The Waterstraut Waterspout: 2,557 Days

A week ago, it was picture in picture day, otherwise known as our wedding anniversary. In case you were wondering, we're up to 7.

Usually we do some big anniversary trip. But this year, with Hawaii about a week and a half away from our anniversary, we weren't able to do a couple of day long trip. It just wouldn't have been very budget friendly for our bank account, or Asa's vacation days (as our anniversary fell in the middle of his work-week). But we had to do something for our anniversary, and we settled on staying one night at the Animal Kingdom Lodge. We're in blackout dates, and aren't able to hit the parks, but the Animal Kingdom Lodge has plenty to do, and you're not paying for proximity to the parks, since the only way to get to any park is by bus.

Plus, there was an awesome rate for Club Level rooms for our weekend for Florida residents. Yes please! So, the club level, funny enough, is hidden in plain sight. The lobby is down below in the picture, and the club area is on the top floor, just below that window.

When we arrived we were ushered up to the Club Level check in, like we were some kind of fancy people or something. We were greeted with a little welcome bag, and some jungle juice mimosas. Jungle juice can be found at a few different places throughout Disney World, and sometimes it goes by other names (it's a Passion, Orange Guava Mix- so some people call it 'POG' Juice). But my gosh, made into a mimosa, it's even more amazing.

We arrived when the 'lunch' snacks were out. There was bread with all kinds of dips, and trail mix type snacks. (They had adorable little tiny brown paper bags to make some to go, too).

Plus, you know, sweets and such.

Our room wasn't quite ready yet, so we spent some time in the gift shop moseying around. I also found this little hippo figure, and it reminded me so much of Ellie and her little pot belly.

Our room wasn't anything too special. They were out of king rooms, so we got two queens.

And, with all of our countries in Africa, I was quite excited about the wallpaper in the bathroom area. (After spending the night here, I'm all about taking the boys when we get to the end of the Africa portion of our countries, if we can swing it).

But really, the reason you stay at the Animal Kingdom Lodge is for the balcony view.

Every room on Club Level gets a Savannah view, so just outside your balcony you have a whole world of animals. The little Tommies were outside of our room a lot, but there was like a dozen of them right there at like 1 in the morning. You could see them in the dark, but it was even more awesome that you could HEAR them ripping the grass out of the ground.

The Animal Kingdom Lodge has lots to offer in ways of things to do right there inside the resort.

But one thing I had always wanted to do there was take the free tour of the two restaurants, Jiko and Boma. It's free, and you don't even have to be staying there to take advantage. You don't even have to pre-register. You just show up at Jiko at 4:15, and you get to be on the little half-hour tour.

First of all, we were really the only two people on the tour. There were two other new 'cast members' who were taking the tour to familiarize themselves with the restaurants they would soon be working at, and us. The new cast members kind of hung back, and let it feel like a tour for just the two of us, which was really nice. Our tour started in Jiko with tour tour guide, Lisa who was from Botswana. (You actually get a little info card about the country your guide is from). She then went on to explain the different aspects of the restaurant, and how it relates to African culture. Jiko, which means 'the cooking place', is full of hidden meanings. The rings around the columns are to represent the necklaces women are given as a status symbol. The birds on the ceiling are fly into the sunset, and the wall actually changes colors as if the sun is setting during the evening. There were so many little details down to the pattern in the floor (they are haystacks, because of all the grain).

You do even get to do a little taste test, they had a whole platter of different breads with dip. Since it was just us, we got to eat as much as we wanted.

Lisa then handed us over to our next guide (who's name escapes me), who works at Boma. She was from South Africa, so we also got a new card. We've never eaten at Jiko, but we've been to Boma plenty of times, it's one of our favorites. But eating there, I never really noticed the details before. The circles on the half walls are actually coins from every country in Africa, except one. Apparently Zimbabwe uses U.S. currency, so it isn't represented. The tables are shaped like various countries in Africa, and every single chair has hand carvings in them to make them all different.

The tour is ending just before dinner service is starting, so our guide took us down the buffet line and let us taste some soup. But then, she took us to the deserts and gave us some zebra domes. These little sponge cakes soaked with an African rum are one of my favorite desserts on Disney property. Our guide heard this and gave me two!

