After our amazing Disney day the boys headed out bright and early for their water park fun. They debated which Disney water park to go to and ended up deciding to try out Typhoon Lagoon. They LOVED it and had a BLAST! I know I say it all the time, but I’m so thankful for the friendship Jordan and Zach share. Jordan has truly been such a blessing in so many ways to our family! Casey knows how to pick ’em (well….she picked right when it came to the only guy that really mattered! haha!).
When the boys left us girls were reminding them to take a bunch of things with them for the day and annoying them with our nagging. Sidenote: why do women get so much crap for nagging and men don’t get hardly any grief for the fact that they don’t listen. If they’d listen and remember the first time we say things, we wouldn’t have to nag. Am I right?!?!?! Anyways…one of the things I said on their way out was to take lots of pictures. I know. They are GUYS. They aren’t going to take pictures haha but I still tried 😉 When Casey and I were driving we got these lovely gems sent to our phones:
They also sent us this video going over all the things they made sure to bring along with them for the day. Of course when I watched the video the first thing I said is “well they didn’t remember the sunscreen did they?” hahahaha.
I’m so glad the guys had such a fun time together and I was looking forward to a fun day with Casey too! I always enjoy our times together and she is one of those friends where I never get tired of her. I could literally hang out with her everyday and never think “gah, I’m ready for a Casey break!” It’s an added bonus that she also is so comfortable with our kids and it’s just a natural fit when we’re together.
For our day with the kids we decided to check out Art of Animation Resort. Robyn was staying there for their trip and told me how awesome it was. ALL Disney Resorts are FREE to the public to visit! You can’t use the pools but everything else is pretty much open to anyone who wants to visit. With my mommy guilt over not taking Britt to the park, I thought this would be a GREAT way to make up for it! Plus…hello it was FREE!!!!
We parked and had no issues getting in. We didn’t pack a double stroller for this trip since we’d need Kye’s single stroller for the day at Disney so we had two strollers and each pushed one around the resort. They have a HUGE outside area with four different themes: Lion King, Little Mermaid, Nemo and Cars. I really couldn’t have picked better themes for our tastes! Britt LOVES Nemo and Lion King!!! They are her two favs! And Little Mermaid is my favorite and Cars is Kye’s! Casey isn’t a Disney pro yet (I’m sure her day will come!) so I’m not sure her fav? But she enjoyed the experience!
Kye was ALL about the picture taking. He literally wanted pictures with every single thing we saw! Duh. I LOVED it. Britt however? She wasn’t quite too sure what to think about it all. It was a little overwhelming for her and she mostly wanted to stay in the stroller. She did warm up to it all though eventually! I’ve learned just to go with the flow with her and let her get used to new things. I’m hopeful that when we do the character meetings in February that she will be okay. We are doing a princess meal first as I feel like the princesses are less intimidating! I’m hoping she warms up to them quickly and then will be better prepared for Chef Mickey later in the week!
They even had the elephant graveyard where we could walk through a cave! SO cool! I was ALL about all the themed stuff and how authentic it all was. Casey’s favorite part was how all the plants fit each theme. Gah, she’s so granola. 😉 I just am always impressed by Disney. When they do something, they do it RIGHT. And everything we saw at this resort appears to be done right!!!
Cool Mom crawling around on my knees with the kids 😉
Up next was Little Mermaid!
Kye told us ALL about each thing we saw! I love how each kid is wearing the friendship bracelet Aunt Casey and Uncle Jordan won for them at the Banana Jack’s place!
Isn’t Ursula the coolest villain EVER?
I had to have a picture with Sebastian as I did dress up like him for Halloween, remember?
Also, YES I’m rocking some super un-cool shoes. They are some navy sneakers I found in my closet from high school (from Delia’s actually!). I was having such bad foot issues at the time that I decided just to wear tennis shoes for this entire trip!
You really can’t tell how MASSIVE they are until you see us standing next to them!
Going “under the sea!”
This is hilarious. It’s like she’s saying “I’m too cool for all of this, I’ll have my baby look at it and I’ll just roll my eyes at how lame everyone is” haha Her teen years should be fun 😉
Nemo area was where they had the pool. I know lots of people LOVE Disney Property pools. But it didn’t appear to be anything over-the-top amazing to me? I was actually surprised at how small it appeared? I think they must have more pools throughout the property? Since the pool took up a lot of the Nemo area, there wasn’t as much to see. But we did get to take a break and play on a Nemo playground area! The kids LOVED it and had fun going down the three different slides.
We saved the best for last. Radiator Springs! When we went to Hollywood Studios during Kye’s first Disney trip I was SUPER excited for him to meet Lightning McQueen and Mater and we were very disappointed when we did get to meet them. Kye didn’t enjoy it either! If you have a Cars fan then I HIGHLY recommend skipping the long line for the meet and greet and instead stopping by Art of Animation to “meet” ALL the Cars and see the amazing details of the resort area that really do make you feel like you’re in Radiator Springs. (And I was glad it was focused on the original movie and not Cars 2) Kye was SO happy and LOVED every second of it!!! I was blown away impressed and I told Zach I really wish he could have been there with us. We will FOR SURE be going back!!!
Britt enjoyed doing a lot of pointing 😉
Guido is one of our favorites 🙂
He talked about this moment for a long time: we got to climb into Mater’s truck bed!!!
Saluting with Sarge
Peace and Love Man!
Yes, he kissed Sally
And the best moment of all!
It was truly AWESOME to see all of the areas of the resort, but especially the Cars one. Kye had been very disappointed when he met Lightning McQueen the first time and this TOTALLY made up for it! I know what you all are thinking: will the Parkers be staying at this resort in the future since we loved it so much? No, we won’t be. Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free, right? I feel like we were able to experience the best part of the resort without having to actually stay there. So I have zero plans to probably ever stay at that resort with our family! I can’t see myself justifying the cost, being willing to sacrifice the space in the room for sleep arrangements, and not having a kitchen to be able to cook our own food!
We spent a couple hours at the resort then headed to Downtown Disney for some more fun! Kye took home a little piece of Radiator Springs! He found a rock and brought it with us 😉
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I didn't know you could check out the resorts like that! That will be on my to-do list next time! So fun!!Those pics of the guys….haha!