The Pool and "Apricot"

Visiting Disney World was obviously the girls' favorite part about our trip to Florida, but the hotel pool came in as a close second. 

Sweet sisters, walking to the pool (and hunting for lizards on the way)

They love their swim lessons at the Y, but there's just something about an outdoor pool that makes it infinitely more fun than an indoor pool.  Add in grandparents to play with them, a little island complete with plants, and a waterfall, and they thought it was paradise! 

LOVING the pool

 

Needless to say, we spent many hours at the pool.

 

Climbing up the pool chairs

 

Amelia has told me more than once over the last month that she wishes we lived in Florida.  When I asked why?  Because then we could have a pool!

The pool waterfall, from the front and the back!

After two days at Magic Kingdom, we decided to take the morning off from amusement parks.  Turned out to be a good decision, since it decided to rain on Wednesday morning.  A good decision for most of us, anyway...  Chad, his dad, and mine had picked Wednesday morning to golf.  They got rather wet, but had a good time anyway!  As a bonus, the girls each got a solid, much needed nap. 

Relaxing in the hotel with Louisa

After the guys had a chance to clean up after their round of golf, we headed to Epcot - which Amelia initially called Apricot - to see some more princesses and some other characters and to have dinner.
 

Such a cool-looking building!

Before we got to Disney, I had purchased a couple of little notebooks for the girls to collect character autographs if they wanted, but I suspected that they wouldn't really be terribly interested in doing so.  Boy, was I wrong!  Amelia became obsessed with collecting signatures from every character possible, and because Amelia was doing it, Ramona wanted to, too!

Waiting out a brief rainstorm in a store in "Morocco"

One of the characters Amelia most wanted to "meet" was Mulan, and the only place that we could find her (at least while we were there) was Epcot, so that was where we went!  The girls also got to see Mickey, Minnie, and Pluto (who Louisa loved), and Aladdin and Jasmine while we were there.  And let me tell you, Aladdin was a tough one to see!  After having the line closed just in front of us twice (once at Magic Kingdom and once at Epcot), we finally managed to meet with Aladdin and Jasmine in "Morocco".  Worth it, I guess, because the girls had a great time with them, talking about where Abu (the monkey) and Rajah (the tiger) were.  (Abu had eaten all of the funnel cakes at Epcot earlier in the day, and so he wasn't feeling well.  And they had to leave Rajah in Agrabah because they brought their four-tassel carpet instead of their eight-tassel carpet, and he can't ride on the four-tassel rug!)  We learned that meeting the characters was a lot more fun when the girls had a question or two in mind beforehand!


Characters at Epcot

By the time we finished with the characters, it was past the girls' bedtime (even though it was still light outside!), so we got some frozen lemonade to enjoy on the walk back to the parking lot and returned to the hotel.

Next up - Universal!