fun at Disney World, visiting the Magic Kingdom is always a highlight.  This trip to the Magic Kingdom was especially fun for me, as Keira was old enough to be excited and truly appreciate and marvel at everything around her.  She wanted to try everything including her first roller coaster -- The Barnstormer.  She was BARELY tall enough to ride, in fact they measured her a few times to be sure, and she was super excited to be let in.  Yet, even though she cheered to get on, she wasn't so sure once it started going.  When asked later, she said it was okay, but way too fast.  However, besides the roller coaster, she was very enthusiastic about everything else we rode.  We rode: It's a Small World, Dumbo, The Magic Carpets, and even Pirates of the Carribean (although she clung to me for most of that ride.)  One of our favorites was the Winnie the Pooh ride, which we kept getting Fast Passes for.  While on Pooh, I was able to get a few photos of her sweet smile.

She also enjoyed "loving" all the stuffed animals in the Winnie the Pooh gift shop, after the ride.

Near Winnie the Pooh is the carousel which we rode a few times as well, and as you can see she was pretty excited.  :)

Continuing on our tour of Fantasyland, Keira spotted "The Mugs" and asked to ride them.  It took me a minute to realize that she meant The Teacups.  :)  Interestingly, I'd never ridden The Teacups at Disney World.  Keira loved the crazy whirling motion, and being able to control our teacup.

After trying the Flying Carpets, Dumbo and The Teacups, I proposed the rockets in Tomorrowland.  I knew she would enjoy controlling our rocket, making it go up and down, but I wasn't sure what she'd think of the altitude.  True to form, she was fearless and giddy.

While Keira and I were running around happily jumping on every ride we found, the boys spent most of the day riding Elijah's favorite -- Splash Mountain.  I think they said they rode it something like eight times!  Between Splash Mountain rides they did end up riding The Train, The Flying Carpets, Pirates of the Carribean and Buzz Lightyear.  Of course, I had the camera, so we don't have any still pictures of their adventures (Scott had the video camera.)  We met up a few times through they day, then finally stayed together once we met for an early dinner.  After dinner, we rode The People Movers.

We stuck around Tomorrow Land and giggled through the Laugh Floor, which was especially funny since we've now all watched Monsters Inc. together repeatedly.  It was wonderful to hear Elijah laughing hystericallly.  He has a great laugh and I love it when he's silly.  We also rode Buzz Lightyear together a few times.  Once again, Keira liked steering our car.  At the end of the ride, Elijah wanted him and Keira to pose with Emperor Zurg in jail, but she wasn't so sure.  Elijah posed with him first, to show Keira it was okay.  The photo of the two of them didn't turn out, but the brave big brother shot did.

As for the weather, it rained off and on throughout the day, and as the evening turned into night, it started to pour.  We didn't let it put a damper on our fun, we wore our slickers, dashed from building to building and when it wouldn't let up we took a drowned rat break and ate some ice cream.

After our fun-filled day, we took our tired babies on a boat ride back to the campground.  I especially loved the contrast of our sweet, sleepy boy wearing his new Darth Vader hat.