The tour was awesome, and I'd love to take the boys sometime. But after our light snacks it was time for evening hors d'oeuvres at Club Kilimanjaro. Just a quick tap of our magic bands, and the elevator knows where you are headed.

For hors d'oeuvres there were all kinds of meats and cheeses. They even had honeycomb to go with it! (The seasonal chutney was also very good).

Back again were the breads and various dips (three different types of hummus!) in addition to an aray of vegetables.

For the kids, or the grown ups who like to have kids food, they had apples with caramel and peanut butter, and peanut butter and jelly. (They even cut the uncrustables all fancy like).

But in addition to all of that, a chef from one of the downstairs restaurants comes up and serves a few other dishes. We had this delicious lamb stew with mashed potatoes on top served in the cutest little mini bowl with a spoon over top. There was also a tabbouleh salad, and a falafel.

All of that with a couple glasses of red wine, tucked in a little booth next to each other made for a cute little anniversary

After dinner we headed down to the pool. The sky was clouding up, and you could tell a storm was coming in- but we got in a good amount of time before you could hear the thunder in the distance.

Plus, even in the rain, we could sit out on our balcony and check out the animals. There was a good over hang, and the wind was blowing in our favor, so we stayed dry. The animals didn't seem to mind it either.

We wandered the resort a bit (it's a really pretty one), and even caught a rainbow out one of the balconies on the top floor.

By then it was evening drink and desert time in the club lounge, so we headed back. We were served more jungle juice mamosas, and coffee, plus there was all kinds of drinks you could pour yourself (fyi, cognac is disgusting).

But the desserts looked yummy. They had various cookies, and brownies, and a cute little lemon dish with boba balls on top.

I didn't even notice it, but I have like my own little hidden Mickey there.

The rain had slowed to a drizzle, and the Savannah viewing off the lobby was still open, so we headed down there. If you aren't staying in a Savannah view room or staying at the resort at all, you can go right off the lobby and check out the animals.

We spent our evening playing ping pong and hitting the pool and hot tub one more time. This resort doesn't have a 'quiet pool' and is gated when the life guards aren't around, so there was no jumping in a pool in our clothes as per tradition. Which, is kind of sad. But, we decided if we did it sometime during our 7th year, it could count as keeping the tradition alive. We'll be on the lookout in Hawaii for a place to make it happen.

When we got back to the room, it had been turned down complete with chocolates on our pillow.

Later we decided to order some room service. We got the potato chips 'deconstructed', so everything came on the side. They did good with the presentation of it all, and our chips didn't get soggy. Yay! (They also brought us truffle fries with our sandwich even though you weren't supposed to be able to get them).

We watched the animals late into the evening, as there were lots of them directly out from our balcony, but there was really no way to get them to show up on our pictures. The next morning, there wasn't much to been seen. We did snap one more picture with our 'Happily Ever After' buttons out on our balcony.

We headed down to the Club level for breakfast. There was plenty of cereal, and pastries and such.

Plus there was meat and cheese and quinoa and oatmeal with toppings.

There was also plenty of fresh fruit, coffee, and of course, one more (or two more) Jungle Juice mimosas.

Asa took a couple of hours off of his Sunday shift, so we could stay for a bit and swim.

We went over to the Kidani Village section, where they even have the nice showers in case you checked out and then went to the pool.

We changed and headed home in time for Asa to clock in. Overall, a lovely quick trip for anniversary number 7.

You may have noticed, no kids accompanied us on our trip. That's because Allison is here visiting! She was coming to watch our furry family members, and then we asked if she'd like to come a few days early and stay with them just to make sure they didn't burn the house down, so we could go out for our anniversary. (Coincidentally, Calib tried to microwave a can of Chef Boyardee- though nothing disasterous happened) Anyway, Allison happily obliged, and arrived on Thursday. She's been settling in nicely.

She's been teaching the boys all kinds of things about bugs and birds, and how to fix hole punches, by putting them in the freezer.

She's also been going on pre-vacation errands with us, which included a trip to Target in which Calib, Allison and I killed time while Asa got new glasses.

