Alex Visit!

Alex came to visit and it was wonderful :)

Clearly a fantastic picture of the two of us :P
We went to Ethos for dinner right from the airport on her first night here, and they had pumpkin pie. Nom nom nom

Classic.
Taken at Molly's birthday party--Happy Belated Birthday Molly!

More food--we ate at Boma on Night two, and there was a ton on the buffet that I could eat

But the chef still made me a special plate with tofu and veggies that was delicious

And he made me a Mickey ice cream sundae for dessert :)
(Tofutti vanilla ice cream is surprisingly good)

We matched :D

We did all four parks in two days!  Day One was Hollywood Studios in the morning for a few rides and the Frozen sing-along, and then to Epcot.  Alex got to try a lot of the different foods that were there for Food and Wine, and we did some rides.

Alex put up with me wanting to meet Anna and Elsa together.  Elsa told us that we needed to help Anna figure out how not to eat eight pieces of chocolate in one sitting.  I'd help with that if I knew the answer...

Anna was also really fun to meet

Day Two had us at DAK for the morning and early afternoon, and then to Magic for the evening.  It was the ASE (Animals, Science and the Environment) Family Day when we went, so we got to take a backstage tour of some of the animal areas.  Including: the vet hospital, the Nutrition Center (Erin gave us a wonderful tour--thanks Erin!), the invert building, and some animal holding areas.  So we got to speak to a bunch of the people who work in different aspects of animal care at Disney, and see some of the animals up close.  No photos allowed backstage, so I don't have any from that part of the day, but it was incredible.  At this point I know pretty well how much Disney is doing to help conservation efforts, but to be able to have conversations with some of the people leading those projects was awesome.  One of the new initiatives that the Disney Conservation Fund is working on is "Reverse the Decline, Increase the Time", which is trying to reverse the decline of 10 animals and increase the time kids spend out in nature.

In the vet window that morning was a gopher tortoise who'd been found on property after being hit by a car.  He was having a wheelchair made of legos attached to his shell to give his leg more time to properly heal.  It was really cool. 

We spent the later afternoon/evening at Magic Kingdom, which was magical (I had to).

There's a new Frozen castle show, during which Elsa uses her ice powers to light up the castle.  I really enjoyed it. 

Slap happy...

SO PRETTY

MUCH WOW

"My insides and outsides are frozen, but my heart is warm" --Alex

New "Once Upon a Time" castle show that replaced "Celebrate the Magic"--it was really cute!

We also did some outdoor exploring at Wekiva Springs State Park.  We went kayaking and saw a bunch of native birds, many turtles, a deer and a river otter! That was the first wild otter I've ever seen and it was so close.

Just around the river bend...

We also went for a quick swim in the spring itself, because it is not my style to visit a location with beautiful fresh water and not get wet.  

See ya real soon!