Back to Hollywood Studios!

As I mentioned, Hollywood Studios is our favorite park!  And since we bought five days of tickets, we wanted to go back to Hollywood!

 The best part about getting to the park right at opening is that you can spot some of the characters and the long lines to see them haven't started yet!  This is Austin's favorite character, Stitch!  Last time we came he was able to get a picture with Stitch and he also bought the stuffed animal.  This year, we were on the search for Stitch hands!  We saw lots of Mickey and Minnie hands but it took us forever to finally find Stitch hands!

 Right after getting off of Toy Story Mania, we ran into a fun little act getting ready to start!  Addie and Ashton both were called in to be assistant deputies, and were given sheriff stars to take with them.

 I was determined this time to get Addie on the Rockin' Roller Coaster.  It took much convincing, and all through the line I had to distract her by focusing on other things.  Once it was our turn to get on to the ride, she really didn't want to go!  Somehow I got her into the car and buckled.  Oh man, I will never do that again!  I thought she'd love it once it got started, but the whole time she kept telling me she was going to throw up!  That thought never crossed my mind!  I had my head turned to her and had to talk to her through the whole ride and calm her down.  My neck was killing at the end because I was straining to see her the whole time and I didn't enjoy the ride at all thinking I was going to be covered in throw-up for the rest of the day.  But she made it!  And I took her picture in front of the ride since she conquered the ride.  But lesson learned for me!  If she says she doesn't want to ride something I will not make her!

 This time instead of the car show we went over to the Indiana Jones show.  

 It was just as exciting with all the action and live stunts!  You could feel the heat from all the fire.

 I LOVE this picture of the little girls with Randy!  It shows their personalities exactly!  Addie's timid and not sure about all the fighting, and Ashton is not even phased by it!

 We decided to do the Star Wars ride again, but this time Addie was all smiles!  She likes these kind of rides where you feel like you're moving but you're not really going anywhere!

 Lots of fun and dancing!  We were happy to be able to go around one more time and hit all the fun rides!  We didn't stay around as long this time around.  We had some familiar faces to go meet up with!

 After work and school, Joe and Lindsay came to meet up with us and spend the night with us!  

 We were so excited to be able to spend some time with them again!  They live so far away that anytime we can see them we take advantage!  What I can't believe is that we ended up at Chili's for dinner!  The one restaurant we have in Bartlesville and we go all the way to Florida and hit up a Chili's!

 But they don't have balloon people at the Chili's in Bartlesville!  A lady came by and made Disney balloon characters for the kids.  Addie got Belle, Ashton got Ariel and Austin got Pluto!

And Avery got a Tinker Bell!  Super cute!  We surprised Joe and Lindsay by getting them tickets to Disney with us tomorrow!!!  So excited to have them join us on our last day!!

Epcot

Day 4 of our vacation and our third day at Disney was spent at Epcot.  The last time we came we didn't spend much time at Epcot.  We were excited to explore this park a little more.

 One thing we noticed at Epcot was there were a lot more characters here!  The girls got to meet Aurora (Sleeping Beauty)...

 And TinkerBell.

Avery and I were so excited when we spotted Mary Poppins.  We weren't sure where she was headed but I'm sure the line to see her was very long!  Mary Poppins is my all time favorite Disney movie.

We fell in love with Belle!  She was such a sweetheart!!  

She even saw Austin standing over in the background and gave him a hard time!  It was so funny!!

 We found Snow White just as she was getting ready to leave so we hurried and snapped a picture of Addie with her in the background!  I've actually found this to be a great way to take pictures!  hahaha!  No standing in lines! 

 I'm sure there are so many characters here because other than that, this park seems to mainly be for adults or older kids.  It really was awesome how you felt like you were in different parts of the world, but it was a hot day and lots of walking.  This is a park Randy and I will have to come back to on our own someday!

 We did enjoy visiting the countries.

 We grabbed some sushi in China, 

and some gelato in Italy.

 Of course we had to grab a picture in Canada for our Jensen family!

And Avery is in love with London, England right now because of the music group One Direction.  Plus her soccer coach is from Liverpool.

 On our way out of the park we saw Pluto, and Addie really wanted to go meet him.  It was so fun to see her light up as he started playing with her Simba baby!  

Time for the Beach!

We're always ready for a break from our Disney vacation!  This year instead of going to Cocoa Beach, we ventured further to the Siesta Keys Beach.  Randy heard it was really pretty so we thought we would try it out!  Holy Cow... SO worth the drive!

Joe and Lindsay's house was right along the freeway to the beach we were headed to so we stopped by to say hello and they gave us a few beach items.  Joe had to work and Lindsay had class so they couldn't come with us.  Avery was excited to try out this little number Joe had!  You ride it along the waters edge.  It looks really cool watching someone do it, but we all had a hard time figuring it out!

Just a day at the beach!  A well needed day at the beach!  Grabbed this shot of them right before they took off to get in the water.

It was a little colder than the kids expected... but they got used to it!

My little surfer dudes!

 Randy's ready to try out the surf board.

 We stayed for hours!  I love how the beach gives you so many different things to do.  Including the ever famous burying in the sand.  Speaking of sand, the sand at this beach was amazing!  Softest sand I'd ever felt.  It was even softer than in the Bahamas!

 And of course sand castle making was on the list!

 Austin turned into the SandMan for a while!

We found lots of beautiful shells to add some special touches for our sand castle... and to take home with us.

Ok, so the craziest part of our beach trip was that we found my sister!!  Sara was in Sarasota, FL with a friend and I knew this beach was close to that.  I texted her to let her know we were going to be at a beach close to her called Siesta Keys and she was like, "I'm here too!!"  We figured out that we had set up beach spots maybe 1/4 mile apart from each other!

 We had an amazing day!  Beautiful weather, gorgeous water, softest sand... but being together was the best part!!  This will not be the last time we see this beach!

This was just what we needed... now back to Disney!!

Animal Kingdom

Our second day at Disney World was spent in the Animal Kingdom.  This is a great park, especially on a hot day because there is lots of shade!  

 The Safari is our favorite thing to do in Animal Kingdom.  Instead of trying to get a fast pass for it, we decided to just get there at gate opening and ride it first.

I made sure Ashton was in the middle.  It really is crazy to me that we just ride through an African-like Safari with wild animals in an open vehicle!

Being there first thing in the morning, we were hoping all the animals would be out and enjoying the day.  And they were!  I saw all my favorites!  The sweet baby giraffes.... 

 and even the baby elephants!

I always want to see the lion, until I see the lion!  This is the real reason Ashton sits in the middle!  He was up on the top with all the lioness right around him!

 The whole time the kids kept saying in their crazy, speech-impaired voice, "we're going on a Safari!"  They're so silly!

Next we ran over to get fast passes for the Everest Expedition and then headed to Dinosaur Land USA.  There's a couple fun rides over there.  We got Addie back on one of the roller coaster rides that Ashton was too little to ride still.  But we could all go on this dinosaur ride.

 It's not often that Randy and I get to ride on a ride together!

 There are some great shows in Animal Kingdom that we always try to hit.  Here is Randy and Addie in the Finding Nemo show.  No cameras during the show, so I sneaked this before the show started!

And of course the Lion King is a must!

 But the ride we rode over and over again was the Everest Expedition!  At first we used our fast pass but for the most part, every time we stopped back by it, there weren't many people so we just kept riding!  We couldn't get Addie to try it out, I was so bummed!

Avery and I on the ride! 

 Addie and Ashton were very patient with us riding this so many time!  They kept busy by getting their face painted and eating frozen lemonade!