The Holmes Family: A Magical Afternoon

After Chef Mickey's, we returned to the Magic Kingdom to make more memories as a family!

Upon our arrival, we had perfect timing to enjoy the Move It! Shake It! Celebrate It! Street Party.

This guy had a surprise for our girls and camera too! :-)

We enjoyed seeing Mickey again, along with Chip and Dale...

and Minnie Mouse (she was pointing at us, because I think she recognized us from Chef Mickey's)!

The Mad Hatter and characters from the Jungle Book were partying too!

And the Incredibles and the Genie from Aladdin had fun strutting their stuff too! Brad had fun exchanging moves with the Ice Man, Frozone!

Donald is always a joy to see, along with Goofy and some of Ariel's friends from Little Mermaid.

Anna got a high-five from one of the flag wavers!

The street party ended with Toy Story characters and Belle's friends!! It was a great way to get into the excitement of the afternoon!

After seeing the Toy Story characters at the street party, we went to Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin! Brad was a STAR at the game and was deemed a "Galactic Hero" from nearly the beginning, while the girls and I were only lowly "Star Cadets"! LOL!

I actually was really confused at the beginning of the game. There was no line for the ride (which was great). We just walked onto it, so, I didn't have time to read the instructions of what we were supposed to be doing. I am not intuitive at all at arcade games. Thankfully, Brad was right next to me on the ride, and he explained to me how it all worked while we were playing. :-) In the end, I was nearly able to catch up with my hubby's score!

After Buzz Lightyear's, we enjoyed Walt Disney's Carousel of Progress together.

Then it was time for SPACE MOUNTAIN!

First, I rode it with Jillian, and as you can see from the photo, I was thrilled! :-) No actually, it was a lot of fun!

I was just a little worried about Jillian riding her first major rollercoaster. But I had no reason to worry, because she LOVED it! It actually was her favorite ride in all Disney World, she rode again with her daddy (using a fast pass) right after our ride.

Meanwhile, both times that Jillian rode Spacemountain, Faith and Anna enjoyed the Tomorrowland Transit Authority PeopleMover. It was a slow riding experience, but Faith and Anna loved it.

After our time in Tomorrowland, we returned to Main Street, but not before meeting a very nice trash can!

He strolled along with us as we crossed the bridge. We discovered he is very ticklish, and has the cutest giggle! :-) The girls, Brad, and I were enamored by this nice Disney trash can!!! :-)

We enjoyed the Main Street Philharmonic.

Then, we went to Adventureland to get some Mickey Ears Ice Cream cones in time for the afternoon parade.

It was Celebrate a Dream Come True Parade!

We were on the right side of the street, because the girls were welcomed by several of our favorite Disney characters!

First, Goofy, then Donald,

and then Pluto came by to give some high-fives and hand-shakes!

We saw Pinocchio, one of the dwarves with diamonds from the mine, and
Snow White and her prince.

We also enjoyed Peter Pan, Wendy, and Alice and the Mad Hatter on their float in the parade.

We also enjoyed seeing Cinderella's mice friends...very cute!

Then we saw Cinderella, Prince Charming, and Fairy Godmother.

We also finally got to see the Beast up close! It was my favorite parade of our Disney trip because of all the fun interactions we had with so many beloved characters.

After the parade, it was time for us to use our fast pass for the Jungle Cruise.

We saw waterfalls,

elphants, snakes, hippos, and many other exotic jungle animals.

I think the girls were a little confused by whether or not the animals were real or not (because of our earlier safari experience in Animal Kingdom); they loved it! Brad was laughing a lot, it's definitely a quirky, funny cruise.

Then, we went to Swiss Family Robinson's treehouse. The week before our trip, we cancelled most of our normal activities (in an effort to try to stay well for our trip) and stayed home. During that "extra" free- time, we had three family movie nights. The movies we watched to "prepare" ;-) for our upcoming trip to Disney World were: Swiss Family Robinson, Piglet's Big Movie, and Beauty and the Beast.

Our friend Brian actually worked at Disney World in his younger years. He highly recommended it to us and said it was one of his favorite attractions. We were excited that we were able to walk right in to enjoy the treehouse.

This was my favorite room of the treehouse with "mother's china" and organ, as well as the steering wheel from the ship.

The girls had a lot of fun in the giant treehouse. I think it made it even more meaningful that we had recently watched clips of the movie (we fast-forwarded through several of the more "scary" parts) together.

It was a neat mini-adventure discovering the Robinson's treehouse.

We ran into some pirates on our way to our next ride...The Thunder Mountain Railroad.

Thunder Mountain was Faith's favorite ride on our trip to Disney, she got to ride it two times in a row! :-)

Then, we went to Pecos Bill for a quick dinner. It was by far, the worst dining experience we had our entire trip. I do not recommend it, the food was pretty terrible! The one highlight of our dinner was Jillian's silly comment that the scraps of the food remaining on her plate created modern art!