In other news, Asa and Calib are almost out of tree stumps to pull out of the yard, and the pile is nearly gone.

Which means we'd cleared enough to finally plant our trees. We cut them out of their previous homes, and they finally all have a permanent home!

We got them in the ground before the massive amount of rain hit. For so long, we had no rain, now we have a ton of it. It rained nearly all day for quite a few days in a row. Our ponds went from being super low to super high. It was kind of crazy.

We did pick the best weather day to hit the beach though. Peyton stayed home, but the rest of us went to Honeymoon Island, where we got our pre-Hawaii sunburn, and spied on a gopher tortoise.

You might also have noticed my hair is shorter, I actually finally bit the bullet and for the very first time in my 11 years of living here, I got my hair cut in Florida. I just couldn't stand trying to brush it out after the pool, and all I could think about was getting super annoyed at it in Hawaii. She did a good job on it, and now I don't have to wait until an Ohio trip to get it cut again, so that's nice.

On the school front, we haven't been doing much since Calib took his PERT. Did I tell you guys about that yet? It's the placement test at the Community College for Duel Enrollment. Not only did he pass it, but he totally rocked it- and even tested out of classes. So in the fall, he'll be taking a couple of classes at the Community College for college credit, for FREE! How great is that?

We also hit our halfway point with our countries and did a massive Jeopardy like event to help the boys earn money for their jars. I just counted up everything they had to cash them out for Hawaii. Peyton is 30 cents short of a hundred bucks, Hayden has $89, and Calib (who often times put his birthday or other money in the jar) had somewhere just shy of $200.

Hayden has been going to quite a few of the summer reading club events at the library. We did the Emoji crafts, and a two hour 'Beginning Cartooners' class.

But yesterday was a facorite. They brought in a lady who works for a Tampa Bay Bat Rescue, and she gave a presentation about bats, and then even brought in some for the kids to see. She took them around, some in cages, some just in her hand. You couldn't touch them, but she did give you a good look.

The whole thing was right up Allison's alley, so she came along with us.

Lost in all of this was Father's Day. We actually usually celebrate 'Hobbit Day', but to include all the meals you have to be home all day and start sometime between 8 and 9 am. Since Father's Day was the day after our anniversary, that didn't work. We decided we'd celebrate later, along with other events that have been pushed around because of Hawaii, like the Waterstraut Olympics, the Waterstraut All-Nighter, and the usual summer Blanket Fort. Calib has two weeks at home once we get back before he goes to Ohio, so we figured that'd be a perfect time to do all those home-body activities. Hayden, however, still had a card waiting for Asa when we arrived home on Father's Day.

We also ordered a special dinner for Father's Day. We had some deep dish Chicago pizzas that came from Gino's East. We ordered them online, and they come frozen, packaged with dry ice. Then you just cook them up, and ta-da, pizza from our favorite Chicago place.

So, like I said we have a lot of our summer things to do when we get back, but another something we'll be missing is Peyton's birthday. Yes, the poor kid has to spend ANOTHER birthday on a cruise ship! But, he did want to celebrate at home, since he likes to 'do nothing' for his birthday (aka not be told what to do/how much video game time he can have/when to get up or go to bed). Plus, he likes to pick a meal. So a couple weeks ago we celebrated 'Peyton's Fake Birthday'. My grandma even sent him a fake birthday card. It was lovely. He woke up and got presents (complete with a cell phone- which is what he most wanted).

For dinner he asked for an 'around the world charcuterie' like we had for my birthday. I love this, so I was happy with the pick.

And for dessert he wanted the Chantilly cake from Publix, another fine choice.

We even Facetime for 'Fake Birthdays' around here, and grandma, gigi, Aunt Bonnie and Aunt Judy were all there to sing 'Happy Birthday'.

So, that's about it for around here before we head out to Hawaii. Here's hoping I feel better tomorrow, but more specifically Monday when we head out for our adventure. Oh, and funny enough, I am posting this blog on my blog's birthday!Coincidentally, it's also my dad's birthday. So happy birthday to him! Six years ago today, I wrote my very first blog as we were about to head out to Alaska.

I've got some bags packed (and shout out to all of you who suggested packing cubes, I love them already!), but I have some left to do.