All three kids participated in Ocean Adventures at church in the spring. For the end of the semester program they presented what they’d learned. Ben was sick the day of the program, so just the girls got to participate.
These photos were from the rehearsal. During the actual performance, Charlotte laid down in the middle of the stage. I suppose it could have been worse.
Ben wrapped up his soccer season in May. Over the course of the season, Ben really got more comfortable. The start of the season was pretty rocky, but by the end he got the hang of things.
Team picture
Silly pic!
The kids started swim lessons in May this year at the Y. Charlotte and I would swim while the older ones had lessons. It was an okay year as far as lessons go. Not sure if it was because of the May M-W-F for 3 weeks schedule instead of every day for 2 weeks that we’ve done in the past. They did well, just didn’t seem to progress as much as in past years.
For our third Disney trip, we headed to Animal Kingdom. It was a Friday in early May, so the crowds weren’t too bad, but to me Animal Kingdom always feels pretty full.
Once again, we arrived at opening.
The kids got their maps and talked with a cast member about a spider.
Jonathan, Rosemary, and I high-tailed it directly to Expedition Everest. Rosemary was very excited about this ride. The first time, she rode it with me.
Then, because the lines were so short, she rode it again with Jonathan.
That’s Rosemary and Jonathan in the front seat coming down the drop.
She conquered Everest!
Meanwhile, my parents and Charlotte and Ben had checked out some of the animals near the safari. We rode Kilimanjaro Safari next and it was great, so many animals were out first thing in the morning.
We took the train over to Rafiki’s Planet Watch.
When we got back to the main part of the park, we got some BBQ for lunch and the kids filled in some of their Wilderness Explorer books.
We don’t usually stop for characters, but the line for Tigger and Pooh was really short. As we were walking up to the beginning of the line, Charlotte saw Pooh and started running after him calling, “Wait for me, Pooh!” He didn’t, but she did get to give Tigger a high five.
We took the kids into the Dino Bones area for a little playtime. Jonathan went off with the big kids and I kept up with Charlotte.
Did you know she’s quite the ham?
We caught the Nemo show. Rosemary wanted to ride the Dinosaur ride, so Jonathan and I took her on that while my parents took Charlotte and Ben to Bug’s Life. After Dinosaur, Rosemary and I rode Primeval Whirl. Along the way we filled in more of their Wilderness Explorer books.
Our last fast pass of the day was for Kali River Rapids. Ben and Rosemary were very excited about this one. Thankfully, none of us got super-soaked, just wet enough to have fun and get cooled off a bit.
By then, we’d ridden all that we set out to ride, so we worked with Rosemary and Ben to get more of the WE badges.
Rosemary and I snuck in one more Expedition Everest ride since the wait time was less that 5 minutes right before the park closed.
And on our way out, they got their WE badge. They didn’t fill out their entire books, but they got quite a few badges that day.
Charlotte was tuckered out by the end of the day. My parents waited with her a bit while she slept so we could get badges with the older kids.
Another open till close Disney day. Oh, so tired, but so much fun.
Rosemary’s Girl Scout troop chose to spend the night at SeaWorld as the end of the year party. In early May, we headed down to Orlando for the overnight trip. It took four hours to get there, but we made it! It was a little bit overcast that day so very few people were actually in the park and the girls got to do so much.
At Wild Arctic
We literally all weighed a ton.
The girls.
Late that afternoon, we made our way over to the education area of the park. There the girls did a craft, played a game, and had dinner. Once the park closed, we unloaded all of our stuff into one of the Turtle Trek aquarium rooms. We were going to sleep with the manatees! After we were unloaded, we headed out to see a few of the animals after dark. The girls kept having to stop to go to the bathroom and it was rainy so we didn’t see too much before we headed back to get ready for bed.
Rosemary slept right in front of the glass and I was up with the other moms on the platform behind her. We both actually slept really well.
Enjoying our ice cream whale desserts.
In the morning, we got up, got dressed, packed up and headed to breakfast in the Seafire Inn. After that, we got to see some of the dolphins behind the scenes then the girls went to put the stingrays. By then, the park was about ready to open so we had to make our way back to the cars.
Having been to SeaWorld a lot, I wasn’t sure how much different this would be, but I have to say, actually spending the night with the manatees was pretty cool.
