Day 6: Logan's Day!

On Thursday, we had a bit of a day off. We were even able to sleep in a little, which we really needed. I think my kids slept in until around 8:30 or 9, which was much later than the 7:00 am wake up time the rest of the week! My brothers, dad, Darren and Heather and Jay left around 9 to go to Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure. They had a pass to go to both parks, as well as a Express pass to go to the front of all of the lines so they could fit everything in. I think they had a lot of fun on their day. With the Express pass, I think they thought they would be done really quickly, but it ended up being more stress and stuff to do than they planned, and they had more of a full day than they expected. They loved all the cool rides there, especially the roller coasters, and had a lot of fun despite a few problems. They came home pretty tired! These are a few pics of them at Universal/Islands of Adventure.
This is the crew on one of the rides - I'm not sure which one. They take up the first 2 rows.
All the boys at Islands of Adventure. Jeff, Brad, Dad, Kyle, Dean and Jay with Darren crouching in front. I think Heather is taking the picture...

Brad and Darren at the Universal entrance.

Since the Universal passes were pretty expensive and there wasn't much there for the kiddies, I decided not to go. I was a little bummed to miss out on all the fun rides, but I probably would have gotten sick anyway. My mom and sister Vanessa also stayed with me (my mom hates roller coasters and Vanessa just went to Universal last summer and didn't want to pay to go again), so we planned our own day of fun. I think they would have preferred to chill at the hotel, but I wanted to take the kids to do some fun things since we were missing out on Universal. I decided it would be Logan's Day and we could do whatever he wanted at the Magic Kingdom. Rylee is happy to go along with pretty much whatever, so I figured a day for just Logan would be great for her too. Before we left for the park, I bathed the kids, since we hadn't really had time for that. I also made them pose for these pictures. They are actually the clothes from the previous day, but since we were always in such a hurry in the mornings, I didn't get the pictures I wanted. And I tried at the park, but Rylee kept ripping off either her little 1st time button leaving a hole in her shirt, or her Mickey ears. What can you do? I thought they turned out really cute (at least them together and Logan. Rylee is a little crazy!), even if they were posed after the fact!
Then we decided to ride the Thomas train at the hotel. Logan had seen it a few times during the week and wanted to ride, but we hadn't had time and I kept promising him that we would go. What a fiasco! We had to wait for about 20 minutes for the train to pick us up. After about 3 minutes, the train stopped and I thought about getting off, but decided if we waited for that long, we might as well ride a little longer. Well - It took 45 minutes to get back close to our room! Logan was very bored by then and Rylee was a mess! She was screaming because she wanted to jump off the benches while the train was moving, and being the mean mother that I am, I wouldn't let her! I had to put her in a choke hold while she screamed at the top of her lungs and squirmed to be put down! Logan kept asking when we could off - It was SO fun! We FINALLY made it back and had lunch and then headed for the Magic Kingdom.

We didn't end up getting to the park until about 3 and just missed a major rainstorm. We took the monorail over to the park, as this was Logan's request and it was HIS day. Here are the kids ready to go again! We stopped at the entrance for a couple pictures and then headed for Frontierland. As we headed into the park, a few people kept staring and pointing at Rylee's stroller. I didn't think much of it - Rylee gets attention a lot at places like that - but when we stopped I found out why. She was totally passed out in her stroller with her binky half hanging out of her mouth. It was pretty humorous! The main reason we went back to the park was to see the Woody's Roundup show. I wasn't really sure what it was, but I knew Logan would like anything to do with Woody. Here are the kiddies waiting for the parade!It was really cute - It was a little parade with Woody, Jessie and Bullseye and some other cowboys and cowgirls. Then they stopped and let the kids join in for some cowboy singing and dancing, like "She'll be Coming around the Mountain" and the "Hokey-Pokey". Logan had a great time dancing and playing and even managed to sneak his way right up to Woody, which I don't think he was supposed to do! There were lots of cowboys around Woody who kept trying to redirect Logan, but he just maneuvered his way through and made his way to Woody. Woody almost stepped right on him - I don't think he can see out of that suit, which is probably why they try and keep the kiddies away from him. After the show, we were able to meet Woody and Jessie, which Logan was so excited about. We were right next to Splash Mountain and Logan wanted to tell them both all about Splash Mountain. He is like a mini-tour guide! Rylee managed to sleep through the whole thing.
We finally got Logan away from Woody and Jessie, and asked him what he would like to do next. He wanted to go to Tom Sawyer Island, which is a great little play land for the kids. It was raining a little, so I was kind of nervous to go over there and get soaked, but it didn't rain too hard. Logan and Rylee had such a great time exploring and running all over Tom Sawyer Island. They especially liked the little tree house, the bridges and shooting guns at the Fort. We finally convinced them to leave and headed back over to the Magic Kingdom.
There was a little show featuring Mickey and his friends that we went to next. We had missed it the day before because of rain, so we decided to check it out. The show featured Mickey, Minnie, Donald and Goofy along with the Princesses and characters from Peter Pan. Logan and Rylee really liked it. We also took a few pictures in front of the castle.
At one point, Logan told Grandma that he was "feeling brave and wanted to try the Magic Carpets." We had tried to get Logan to ride these a couple different times since they were so much like Dumbo, which is one of his favorites, but he wouldn't ride them for some reason. So, we headed there next, only to have Logan tell us when we got there that "I just want to check them out. I don't want to ride them right now." After we "checked them out" for a few minutes we told Logan he could pick one ride. He picked the rockets, but I told him that they were closed because of the rain. He argued about that for a little bit since he could see them going. I really didn't want to wait 45 minutes for that ride again to ride in the rain and get sick, so I convinced him to choose something else. He chose "It's A Small World". He and Rylee both love that one and had a great time. We tried several times to get a picture of ourselves with all of us in it, and this is the best we did!After that, we did a little shopping and then headed to dinner. We had planned to leave by around 6, but it was almost 8 when we left. After a lot of driving, we finally decided on TGI Friday's for dinner. The wait was pretty long, and the kids were both asleep (it was past 9), so we decided to get take out and go back to the hotel to eat. We got our food much quicker this way, and were putting the kids back in the car and Logan woke up and had a meltdown that we were not eating at a restaurant! (he loves going out to eat!) We finally made it back to the hotel and ate dinner around 9:30 - So much for our plan of a laid back day and early bedtime! We did have a lot of fun though and I think the kids appreciated a day just for them! Thanks Mom and Vanessa for helping me out with the kiddies - We had a fun day!