Animal Kingdom–Thursday

After a slow paced Wednesday, we wanted to get an early start on Thursday. We made it to Animal Kingdom as the park opened and headed back to the Safari ride. It was so much fun to go on a little safari and see the animals up close. We all loved it! We then walked around and looked at the animals & then the kids were invited to do an activity in the kids discovery area. They were given a card that had a stamp on it. You had to go around to the major areas at Animal Kingdom and do activities to collect stamps to fill your card. Mason was hooked! He loved playing the games and wanted to get all of the stamps so he could get the special stamp at the end. We spent most of our time trying to find the discovery stations that day! 🙂 Thursday was Miles’ Heaven day…and it was also Earth Day & Animal Kingdom’s birthday! It was quite a busy day! We wanted to let go of balloons for Miles…but there were no balloons in Animal Kingdom because of the animals! So, we decided to do that on Friday instead! We loved getting to watch the Nemo Musical. It was a Broadway type performance that was phenomenal! The colors were gorgeous & the music was beautiful! I loved that my kids got to experience live theater on vacation! We then rode a couple of rides & then watched the Safari Parade. After the parade, we headed back to the resort to get some swim time in before dinner that night.

We headed over to Contemporary Resort & had dinner at Chef Mickey’s. It was hands down our kids favorite meal. Millie was of course terrified of the characters (which you can see in her face in the photo below), but Mason was loving it! He had them sign his book and then gave them great big hugs. My heart was about to burst from his cuteness! By time Donald came to our table, Millie decided she didn’t want to be left out anymore & got up and gave Donald a great big hug. I was shocked! She then decided to give Mickey a hug & patted Pluto’s nose. I kept telling her that Mason was going to have more pics with the characters than her…so then she decided to get over it and start meeting the characters. The food was pretty good…but the experience was WONDERFUL!!!!!! I will most definitely go back to Chef Mickey’s the next time we go to Disney! The characters were so much fun & they have the kids swing their napkins over their heads and dance around. It was too cute! The kids also enjoyed getting to take a little ride on the monorail that night as well!

It was definitely a tough day emotionally. I woke up that morning around the time that Miles passed away. My heart ached and I just couldn’t believe it had been five years since he was here with us. I just wonder how it would have been to have him there with us & how the relationship between him & his brother would have been. On our way to dinner, Mason asked when he was going to die. I told him “Hopefully when you are really old.” He let me know that he didn’t want to die. But that he thought he wasn’t going to be old when he died. He told me “Not everyone is old when they die.” I told him “I know buddy. But, most people die when they are older. Yes, Miles was really little…but that he would probably be really old.” He asked me how I thought he would die. I told him I didn’t know. He also asked where God was. I told him “Everywhere.” That answer definitely didn’t make sense to him. He also asked “Where is heaven?” I told him we weren’t really sure. He said he knew. We had to take a rocket and fly higher and higher until we got there. It was so interesting to hear his thoughts on death and heaven. Later that night after the kids were tucked in bed, I had a little cry. I just miss my little baby so much & just feel like we missed out on so much by not having him in our lives on a daily basis. I just wonder if he would have the same sweet personality as his brother, if he would have the same likes/dislikes, and what it would have been like to raise twins. It is just so tough! I was so thankful to be there at Disney during his Heaven day week. It was definitely good to be at the happiest place on earth!