Michael's Surprise Birthday-Lots'o'Pics-Updated!!

[andromedaslove]

The Cast:

Me: Mom. To say I plan everything would be an understatement.
Luckily I don't mind too much. My family on the other hand, my family wants to strangle me at time, you'll see why!!

DH: Dad/David - He let's Mom do all of the planning for one reason and one reason only.... If anything goes wrong he can just say it's all HER fault!! Actually, he's quite easy to please, and the fact that he doesn't do any planning makes Mom's job that much easier.

Michael: Our special Birthday boy who is turning 5, and who we went through all of this for just to surprise him and make his 5th Birthday so very special. He is very shy, and tends to hide behind Mom's legs when anyone pays him too much attention.
I should also mention how much he hates having water in his face!

Lucas: He is our 18 month old son. Cute as a button and meaner than a pit viper. He won't actually be going with us he is staying with the grandparents, but come on now, I couldn't leave him out!!

The Plan: After watching the Animal Kingdom Lodge show on The Travel Channel, Michael spent weeks talking about nothing except for how "cool" it would be to stay there and see the animals from the balcony. So off I went doing my Mommy thing and researching everything I could find about the Animal Kingdom Lodge, and talking to David about everything I had found out. Can you imagine how thrilled he was about that? Yeah right!! Finally we decided that we would make Michael's 5th Birthday extra special and plan a surprise trip to the Animal Kingdom Lodge for him. We figured that we would just stay one night, and spend two days at the park, and that we would ask Nana and Papa to watch Lucas for us while we are gone!! That was probably the hardest part to plan. We all love Lucas very much, but did you read his Cast description? The little bugger is mean!! Finally they agreed, as long as David's sister agreed to come and help them out.

So in order to keep this a surprise we had to tell Michael that we couldn't have a big birthday party for him because the day of his birthday Mommy and Daddy had things we had to do. When pressed for more information I told him we had to go to Daytona to pick up some parts for Daddy's new Mustang. Now where did that come from? What in the world kind of reason is that? First, Daddy would never be allowed to take off work to pick up car parts. Second, it's a brand new Mustang, what kind of parts could it possibly need? Doesn't matter though, it seemed to work. Thank goodness he is only five, cause no one else would have fallen for that. He agreed to let us have his birthday dinner a couple of nights early, so he could spend some time with his grandparents. Let's be honest, he wanted to make sure he got his birthday presents!!

We are gonna be leaving at 5am, no you read that right, I said 5am. Now you see why my family wants to strangle me at times!! I figure it takes about 2.5 hours to drive to WDW from Jacksonville. By the time we all get up, drop off the pit viper/Lucas, and get on the road we will make it to our destination by 8 maybe 8:30am. Where we will check in to the hotel, and make it to Animal Kingdom in time for the opening. You know if you wanna beat the crowds you have to be there when the park opens. Thank goodness my family loves me!!

The second day we are planning on going to EPCOT. Michael loves the three big rides there. Soarin, Test Track, and Mission Space are his absolute favorite rides. I figuredonce we got those three done we could take some time to walk around and see the sights of the Flower and Garden Festival before we head out for our 2.5 hr drive home. A much shorter trip than I would like, but then again any trip is too shirt for my liking.


I'll post day 1 a little later.

 

[Disney owl]

looking forwrdd to reading more

thanks for sharing

 

[andromedaslove]

Part 1 - Daytona?!

OK, So because this is a surprise trip I have to try and get everything packed on the sly. For days the poor kid has come to me with certain clothes on and I have made him change into something else just so I could pack it for our trip!! I had to lock my bedroom door and tell everyone to leave me alone just so I could pack the suitcases. And the worst part .... I had to relive the stupid comment I made about us going to Daytona, and deal with everyone laughing at me every time I said it!! But the day had finally come.

The alarm went off at 4:30 am, remember I said we were leaving at 5!! I finally get David out of bed, and he starts getting things taken care of. I go in and wake up Michael telling him we have to go to "Daytona", and to say the least he is less than thrilled. Now this kid, if we had told him we were going to Disney would have jumped right up and got dressed, but he was NOT looking forward to going to "Daytona" on his birthday. Finally I pull him out of bed, and David walks back in the house, so I pawn off dressing Michael onto him, and I make my way to Lucas' room. The only good thing about waking Lucas up this early is that he is less likely to hit me for it when he is this tired. Luckily I was right, he was way too tired to put up much of a fight, and quietly went into the car. We finally convinced Michael that it really was necessary to go to "Daytona" before the sun was even up, and got him in the car too. And we were off!! Except for the fact that we had to take Lucas to Nana and Papa's first. I realized that we are already running a bit late, and I warn David that we really just need to drop the little bugger off quickly and run for it. Of course, anyone who has kids knows that just isn't gonna happen when you drop a kid off with the grandparents. They had to ask me about everything, what can he eat, when does he need to nap, what can he drink. There are times I wonder if they ever had their own kids or if they just adopted David and his sister when they were older. Then again maybe they have just forgotten after so many years, but still.... I am trying to get to WDW, couldn't they have asked all of this the day before?! Finally I push David and Michael out the door after kissing Lucas goodbye, and we are finally on our way!!

Michael stayed awake for probably the first half hour. Thankfully he fell asleep shortly after that. It would have been really hard to explain this....

He stayed asleep until right before we got into Orlando. Then it was even harder to keep this whole "Daytona" thing a secret. That's when all of these started showing up....

I swear it took everything David and I had to distract him whenever one of them came up. Luckily though, we succeeded. As we were pulling into these...

I put in the "Wishes" Soundtrack and David and I waited to see how long it would take him to figure out what was going on. We waited, and waited, and waited, and then finally he got it!!........

