The Rosy Roses!

 We left the house at 6:30 again, and got to the park just before they started letting cars in. No ferry or monorail to take this time, so we walked right into the park. Much quicker entrance and all that. This was our first time at Animal Kingdom, and wow. It was so cool. So... Un Disney feeling. Tons of foliage, so way way more shade. Also significantly smaller than Magic Kingdom, so less walking. My blistered feet shouted hallelujah when I realized that. The main visual attraction was the Tree of Life. Super cool GINORMOUS tree in the center of the park. They have over 200 animals carved into it very intricately. It was so neat. Our first stop of the day was the African Safari. We were in the first 20 people in line, which was awesome. We wanted to get on before the animals got too hot to be out and about. It didn't disapoint. They have SO many cool animals. I initially thought it was going to be kind of like a ride with a car on a track or something like that. These were real s...

 We all slept in a little after the exhaustion of Magic Kingdom the day before. We decided to go to a gulf beach, so we headed over to Tampa around 11, and got there about 12:30. We went to Sand Key beach, which is just south of Clearwater. Ive been told Clearwater was ranked one of the best beaches in the USA, so, this was a pretty good one too. We found parking for $5, and it was relatively uncrowded. The water was perfect. Temperature was great, and the depth was like 2 feet deep for at least 30 yards, which was perfect for the littles. There was also almost zero waves, which was again, amazing for the littles. We built a Medieval sand castle with all the kids helping. Lots of splashing and playing in the water. When we first got there, Nathan charged head first into the water and then fell. It scared me a ton. Luckily the water was shallow and he was able to stand up in it, but it scared him, and me! I love the beach, but it's definitely a little less relaxing with small kids. ...

 Disney World! A few months ago Chase and Alex invited us to join them at Disney world at the end of April. We had just bought our flights to Alaska, but we still had some money in our travel fund, so we figured, what the heck. How often will we get the chance to go to Disney World with cousins? I found a cute house about 20 minutes from DW that would fit Chase and Alex and fam, and us. Split up, it cost us each about $300 for the whole week. It had a private pool, and a game room in the garage. We had it booked from April 24th- May 1st. We drove down to Jacksonville on April 23rd after James got off of work, and stayed with Grace Simpson. The next day the kids played together, and we went to the park and Buccees to get dippin dots. We played games in the afternoon while the kids had quiet play and movies. Love Grace so much. We drove down to Orlando later that night, and got settled/ bought some groceries. Chase and Alex didn't make it until around 1AM because they'd had bad w...