Disney Animal Kingdom Photos

Last Saturday Cindy and I took our granddaughter Heather, our niece Rhyan and her husband, Townsend to Disney's Animal Kingdom for a morning of fun. We all walked around a bit and then took the safari ride together. Then it was time for Grandma, Granddad and Heather to leave so we could get Heather to her pool party with Rowan, while Rhyan and Townsend continued their visit to Nahtazu.



Photos of our morning at Disney Animal Kingdom are on my Flickr page.

Share

Weekend With Heather

Our 3-year-old granddaughter Heather came over Friday afternoon to spend the night and Saturday with us. Here are some of the best shots of her weekend.

First up is Friday afternoon playing on the living room floor with her building blocks. She finally sweet-talked Granddad into building a castle for her.



Next up is from Saturday morning right after breakfast with Granny, Grampy, Uncle Jeremy and Aunt Wendy, Aunt Amber and cousins Rhyan and Townsend; Heather is holding the huge lollipop/all-day-sucker that Uncle Jeremy bought for her.



After breakfast we went to Disney's Animal Kingdom. Here is Heather holding the stuffed panda bear toy that Grandma and Granddad bought her.



Here's a photo of Heather taking a rest on a stone bench before we left Animal Kingdom.



After we left Disney's Animal Kingdom we went to visit our friends George and Caroline so Heather could enjoy a pool party with their daughter Rowan. Here's Heather after some fun swimming.



I'll be uploading more photos of our Weekend With Heather to my Flickr page in the next few days.

Share

Photowalking Disney World's Animal Kingdom

Monday morning I met Kelley and Dennis at Animal Kingdom so they could visit the parks during the day. Since I was there anyway, I decided to do a Photowalk and to visit the new "Finding Nemo, The Musical" show.

"Finding Nemo, The Musical" is a different style of show, using puppets of varying sizes that are operated by people in full view of the audience. I've always thought of puppet shows as the kind where the puppeteer is hidden from view and only the puppets are in sight. When the show first started, I thought "Well, this is crap!" but I have to admit after a few minutes of watching it, I was genuinely drawn in and actually enjoying the production. As I told Cindy later, "It was sort of avant-garde and Cirque du Soleil-esque in nature." The skill and talent of the various actors (and I call them actors rather than puppeteers because of their skill and talent) made this so much more than a simple puppet show set to music. Their singing abilities, body language and skill at manipulating their respective puppets are pretty astounding to witness when they are performing and using all of those techniques at once. It's a great show and I recommend it. Get there early if you want a middle (best) seat and of course be prepared to share the show with lots and lots of kids.



Here's on of my favorite pictures from the Photowalk. It is a shot of the Forbidden Mountain, which houses the Expedition Everest ride, as seen from one of the bridges with trees, the river and some structures framing it. The entire "feel", with the slightly washed out look, somewhat abstract sense and framing of the elements, reminds me of the paintings of the late Bob "The Joy of Painting" Ross ("They're happy trees!") who used to be, and probably still is in some markets, a staple of PBS programming when I was growing up. It just really looks more like a painting than a photograph to me. What do you think?



If you're interested, there are 69 other photos of Animal Kingdom and "Finding Nemo, The Musical." Just click on the Flickr badge in the right column and look for the Animal Kingdom set.

Share