Thank goodness, it took him long enough. That was when we told him that wasn't the whole surprise and that if he waited just a few more minutes that he would see what that was. So we drove, and drove, and drove. For a while there I thought we were getting lost, but then this appeared....

It is a well known fact that if we are lost at Disney World all I have to do is find this McDonald's and I can find my way ANYWHERE!! So luckily we showed up here and I immediately knew my way to AKL.

So as we pull up to the entrance, and see this sign....

it finally hits Michael. We are staying at Animal Kingdom Lodge. All of a sudden David and I are the best Mom and Dad in the whole entire world. We are hugged, kissed, and told Thank You for at least the next 2 hours!! Heck, if I had known this was all it would take I would have done it sooner!!

 

[luvmy2sams]

We surprised our DD on her 7th birthday last January. All the conspiring and secret-telling is worth it in the end. Looking forward to more....

 

[jackdis]

How sweet! He looks so excited!

 

[Patio]

What an awesome surprise! The pictures get me so excited that I can only imagine how excited Michael was. Can't wait to read, and see, more!

Happy 5th Birthday, Michael!!

 

[lvdsny]

What a great surprise! Looking forward to reading more..........

Mary

 

[OhMari]

I like that picture of you taking a picture of your son and you with your camera. Thanks for sharing. I wish I lived in Florida.

 

[Quinn222]

What a great picture of your son! Good for you pulling off the surprise.

 

[TLinden16]

What a great surprise! Michael looks all excited. What a cutie.

Thanks for posting.

 

[Maherae]

Dana, your report is GREAT and your pictures are BEAUTIFUL!! We'll be staying there for the Minnie and now, I can hardly wait!!! I have put "Zebra Domes" on my list of things to try!! Tell us more!! Anne

 

[Tiger Lily 03]

Oh what a great report. How exciting to have that kind of surprise. That would be the best.

 

[Mouse Skywalker]

Dana- this is a fantastic report. The pictures are great, and your son looks so surprised and cute. You've got me thinking. Let's see my DD8's birthday is Jan 6th the day before the marathon. You guys all had me thinking of doing a celebration for her, but maybe surprise is the way to go. I don't know if I can pull it off though with the marathon. You've got me thinking though...

 

[andromedaslove]

Ok, so where did I leave off? "O" yeah, we had just arrived at the AKL. Let me tell you now if you have not stayed here before, you absolutely have to at least once. This place is AMAZING!! In January of 2005 we took our yearly family trip and stayed at Wilderness Lodge based on all of the wonderful reviews I had heard here and on other boards. It was a total disappointment. There was not one person happy with our stay there. So I was really afraid that the same thing was going to happen here. Boy was I wrong. I could not have asked for a more beautiful place to stay. Upon first view this place is everything I could have imagined and more.

Unfortunately though we really didn't have a whole lot of time to hang out at the resort right now. We are headed to Animal Kingdom. When we arrive the park is not quite open yet so we find a place in line and wait. That's when it showed up. Now I love this thing, but if you read my description of Michael you'll understand why he didn't. It was the talking palm tree. We're all just sitting there watching him, and DH and I were laughing about how easy his "voice" is to spot, when he came up to me and complimented me on my green shirt. Said it was his favorite color. Then he saw that Michael was wearing a birthday shirt and asked him what his name was, instead of answering like a normal kid mine screamed Ahhhhhhhh!!! Which then turned into the talking palm tree singing Michael Happy Birthday like this .....

Happy Birthday To You!! Happy Birthday To You!!
Happy Birthday to AHHHHHH!!!
Happy Birthday To You!!

Can we say that Michael was embarassed. He ran and hid behind my legs as usual until the horrible tree had left.

Now to be honest. We have been to Animal Kingdom far too many times to count, so we skipped alot of things. As soon as we entered the park Michael went looking for someone carrying one of the glass boxes with bugs inside. Well, he found one. In her clear little box were these Roaches. Now usually I don't mind too much as long as I know they are somewhere they can't get out, but you won't believe what she told us!! She asked Michael if he knew what Roaches ate, and he told her he didn't. So she explained that they ate Poop!! OK as if that isn't bad enough. She then decided to tell us that Roaches also make dirt. DIRT!! I don't think that I can ever let my children play in the dirt again. YUCK!!

We rode Expedition Everest, and this time Michael kept his eyes open until the point where the yeti reached down to grab him, and that was the end of that. We had brought our certificates to get a free picture, but unfortunately we didn't know where the camera was. So all 3 of us were looking away in the picture. So we didn't buy those. The one new thing we did while we were here this trip was the Bird Show Flights of Wonder. I usually avoid shows like this, because well... I just don't find them very interested. However this one was pretty neat, and Michael just loved it. We were seated in the front row so he got an up close look at all of the birds. AFter that we decided to head back to the hotel for the day.

I am going to post again with the rest of our day at the Animal Kingdom Lodge later, but in the meantime!! Check out all of these pictures I took while at Animal Kingdom.

Dana

 

[tinawv]

Looking forward to the next report. I absolutely love your pictures. Michael is adorable.

 

[Tiger Lily 03]

Enjoying your report.

The tiger pic had me laughing.

 

[tlinus]

What a wonderful birthday surprise! We are taking our son for his 5th but with driving from PA and two big mouth sisters, its hard to keep it a secret!

Looking forward to more.

And your pictures are beautiful!!

 

[umbluegray]

Great TR! Sounds like an incredible birthday for your son!

And I love this Tiger pic. Being a fan of, well, see my sig below.

 

[a*lil*bit*goofy]

i am hooked on this report!!! i will be watching for more. your photos are amazing. and i too love the one of you taking a pic of your son when he realized what was happening. classic!

 

[Philadisney]

great report - your son is so adorable! can't wait for the rest - i'd LOVE to stay in AKL someday!