Our visit to Disney’s Animal Kingdom for Bean’s first birthday was as perfect as a fun day can be. We had friends who told us that we should head right to the safari ride as soon as we got to the park to beat to lines. For this ride, you climbed into a big safari vehicle and headed out through the jungle and into the open wildlife of the African plains.
The animals were free roaming through this park of the park and there was nothing between you and them. It was like being on the other side of the fence at the zoo.
There were also lions, but we got so excited we forgot to get pictures of them. My Mom was really excited about those guys.
After the safari, we headed over to the Lion King show. You have to be there half an hour early to get a seat, so we hung out under the mister fans while we waited. And trust me, it was worth the wait because a) Bean loved the show and b) it was air conditioned.
The show itself was really neat. They had actors who sang some of the songs and told the story of the Lion King. They also had acrobats who did a few acts pretending to be monkeys up in trees. Bean loved all the lights and costumes and he danced right along with the music. The show was about half an hour long and he sat through the whole thing like a little champ.
When the show ended, we were kicked back out into the heat of the day just in time to head to lunch at The Rainforest Cafe. I had called ahead weeks earlier and made a lunch reservation for us and made arrangements for our cake. They were so cooperative and helpful there! We were allowed to bring in our cake and even a box of party decorations for the lunch. When we got to the park that morning, as we were all picking up our tickets, my Dad dropped the box of goodies and the cake off at the restaurant and they held it for us until our lunch reservation. When we got to the table, they had laid out our party decorations already for us. It was so easy and made our lunch very personal and a lot of fun.
For the birthday lunch, we had safari hats and animal print leis. I was worried that no one would wear them, but everyone – including our waiter!! – put their hats and leis on right away and wore them happily through the whole lunch!
About 20 minutes after we got to the restaurant, Bean and his Grandmomma Jackie took a little walk around to see all the decorations. They had big gorillas and panthers and monkeys hanging from life-sized trees all over the restaurant. And about every 10 minutes, the rainforest would thunder and lightening (just a lot of blinking lights really) and the animals would make all kinds of noise. It was so neat! But all that visual stimulation after a morning of fun in the sun made for one tired Beanie and half way through their walk around the restaurant, Bean fell right asleep.
So, he snoozed while we ate. But when the meal was over, he was still snoozing and we had a whole birthday cake for him! We went ahead and told the waiter to bring out the cake anyway and we’d just eat without him so we could get back out to the park. But when the waiter brought the cake out, the whole wait staff sang happy birthday to him really quietly while he slept!! It was so cute and funny!!
After a great lunch, we headed out to the other side of the park so that the adults could ride Mount Everest, the only real roller coaster in Animal Kingdom. My mom and I stayed with Bean (because neither of us like roller coasters) and we strolled around while they rode the ride. On our strolls, we found this part of the park called DinoLand. It was made to look like an old carnival and they had a flying triceratops ride that Bean could do so as soon as Chris got back from Mount Everest and could hold our stuff, Mom, Bean, and I climbed on up and had a little dino spin!
It was about 3:30 and the Disney parade started at 3:45, so we headed over to the parade route after this and got a good seat front and center. The only problem? It started pouring in the middle of the parade (which is why I don’t have any pictures!). We decided to stay out in the rain through because it was so much cooler. Bean hung out in his stroller under his umbrella, so he didn’t get too soaked, but the rest of us got drenched and, let me tell you, it was awesome.
By now it was about 4:00 and we decided to fit in one more show before we headed out, so he went to Finding Nemo The Musical. For this show, you had to be there half an hour early, too, but you got to wait in the air conditioning. Bean liked that part. He chilled for a little bit.
Until Aunt Annie started picking at him.
She can’t help it. It’s what aunts do. They pick at you when you’re trying to take a nap. It’s part of their Aunt Contract.
Finding Nemo was a little different than the Lion King because it was up on an actual stage. Bean loved it though. We had aisle seats right down front and the characters and fish “swam” right by us throughout the show. It was really neat and Bean sat through this whole show, too, clapping and dancing right along with the cast of fish.
By the time we got out of this one, the park was about to close so we called it a day and headed back to the Rainforest Cafe to collect our leftover cake and to have a little snack before heading home. At this point, it was almost 7:00pm and we had been at the park since 8:00 that morning. We were sure that Bean was about to just keel right over. But he had a great time in the bar area of the restaurant, dancing and having a little snack.
That face is Bean singing while he eats. And by singing I mean squealing to the beat of the music.
He was having so much fun, I made sure to get it on video because he was too blurry from moving around so much when I tried to take his picture!
All in all, we had a great time at Animal Kingdom. I was worried that Bean might be a little too young to be able to enjoy everything the park had to offer, but there really wasn’t too much that he couldn’t do in some form or another. It was the perfect day of fun and family to celebrate Bean’s first year!
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Be sure to check out Chris’ thoughts on our Animal Kingdom adventure over in The Man Cave today!
