We’re back from Orlando!

The bigger new, however, is that Oona has turned 5.  5!!!

SO much about my life has changed in 5 years – it is so different and so much better in so many ways.  And yet it seems that Oona has gotten to be this age in the blink of an eye.

She had a spectacular 5th birthday.  And how can you not, when you are celebrating at Disney?

But first we HAD to go to Hogwarts.

The world of Harry Potter at Universal in Orlando is pretty impressive.  It’s really a must – see destination for all Potter fans.  Although I will say that my friend Jessie and her family went to the Harry Potter attraction in London this summer and saw all of the actual sets used in the movies.  That certainly beat out our experience, but we still enjoyed our fill of Butterbeer, Pumpkin Juice and roasted chicken.  This was the all around favorite of the bigger girls for the whole trip.

Disney was not quite as easy to navigate and the weather was not quite as nice.

I will say this about Disney, though: some things they do very, very right.  We had Oona wear her Cinderella dress to the Magic Kingdom on her birthday.  To that, we got a button from a shop just inside the park that had her name and announced her birthday.  EVERY “cast member” (employee) all day long greeted her with “Happy Birthday Princess!”.  It made her millenium.

There was also plenty of meet and greets throughout the day.

Followed by the famous fireworks spectacular at the castle that night.

There is no way we will ever beat that as a birthday experience.

As for me, I found myself having the most fun at the Animal Kingdom.

Since it was meant to look like parts of both Asia and Africa there was much more plant – life (and shade!).  There were animals everywhere of course, and we were all very excited to see their petting zoo, which promised “Exotic animals of many species”.

Well.

What they had were sheep, goats, pigs and a llama.

That was a total bust.  That was the opposite of exotic.

Fortunately, the safari ride we took more than made up for it.

We didn’t have to touch any of the animals to thoroughly enjoy them.

Now we are back to reality.  Back to planning for the school year which will start in just about a week and a half. Back to digging a culvert so we can make a bridge over the stream.  Back to getting fencing set in.

Because y’all, my birthday is coming up.  And you know getting my animals home is the one and only thing left for me to be completely content.

🙂