Forget Mickey Mouse...Bring on Donald Duck!

I'll post on the AGBell Conference later this week, but I knew people would want to hear about Brody and Disney World first! Brody was awesome in the car! I had a huge box of books, a box of toys, and the iPad full of his apps and movies.

We stopped over in Atlanta half way down and went to the Georgia Aquarium. Brody loved the fish. Jordan wanted to be a Marine Biologist growing up, therefore, we stop at every zoo or aquarium when we travel. The Georgia Aquarium is huge! Brody's favorite part was the dolphin show. He sat and watched the entire thing which is amazing for him to attend to anything other than Mickey Mouse for more than 5 minutes.

Don't worry...Otis got to come along too!

We got to Orlando early the next morning and headed to the Orlando Children's Museum. If you ever have a chance to take your kids, we highly recommend it! We enjoyed it as much as Brody did!  They have a Toddler town that had a miniature town in it. Brody was actually interacting with the other kids in the playhouse. They also had a miniature orange orchard. There were too many kids in a cramped area for this part, or it would have been more exciting. They also had a weather room and a hands on engineer room.

We met up with Grandma and Papa Brown and went on to Disney World! We went to Magic Kingdom the first two days. Aunt Sara met us the second day.

Aladin and Jasmine were the first characters we met. Brody just stared at them.

You can't tell from this picture, but Brody loved the Jungle Cruise!

He held on for dear life on all of the rides.

Signing squirrel with Snow White when she was talking about all of her forest friends.

Brody was just tall enough for his first roller coaster...The Barnstormer! He loved it. It was actually a pretty twisty roller coaster and I had to grab his processors before they flew over the side!

Brody LOVED Donald Duck!

Grandma had made Brody a book with all of the characters in it. We showed him the characters before we went to see them hoping that it would cut down on him be scared of them. It worked! He even showed the book to Donald Duck who got down on the floor and read it with him!

Donald got mad when he saw that his picture was the smallest out of all of them!

We went to see story time with Belle. Brody got to be in the "show" as the salt shaker. He ended it by throwing it at Belle and running away...in true 2 year old fashion! Oops!

 We went to Epcot, which you would think didn't have a lot for kids, but we were wrong. Brody had so much fun!

Brody loves Mickey Mouse! Mickey saw Brody's processors and signed to me to ask if Brody signed. I said a little bit. Mickey then introduced himself and started signing with Brody! Too cool!

Here's Mickey signing to Brody, but it is really blurry. Grandma was watching Brody and not the camera screen...I guess we can't be upset :)

Brody with some characters.

Brody cared more about seeing Aunt Sara outside than he did about seeing Buzz and Woody.

He wasn't too sure about Minnie...

Donald Duck at Chef Mickey's Character Breakfast

Posing with Goofy

Video of Chef Mickey's

Right before his meltdown on the Safari ride. He looks so peaceful!

Brody fell asleep right before we got to have our turn to see Baloo and King Louie. They had fun with him anyway.

 

The hotel across from ours was the Art of Animation. They had a who Cars display. Someone was in heaven!

 

 

Brody loving the rides!

Brody loved all of the music around Disney World. He started dancing a lot more this week!

We left Disney and went to an Orange Orchard. It was so much fun! I highly recommend it to anyone that wants something else to do in Orlando. It was about 5 miles from Disney.

After Orlando, we headed to Tampa to stay with one of Jordan's fraternity brothers from College. Biggs got Brody (aka Jordan and himself) some poppers and sparklers for July 4th. Brody loved it! No fear!

We went to the Tampa Zoo while we were there. The park was pretty old and run down, but for the price, it was worth it. They have a merry-go-round, roller coaster, log flume, and safari ride. Brody really likes merry-go-rounds. It gives him a lot of vestibular input (any spinning or turning in circles helps). He was too short for the roller coaster and log flume. The safari ride was pretty neat. They took you on a little tram through some of the animals cages. We go to see some bongo and antelopes up close. Also some birds...don't remember what kind. They looked like storks.  They also took you up close behind the elephant and rhino cages. Really neat!

We also went to the beach one day. Last year, we went to VA Beach. Brody wasn't much of a fan. This year he loved it!! We had the aqua bags from Cochlear for Brody to use. We've been using them for aqua therapy and he loves being able to hear. The processors are water resistant but not completely waterproof. The bags help with more protection. We didn't wear them into the ocean though. I was too afraid of it floating out to sea to be lost forever!