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SAVE THE DATE! Tomorrow night, June 9, at 9:00pm EST Chris and I will be hosting a LIVE video chat with MC readers. We’ll be answering live reader questions about marriage and parenting and how we’re surviving so far. Tomorrow we’ll post a link to the chat room and you can RSVP ahead of time or just show up at 9pm and join the conversation. We’re looking forward to spending some real time with you all! Hope you’ll join us!
07Jun
This past weekend we ended a week-long celebration of Bean’s birthday at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. Now, the animal kingdom isn’t really my cup of tea. I’m more along the lines of the thrill seeker type. Actually ANY other park would have suited me better. Magic Kingdom has a few pretty good rides, Hollywood Studios (formerly MGM) has a great roller coaster and the Tower of Terror, you can drink around the world at Epcot, Seaworld has two great roller coasters and they give you two free beers, and Universal Studios has the best rides around. For the men out there, these are the parks that you want to focus on when visiting.
The problem for me is that Katie hates thrill rides. She gets nervous watching them fly down a 100′ drop and turn into a barrel roll and twist and turn as fast as they can. So… because of that and because the little man is a little too little to get on those rides we ended up going to the Animal Kingdom. However we had a great time and they have one coaster, so I was happy. Mount Everest is nothing crazy, but you sit in a train car and zip around a few corners. The ride got pretty exciting when half-way through it came to a stop and went backwards down a different track in the dark. That part was great. They also have one of the typical water rides in a big round raft that 8 other people sit in. It’s not the best one I’ve ever seen, but its great for a hot afternoon in Orlando.
What I loved most about the park was their attention to detail. Of course all of the parks have details so amazing that you sometimes can’t tell if its real or fake, and I love seeing all of that stuff. Given my background in scenery, I always appreciate the work that goes into it all. This was my favorite:
They paved the road on the safari to look like mud with tire tracks. Yes… That is a paved road with fake tracks… That is freaking brilliant. And it looked amazing.
Bean Man was a trooper that day. I mean, I was dead at the end of the day but that little guy just kept on crusin! He loved every minute of it. I have to admit, at first I was against the whole let’s spend $80 a person to go to the park for a day for Bean’s first birthday. To me it was going to be a total waste of money we don’t really have right now. He was only turning one, which means he wasn’t going to remember the day, so why waste the money?? But I will tell you, and just keep this between you and me, Kate was absolutely right on this one. After seeing his eyes light up at the shows and the characters, it was 1000% worth every penny. Bean Man won’t tell you, but I can tell you that it was probably the best day of his little life. He had so much fun!
I learned a valuable lesson in parenting this past weekend. When kids are little, even though they don’t know any better, it is still SO important to value those times together and make those days just as important as if they were 5 or 10 or 15. Sure they aren’t going to remember the day years later, but that’s why you take pictures and videos. Your kids deserve the best that you can give them whether that’s a blow up swimming pool in the backyard or a day at the parks. As long as your spending time with them and celebrating their big day, they will think its the best thing ever.
We celebrated Bean’s first birthday at Disney’s Animal Kingdom this past Saturday and I can’t even tell you how perfect the day was. First of all, Bean looked awesome. More awesome than ever, actually, because he was themed.
I dressed him in a little safari outfit – complete with a hat. And the best part was that the shorts were bathing suit trunks, so when it got hot I could get him wet and the shorts would dry really quickly.
But more than his outfit, Bean was just a pure ball of happiness. He was such a joy. And he had the best time. He was all smiles, all laughs, and interested in everything that we saw and did. We got to the park at 8:30 that morning and didn’t leave until 7:00 that night. Bean had one 45 minute nap around lunch time, but other than that, he was on the go all day long. I was worried that between the no napping and all the heat (the heat index was 104 degrees), he would just be worn flat out, but he kept on keepin’ on. And more than just keepin’ on, he was seriously happy all day. What more can a mom ask for than a happy birthday boy?
When we got to the park and went to Guest Relations to pick up our tickets, they gave us two Celebration Buttons for Bean. He got a Happy Birthday button and a First Time Visitor button. I had read online that the buttons indicate to the staff (and especially the characters) that a special event is being celebrated and so they pay a little more attention to you. And that was totally true! All the characters would come up to Bean, point to his button, give him a high five, and hold up one finger. It was great! And at lunch (more on that later), the wait staff bent over backwards for the birthday boy.
The Celebration Buttons are available for a TON of different events and are free to any park guest, so if you’re going to Disney, be sure to let them know at Guest Relations that you are celebrating a special day and they’ll set you up with a button of your very own!
I had no idea how to do a blog post about our day because we did so much fun stuff and we took over 350 pictures! So, I decided to break the posts into different topics and cover our trip that way. The first topic for me was obvious because it was Bean’s favorite part of the day…character visits.
Throughout the park there are different meet-and-greet stations where Disney characters are standing and you can get in line and have your picture taken with them. We also got Bean an autograph book so that each character could sign and we could put a picture of Bean with the character next to their signature. That was one of his birthday presents.
