Day 3--Animal Kingdom, pt. 1
Ian spent the rest of the morning saying "I love my beautiful ears" and flipping his head around to make them move ;). When we went in we had to take the iconic picture of course ;)
I sent Ian and Dave off to ride Expedition Everest while Brendan and I went to get fastpasses for the Safari. On our way from the safari to EE we saw Baloo and King Louie--the line was pretty short so we stopped. Brendan was thrilled because they were his first Characters ;). Unfortunately I didn't have the camera but Brendan still got to hug them and get Baloo's autograph so he was happy :). We came back later in the day with Ian and Dave and got pictures then ;). The line was so short at EE that Dave and Ian were able to ride it twice. It was Ian's first rollercoaster and he really liked it, although he did say "I lost my stomach" a couple of times ;). It didn't dampen his enthusiasm though so it couldn't have been too bad lol ;). Here he is getting ready to ride the first time, and a couple of good pics Dave got while they were on the ride:
After EE we all rode Dinosaur which was very cool! Surprisingly enough DH wasn't thrilled with it, and the audioanimatronics scared Ian (another surprise), but Brendan and I loved it! Ian didn't mind it, but wasn't really keen about riding it again ;). We started to head back towards the Safari, with an intended detour through the Majarajah Jungle Trek. It was disgustingly hot and humid and Brendan was cranky so we stopped to have an early snack--2 frozen lemonades and a giant pretzel :). Had I known the lemonades were so big I would have gotten one for all of us, but oh well. Brendan was coaxed a little bit out of his mood by being allowed to take pictures--the whole trip he bugged us about taking pictures, had we known we would have brought our old digital camera and let him use that ;).
We went through the jungle trek (very cool but didn't see the tigers very well) and when we got out it was time to head to Rainforest Cafe for lunch. Brendan went back into a mood because he wanted to go to Camp Minnie Mickey. I told him we'd go after lunch but that wasn't good enough (you know how 7 yr. olds can be ;). On the way I got them pressed penny books to hold the pressed pennies they'd gotten so far. That and the pressed penny machines in RFC helped with his mood, as did a good lunch and some drinks (we'd had a hard time getting him to eat and drink so far because of the excitement ;). While we were waiting to be seated we got to see a diver cleaning the tanks:
I'm a RFC member and I'd gotten an email coupon before we left for a free volcano. We'd never gotten one at the restaurant here so I thought that would be a fun thing at Disney ;). I love Brendan's face in this one! 
As promised we went to see Mickey after lunch. They wanted to see the others, but the lines were pretty long and I told them about another surprise I had for them--Breakfastasaurus on our last day :). It's a really fun character breakfast buffet with Donald, Mickey, Pluto and Goofy :). Because I had that ace up my sleeve I was able to get away without having to stop for the fab 5 if the lines were too long lol ;). 
We then headed over to the safari with our fastpasses. We were in luck because while we were in lunch the clouds came in and really lowered the temperature--it was actually nice out! I think that really worked in our favor because we had a *fantastic* safari! These are the first 2, the rest have to go in a separate post because we took so many (and these aren't even all of them!). This was definitely one of the highlights of our trip :)
Up next, more safari pictures!
