Last Vacation Post...Epcot Part II

107 edited photos later and I find myself posting my last blog post of our Florida vacation from June. Wow! I wish we were still on vacation. At least we have all these wonderful memories to cherish! Continuing with our day at Epcot. While Maureen, Kathleen and I took the girls around to meet all the different princesses - Armilyn and the men took the boys around to different "countries", went on some rides and did some beer tasting (the men not the boys). 

And what do they find in Norway...

The original VIKING of course. :)

They also took the boys to Morocco where they found a craft table. 

Uncle Eric joined in on the coloring project.

Wait a second, Nathan you're not old enough to drive yet!

After these princesses got other princesses autographs we made our way through the rest of the countries, can you guess which country they stopped at here?

Love these girls! Though they may live far apart, 

they definitely enjoy their "cousin time" when they get it!

I wish we had more time with the Carney family, Maureen's sister's family. 

They were a ton of fun at Epcot! We're so glad they joined us.

This was the last ride we went on, Spaceship Earth in the iconic Epcot sphere. 

This is the video Stephen and Madeline made on it.

And here we are, our last parking tram ride of our Disney vacation! 

Can you tell we had fun!?

When we got back to the resort that evening we went for a night swim and BBQ'd by the pool. Love all these peeps - so glad we spent this vacation together!

The next day we caught a morning flight back to Texas with my brother's family. 

We scored and got to sit in First Class. So Stephen ordered a tomato juice and vodka cocktail and James ordered a milk.

And Madeline and I enjoyed our First Class meal.

Back in Texas and on the airport shuttle. I love these last 2 pics, the smiles on our faces, Madeline holding her cousin Alex's hand...pretty much summed up our time together in a nutshell!

Thanks for all the comments on my vacation posts, glad you enjoyed them!

Day 6 Vacation...Last Day - Epcot Part I

On our last day in Florida we went to Epcot. Maureen's sister's family flew in the day before so they joined us for Epcot. We had a group of 15, and we had a lot of fun!

With a big group we have many frequent bathroom breaks, so here I'm waiting on others checking my Disney phone app to see what wait line times are.

Before this trip we got a Disney Chase Credit Card. One of the cardholder perks is to have a private meeting with some Disney characters. Here are Madeline and James meeting Minnie and Goofy. We received a free 5x7 photo with them.

At the Animal Kingdom I bought these 2 girls autograph books. They were thrilled that at Epcot there were several characters and princesses at all the different lands giving autographs. Here we are in England meeting Miss Mary Poppins.

And in France they met with Princess Belle. These ladies were all so beautiful and they really played the part talking in their theatrical voices.

Also in France the girls met Princess Aurora.

We headed over to Morocco but the line for meeting Princess Jasmine and Aladdin was already closed off. So we walked over to Germany and met Princess Snow White. It was so cute, a couple ahead of us in line brought their little baby girl dressed as Snow White. Everybody was ooooing and aaahhhing when Snow White held her. I love the excitement in Kiara's face when she was getting Snow White's autograph.

We didn't eat out a lot while in Florida since we had a kitchen in our timeshare at Bonnet Creek. But I did make reservations months ahead of time to eat at Teppan Edo in the land of Japan at Epcot for our group of 15.

It was so enjoyable! The drinks were good, the food was excellent! And we were entertained by the chefs cooking in front of us.

The meal was quite pricey but so worth it for our last big meal on our vacation!

Many of the workers at Teppan Edo were foreign exchange students working at Epcot. I love this shot of James and this beautiful Japanese woman.

I have lots more photos from Epcot that I will share on my next blog post.

Day 5 Vacation...Magic Kingdom Again & Visitors!

Back to blogging, it was a busy week. On this vacation day we spent half of it at the Magic Kingdom and the other half back at our resort swimming and eating with some special visitors. This was our 2nd time to the Magic Kingdom this trip, this time with the Tengbergens too! Kids are anxious and excited on the parking tram to get into the park!

Never fails, lots of laughter with this bunch.

