Florida - Day 5 - Lowry Park Zoo

On Wednesday (Feb 24th) we drove over to Tampa and went to the Lowry Park Zoo since rain was forecast for most of the day.

Carter slept well through the night and woke up around 6:15 am. The new hotel also had waffle makers so Carter got his usual big breakfast of a fresh waffle (I so want a waffle maker now - I got addicted!).

We left Orlando around 8:45 am for the hour drive to Tampa. Carter slept the entire drive. This zoo is part of the reciprocal program with the Knoxville Zoo. And since we have an annual membership to our zoo, we got into this one for free. And they had free parking. We love saving money when we can!

We got into the zoo around 10 am and spent about 4 hours there.


We liked this zoo a lot. It was set up really well for kids to see the animals. The fences are better for Carter to see the animals from his stroller. And the exhibits are set up so that the animals are closer to people making it easier for Carter to pick out the animals. The exhibits are sort of small, but they are set up to look like natural habitats. The zoo has a feel similar to Knoxville's zoo with lots of trees between exhibits, but Tampa's exhibits are closer together. The only annoying part was all the school groups that were there. We did a pretty good job of going in opposite directions, but it took some work.

Carter screamed and pointed at everything! He seemed to love the zoo and have lots of fun. He especially liked any birds he saw (including random native birds that were just hanging out with the zoo animals). Carter was still really attached to Brian, but he let me hold him some.

Several of the exhibits had baby animals, including a rhino, gibbon, orangutan, and mandrill. They were all very cute.

The weather was overcast and not too hot so a lot of the animals were active and moving around.

There were a ton of different monkeys. Carter was too interested in this monkey to turn around for this picture ...


Got him this time! There are cool monkeys to the left of Carter's head with long white hair on their faces and arms ...


If you zoom in on this picture, you can see that the gibbon that's laying on the ground has a baby laying on it's tummy ...


Carter pointing out the manatees ...


Carter really liked the flamingos ...



And the penguins. It looks like he was trying to touch this one through the glass ...



Pointing out a giraffe ... I think this is one of Carter's favorite animals right now. When we were walking at the mall this week, he's pointed to a stuffed one at a store both days.



We've seen this animal (called an okapi) once before, but doesn't it look funny? Looks like a zebra bred with a donkey or something ...


You're supposed to take this picture and then turn it upside down so you're hanging upside down like a bat. The bats at the zoo were HUGE.


We ate lunch in the Children's Zoo. While we were eating, we had a pretty good rain storm come through. We waited out the rain for a little bit and then finished seeing the animals.

We didn't put Carter into the goat pen, but one of them was trying to see if we had any food. Carter really liked him or her ...



I love this place!


The baby rhino (covered in mud) ...


We left the zoo around 2 pm and headed back to Orlando because it was about to rain again. It rained hard most of the drive back. Carter took another long nap.

When we got back to Orlando, the rain had fizzled to an occasional drizzle so we decided to check out Downtown Disney. We walked around for a while and stopped at World of Disney (a huge gift shop) and the Lego Store. They had some impressive giant Lego creations ...





We stopped by the hotel to pick up some food for Carter and then went to Chevy's Fresh Mex for dinner. Carter was LOUD! He was happy the whole time, but he yelled a lot. I really hope he learns some words soon. Talking may not solve anything, but I'm hoping it helps some.

Since it was still early, we stopped by the outlet stores near our hotel for a few minutes. It was insanely windy though and seemed like it was going to start raining again so we didn't stay long. We headed back to the hotel and got Carter to bed around 7:45 pm.

We had a good low key day to recuperate from Magic Kingdom and prepare for our next day at Epcot. And we stayed relatively dry even though it rained a lot.

Florida - Day 4 - Magic Kingdom

Tuesday was another big day for us - we went to Magic Kingdom at Disney World! This was another super fun day.

Carter woke up screaming at 3 am. I have no idea what was wrong, but he fell back to sleep quickly when I picked him up. Unfortunately, I was never able to go back to sleep. Luckily I'm starting to get used to not getting much sleep again.

Carter was up early and I got him around 5:30 am. We were moving to a different hotel for the rest of the trip so we had to pack up all our stuff that morning. It was a little bit of a pain to switch hotels, but it was worth getting free nights in suites.

We got to the parking lot for Magic Kingdom around 8:30 am and it wasn't very busy at all yet. Carter got a short 10 minute cat nap in on the drive over. We went straight to will call to get our free tickets.

This year Disney is giving away a free ticket for doing a day of service. I had seen the commercials for this but never thought about it when we decided to do this trip. Luckily Sarah reminded me about it and also told me about a volunteer opportunity that we could squeeze in before our trip (we had only decided to go on the trip two or three weeks beforehand and didn't have much time to plan it). Anyway, there is an organization that donates blankets to hospitals in the area for children (we actually got one for Carter when he was born). So Brian and I both made blankets (they were very simple fleece blankets but the organization had instructions for making them on their website so they must like them). After turning in the blankets, we got vouchers to use at any of the Disney parks for a free ticket. Disney is so expensive (Epcot cost us about $165 later in the week) that it was awesome getting in free. And it is so nice that Carter still gets into everything for free. It's going to be disappointing once we have to start paying for him too!

Once we got our tickets we took the boat over to Magic Kingdom.

Carter waiting for the boat to start moving ...


Carter enjoyed pointing out everything (birds, boats, etc) to Brian as the boat crossed the lake ...


We walked up to the entrance just as it was opening. We went to Adventureland first.



We rode three rides in that area and didn't have to wait for any of them - we just walked straight onto the rides. I was able to ride all the rides that we took Carter on to. I was worried that I wasn't going to be allowed on some of the rides because of being pregnant, but no one ever said anything.

