Nine Months Until Walt Disney World

In just nine short months, I will be "delivered" the the happiest place on earth--Walt Disney World! Are you groaning at the bad pregnancy pun?

To celebrate, I am continuing to share the scrapbook pages from our 1996 trip. We are still on day 2, October 20th, Gary & my 10th wedding anniversary. We spent the day at Animal Kingdom. After seeing the sites in Africa, we moved on to Asia and the Maharajah Jungle Trek. I only have pictures of the tigers and komodo dragon because I refused to enter the free-flying bat enclosure with the boys.

After Asia, we headed to Dinoland USA to ride Triceratop Spin. We had lunch at Restaurantasaurs (McDonalds) and then Nikolas threw sand--I mean played in the Boneyard.

After seeing the 3-D attraction "It's Tough to be a Bug" we headed to Camp Minnie Mickey to meet some characters. When the handler saw our Anniversary buttons, she suggested a family photo with the "Big Cheese"

Some of my favorite pictures from the trip are these shots of Nikolas and Minnie Mouse.

Nikolas was finally warming up to the characters and had some cute exchanges with Donald and Goofy.

We actually met Baloo and King Louie earlier in the day on our way to the safari ride. We had a "magical" experience with King Louie. We were told by the handler that only Baloo could sign autographs. But when it was our turn Nikolas handed King Louie his book and he took it (as best as he could with his molded hands). He then motioned for me to stick the Sharpie between his fingers so he could sign. All the while the handler was chastising him and telling him that now he would have to sign for everyone. King Louie just shook his head. His signature was messy, but what do you expect from a primate! I guess he really wanted to be "human too." Gary noticed that after our turn was over King Louie held his arm like it was hurt to the next person that wanted an autograph.

Nikolas didn't want Flik's autograph so I just took his picture as we passed by. As we were leaving Animal Kingdom that afternoon to get ready for Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween party, we saw one of Nikolas favorites Playhouse Disney characters Stanley outside the gates. Look at the smile on his face at meeting his "animal lover" compadre.