Once inside on Main Street Madeline wanted to take Kiara to the barber shop we went to last time so they could get pixy dust (glitter) in their hair. Even Aunty Maureen got glitter-fied. :)

Hook'em. Showing their Texas Longhorn pride on Main Street!

Stephen, Armilyn and David took some of the kids on the rockets in Tomorrowland. Stephen got this video of them going round and round. :)

While the others were on the rockets, Kiara, James and I decided to go dance with the Chipmunks near by. We got a good workout. The kids loved that the Chipmunks came down to dance with them. While editing this photo I noticed the man behind the Chipmunk...

striking resemblance to Mr. T right!?

After a few rides we split up into groups. David, Stephen, Eric and myself ended up taking Nathan on some fast rides like Space Mountain. While Armilyn and Maureen took the other kiddos on all the fun kid rides. I'm glad they got the pictures below of the kids with the infamous sword. Their faces crack me up...

Aunty Maureen braving the tea cups with the boys, James and Alex.

We all met back up near the castle for the firework show. I can't take credit for this photo but I must say it was a pretty spectacular show. In the beginning the real Tinkerbell was lit up and flew (on a cable) from the top of the castle across the sky. We had a great day, and the kiddos were pooped once we were on the monorail back to our van.

Earlier that day we had some special visitors at the resort! Oom Rob, my mom's cousin who lives a couple ours south of Orlando drove up to have lunch with us and visit. 

We were so happy to see him!

Oom George, Tante Xenia, Tante Patty and Oom Folly also stopped by for a visit. They were doing a roadtrip in Florida the same time we were there. It was so wonderful to see everyone!

Of course the older ones slipped the younger ones some spending $$ money. Kids were happy to accept and eager to spend on a souvenir. 

Had to get a picture of all the "Tengbergens" we're just missing Tante Patty whom was taking the photo. We had a great visit!

Madeline grew quite keen of Oom Rob in the few hours we visited. The last time she saw him was when she was 2 when we lived in Oregon. We definitely have to plan another trip back to Florida and go and visit Oom Rob at his home. For now we'll cherish these memories made.

Stay tuned, next post is of our last day in Florida!

Day 4 Vacation... Animal Kingdom

I think we all agreed that Animal Kingdom was one of our most favorite of all the parks. We would definitely visit this one again. The entire park was so beautifully landscaped, you really did feel like you were in a jungle or on a safari in South Africa as you walked the grounds. 

I thought this picture was hilarious, 

Stephen captured all the parents snapping away pics of the kiddos.

We passed by several live music stages. 

The kids especially liked these drums they could play on.

The Kilimanjaro Safari was a jeep ride through an African Savannah. 

The kids loved seeing all the wild animals.

In the jeep we were able to come real close to some of these exotic animals.

Animal Kingdom had a prehistoric dinosaur section that the kids really enjoyed. Tante Army treated them to some yummy ice cream in this part of the park. 

Kali River Rapids - Animal Kingdom from Melissa Spence on Vimeo.

Ice cream and getting wet were two great ways to cool off at the parks. 

And boy did we get wet on this rapid ride!

I bought the girls some autograph books so they were very adamant on meeting many of the characters at the park. I think Nathan just wanted to meet Pluto and Goofy.

Nathan being 13 and the oldest of all the kids was ready to go on any fast roller coaster type ride he could find! So David, Stephen and I would chaperon him on these rides (the 3 of us realized we were getting too old for these fast rides LOL can't you tell by David's expression?). Here we are ready to get on Expedition Everest. Actually Stephen went on it a second time with Nathan, while David and I caught our breath. Here is the video from their second time on the coaster...

Another great ride at that park is Dinosaur, it's similar to the Indiana Jones jeep ride at Disneyland except this one you are running from dinosaurs! We all loved Armilyn and Alex in this shot.

James really got a kick out of being silly with his uncles and cousins.

We had a great day at this park!

Many of our drives to and from the parks consisted of loud music and singing in our van. 

This video shows a taste of that. :)

I believe we ended that day with more swimming at the resort. 

These kids were having a ball!

Next post...a visit with Oom Rob and Magic Kingdom with the Tengbergens.