Even though all of her family was in town, Debi still had summer courses that were just beginning that she couldn’t afford to miss. So she headed back to Tampa this day while the rest of us made our way to Disney’s Animal Kingdom. We went on a few friends, saw some animals, then went on the Safari ride, which is always fun (despite the rather lame attempt to make it into a ride with a plot). Having been on the Safari ride before I knew what was coming but was somewhat excited to see the cheetah, which we didn’t see the previous time:
As I was managing Toren by myself, Steve, Debi’s brother, kindly took over photography duties and snapped the above picture (he got a bunch more of the animals that were very good as well).
We then let the kids play at length in one of the play areas that had slides and other stuff to climb on. I think all the kids loved it and, were it not for the scorching sun, we would have stayed there even longer. Here’s a clip of Toren running (such a cute run) in the play area:
And here’s a photo of Toren by one of the “fossils”:
Brent, Steve, and I did sneak away to go an adult ride. I left Toren with his Grandmary. Apparently he cried the whole time (though, by the end of the trip he had warmed up to pretty much everyone).
We went to dinner that night at the T Rex Cafe. As the family was visiting right around Toren’s birthday (and they gave him gifts as well), we thought we’d just tell our server every time we went out to eat that we were there celebrating Toren’s birthday. We only managed to remember one night – at T Rex Cafe. They brought him out a cookie and ice cream, which he didn’t really want. Instead he wanted to hug Debi’s head as she made it back in time for dinner:
T Rex Cafe is like Rainforest Cafe in that is a themed restaurant, but it has animatronic dinosaurs. It was fun to see, though a bit pricey for us. That wrapped up the second day of the trip. We were all tired from a long day at Disney.