Our first ride was Magic Carpets of Aladdin. Carter did fine, but he wasn't as excited about the ride as I had expected.

Ready for the ride to start ...


Dad, I'm not too sure about this ...


As this video shows, Carter was happy at first but then got pretty serious.

Our next stop was The Jungle Cruise. Carter really liked this ride. He pointed out EVERYTHING to us on the ride.



Next we rode Pirates of the Caribbean. The ride was really dark so I couldn't see Carter's expressions very well. He did like the dogs in the pirate scenes and pointed them out.

After Adventureland we went to Liberty Square and rode The Haunted Mansion ride (again, no wait). Carter's mouth was gaping open the entire ride as he looked at everything.

After the ride we headed over to Fantasyland and rode a few more rides with no wait.

First was It's a Small World. Carter chewed on his hands the whole time as he watched everything. He really liked how bumpy the boat was after loading up before we entered the water.

Carter sitting next to Brian while loading the boat ...


What's that???


Sitting with me for once! Carter was so attached to Brian this trip! It was rare that he let me hold him or sat with me. If Brian was holding Carter and I tried to take him, he'd just give Brian a bear hug and hold on tight so I couldn't take him.


The next ride was Cinderella's Golden Carousel. Carter liked the carousel, as usual.


Then we rode Snow White's Scary Adventure. Carter was as fascinated with this ride as the others. He did a really good job staying seated on all the rides too which was great. And he never got scared even though there were lots of loud noises and dark sections on the rides.

There were a few more rides in Fantasyland that we would of liked to ride (Dumbo the Flying Elephant, Peter Pan's Flight, and the Mad Tea Party), but all those rides had 20-40 minute waits every time we checked and we didn't think Carter would put up with being held for that long. And we figured we could just ride some of the other rides again with no wait and he'd like them just as much.

Cute pictures of Carter eating a snack ...



We did a quick walk through in Mickey's Toontown Fair. The line to get Carter's picture with Mickey was really long so we moved on.

Tomorrowland was our next stop. We rode Tomorrowland's Transit Authority. It was nothing too exciting.


But Carter did sit with me for awhile!


We stopped for lunch at Cosmic Ray's Starlight Cafe. After lunch we walked around so that Carter could take a nap. He ended up sleeping for about an hour. Brian rode Space Mountain during Carter's nap since the wait was only 20 minutes. I enjoyed taking a break and sitting for awhile.

Once Carter woke up, he made our way back towards Adventureland. On the way, we passed the castle.


And stopped to watch a parade (Move It! Shake It! Celebrate It! Street Party) in front of the castle.




The only part Carter really liked was when Sebastian, the lobster from The Little Mermaid, popped out of a box and danced.


We decided to watch a couple of the shows next. First was The Enchanted Tiki Room. The wait was a "long" 10 minutes.


Carter really liked the fake birds (he's very into birds right now) and kept pointing them out. He also danced a lot while sitting on Brian's lap.

Then we went to the Country Bear Jamboree in Frontierland. This was another 10 minute wait. It was awesome that our longest waits with Carter were only 10 minutes!


Instead of the bears, Carter liked these guys the most. He kept pointing and yelling at them whenever they talked.


My favorite ride was next - Buzz Light Year's Space Ranger Spin in Tomorrowland. We rode this ride twice since there was no line.


Brian and I each had a gun that shot at targets. Carter helped to spin the car (he surprised me a few times).



Monster's Inc Laugh Floor was next door and Carter was in a good mood so we figured he could handle it. The show is a cartoon but entertaining because they use interaction from the audience. Carter did great during the show - he paid attention even though it wasn't geared for his age.

We all walked around the park a little more and then rode the Walt Disney World Railroad from Frontierland to Mainstreet USA to head out of the park. Carter was really noisy during the ride - everyone kept staring at us. It was a happy noisy though.



We got a picture in front of the castle since we skipped doing this on the way in.



On the way out, we ran into Pluto ...


We also saw part of the same parade again. We took the monorail to the parking lot and were at the car at 6 pm.

We checked into our new hotel before dinner (the Staybridge Suites near Downtown Disney). We got upgraded to a two bedroom suite for some reason which meant Carter got his own room. The hotel was older and more heavily used by families since it was closer to Disney, but overall wasn't too bad.

We got the car unpacked and then did a quick dinner at Chick-fil-A. Carter was so tired that he fell asleep on the drive back to the hotel and didn't even really wake up as Brian held him while I finished setting up Carter's stuff. We put Carter down around 8:30 pm and were asleep not too long after him.

We had a really long day, but we all had so much fun. Carter did awesome. The weather was overcast with a few sprinkles in the morning, but it cleared up and got really warm by the afternoon. We had a beautiful last hour in the park as the breeze picked up and the sun started to set.

23 Weeks

I'm 23 weeks along today and feeling huge ... already! Here's a picture from today:


I'm up 20 pounds already!

This baby has been really active for the last couple of weeks. He likes to have a crazy dance party if I wake up in the middle of the night. He makes it really difficult to go back to sleep. Carter never kept me from sleeping with his movements. Brian's already able to feel the new baby move.

I'm feeling pretty good still. The last 2 weeks of traveling and not sleeping well wore me out, but it would have even if I weren't pregnant. My hips are starting to hurt again when I'm trying to sleep so I'm waking up a lot more. My knees and feet hurt more during the day, but it's nothing too bad yet. If I have to pick up Carter a lot during the day my back will bother me too. But I know all these pains are nothing compared to what they'll be in a month or two.

Once I finish unpacking and cleaning the house it'll be time to get back to setting up Carter's new room and transforming Carter's nursery into the new nursery. I'm looking forward to working on those again!