BOMA! - Still Day 4

After leaving Animal Kingdom, we drove a short distance to the Animal Kingdom Lodge - which is one of my favorite hotels at Disney, but it is uber expensive.  It is home to Boma - a buffet where lots of different options are offered - including some African fare.  We tried Watermelon-rind salad (not bad), Moroccan seafood salad (I didn't try), Avacado, Papaya, Curry Cucumber Salad (interesting flavors together), saffron rice (yummy), FuFu (a type of mashed potato), Grandma was daring and tried the Bobotie (quiche with lamb, beef, onions, raisin and bread - I wonder if she read what it was made of before trying it? EW - you wouldn't get me near it!), lots of different wood roasted meats they would cut off for you - I liked the beef.  All the guys liked Coconut Curry Seafood soup (too spicy), and the Seafood Gumbo (I don't remember which they liked better),  Zebra Dome dessert - which are not like cupcakes pictured in the AK post - these have rum in them.  People RAVE about them in all the blogs, I have to admit I tried one, before knowing what was in it, I had to spit it out.  I guess I just don't like the flavor - but I like butter rum lifesavers.  Hmmm?  Any thoughts on that?  

The Foyer

So, this is the only picture I got of the restaurant.  You can tell it is SUPER busy!  Behind us is where you get the food - pretty good (most people LOVE it, I think it may have been some of the guys favorite meal, I am just picky - grilled cheese, anyone?)  I love it for the ambiance and I think it is cool to teach the kiddos about different cultures.  Anyway, this is where we celebrated Josie's birthday.  It was pretty busy and by the time the waiter brought her cute cupcake to the table, everyone had left except for the 3 of us, Jaxon, Ryan, and Grandpa - who were all still eating.  I know Josie loved it though.

Grandma and the other kids were so tired of waiting for us slow eaters that they decided to go and explore without us.  We caught up eventually.

So, you can see the outline of a person up on that bridge - that is Jaxon.  Grandma challenged him to find out how to get up there while they were waiting for the rest of us.  He did it - he said it was a little bit tricky.  I would have gone with him, I have always been a curious/explorer type person.  I would have loved to spend hours in each one of these hotels to find out all the secrets.  I should write a book - have someone hire me and pay for me to go back there - or anywhere really - and then write tourist books.  I would answer every possible question.  :)

 This is where we found everyone else waiting for us.  This is from the bridge Jaxon was on - Jared went and found him.  I was outside the big windows behind the rockers with Josie exploring the grounds.  Right outside, they let animals roam around and you can just sit and watch them.  We saw giraffes mostly.  It was pretty neat.  Later, I went out with the other kids and watched them, there was the cutest baby giraffe.

Jainie wasn't too happy that Jake wouldn't let her have the big chair.  Jake didn't feel bad at all for taking it, after all, he IS bigger.  It was interesting trying to rock on the rock floor - gave it some excitement and a good work-out.

After exploring a bit, Ry and Jaxon stayed here and chilled.  Have I mentioned there were Christmas trees everywhere?  But, you couldn't find the ornaments to buy from any of them - weird, right?

 This was the huge tree in the foyer - not sure why Josie wasn't happy.  Pretty great ornaments though, right?  Who can hang a whole bag on their tree?

So, there was a chair like this in front of every huge foyer tree that we saw.  I am sure they had one in every hotel.  I wanted to go see them all.  I was quickly out-voted.  I thought maybe if it were just Jared and me, then maybe, but quickly realized - Nope, not even then.  Party poopers!  I thought maybe I could convince Jared to go if I would kiss him at every tree, even that didn't work!  What! I guess we aren't engaged anymore - people should really take advantage of that time period more.  :)

As you can see, Josie liked this one - and still hasn't eaten her cupcake - we were all stuffed!

So, Animal Kingdom Lodge was great - fun to see and to eat at.  We enjoyed ourselves for sure.  But, everyone was tired so time to go back, I guess.  I wanted to head to another hotel and explore - once again, vetoed.  Anyone with adventure want to go to DWorld.  (I have always wanted to pool hop there, can't get anyone to go with me!).

This cool Mickey head was back in our room when we got back- everyday our maid made a new shape for us, it was great!  The kids loved it.  I thought it was rather cute, as well.  Too bad we had to actually use the towels.