I knew from our character breakfast with friends last month that Bean was pretty okay with the oversized stuffed animals walking around, but I was not prepared for his reaction. He went crazy for them!
The first one that we met was Mickey Mouse and Bean was super excited. He has a little Mickey stuffed animal that he loves and you could tell that he recognized him from home.
But it was Minnie Mouse that he really got excited to see. Bean loves those ladies…
I was so glad that Chris got this little introduction on video because until you can hear Bean squealing for yourself, you just can’t get the full picture of how HAPPY he was to meet Minnie!
After Minnie, we left this particular character area and headed on to do some other fun things, but later in the day as we were leaving the park, we stopped to meet the Winnie the Pooh characters. I’m so glad that we did because Bean loves the Adventures of Winnie the Pooh movie.
For Bean, you just don’t get any more fun than lifesized stuffed animals giving you high fives on your birthday. He was in Heaven! Hearing his little giggles and seeing him so happy was the best part of my day. This was my first time at a Disney park with a child and it opened my eyes to a whole new side of things. Seeing Bean squealing with delight at the characters made me wonder how I have lived for 27 years and never stopped at one of the character stations before! What fun I was missing!
I’ll be posting this week on different parts of our Disney adventure. Hope you’ll stick around and celebrate with us!
03Jun
For Bean’s birthday, we are celebrating by spending this coming Saturday in Disney’s Animal Kingdom (thanks to the swell folks at Disney!). That’s when my parents and some of Chris’ family will be in town and we’ll boogey down all day together. But I couldn’t let his actual birth day go by without some little celebration of its own.
My lovely friend, Sarah, and her husband, Scott, came over…
…along with Chris’ sister, Annie…
(More on this enormous school bus that now lives in my living room later)
and my Dad (my Mom and Grandma were unavoidably out of town).
We had a little backyard BBQ. The old fashioned kind with a charcoal grill, store-bought potato salad, and potato chips eaten right out of the bag at the table. Oh, and beer.
I went with the jungle theme for this little shindig so that we stayed close to the Animal Kingdom theme.
And because I am ridiculously addicted theme parties.
We had the jungle-themed “Happy Birthday” banner and the jungle print table cloth with paper plates and cups. Though, I was disappointed to find that Budweiser did not make a jungle-themed beer bottle.
HOW CAN I PROPERLY THEME UNDER THESE CONDITIONS?!?!?
Bean didn’t seem to mind though. He was too busy squealing/shrieking/rupturing people’s eardrums and trying to catch balloons. He was also busy eating Cheez Its that his Granddad was sneaking him.
Before dinner, we all sat around talking (and sweating) while Bean played with his big birthday gift from me and Chris, his Step 2 Arctic Splash Water Table. To me, it looked like a big bucket of water on legs, but to Bean it was a water wonder world…
We sat the water table inside his empty pool so that he didn’t get muddy.
By dinner, Bean was completed soaked, head to foot. So, we had to do his FIRST costume change of the night.
This did not please The Beast…I mean, The Bean.
But the balloons on his high chair during dinner soon distracted him enough and he forgot that his shirt didn’t say, “MOST AWESOME PERSON IN THE WORLD!” At least, that’s what we told him the other shirt said.
It’s funny when they can’t read yet.
It was miserably hot outside. Miserably hot. Chris and I are still living like we did in Connecticut. Up there, when the weather was nice, you get yourself outside. It was usually warm and sunny and a little breezy. It was lovely.
But here in central Florida? Sunny means 93 degrees and not a breeze a-blowin’. So, I set up this whole dinner outside and then I made my friends and family sit outside in it and I think I almost killed them. I was pretty sure someone was about to have a heat stroke.
So, we moved inside after dinner for birthday cake and presents. I ordered Bean’s birthday cake from Publix, our grocery store. They did a fantastic job!
Publix also gives you a free smaller cake for first birthdays. I called this the face slam cake. And it lived up to its name.
We sang happy birthday to the Birthday Boy…
And then we turned him loose on his cake. I think what happened next is best explained visually. Because the phrase, “It was messy,” just doesn’t do it justice…
It really wasn’t going too bad, until Bean started flapping his arms…
And then he made the fatal mistake of trying to wipe his itching nose…
At this point, it was time to call it a day. So, I dragged Bean into the kitchen to stick him under the faucet.
But that just made him sort of oily. So, I pulled out the big guns, stripped him down to his birthday suit right there at his own birthday party, and stuck him in the bathtub.
In college, we knew it was time to call it a night when the guest of honor started getting naked. Turns out, the same is sort of true for one-year-old birthday parties, too. So, everyone started heading home after that.
It was a pretty awesome night, really. Bean had a blast and Chris and I just soaked up the success of our first year of parenting. And who better to do that with than our closest family and friends? It was a great night and I can’t wait to see how much fun we have on Saturday at the Animal Kingdom, too!
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