Day 5 - the Magic Kingdom

Disney World... aaahhhh, what a wonderful place to be! Well mostly, when it's not 95 degrees...


We started out our day with a visit to our new friend - iHop Joe, to get us some shady park tickets. Hey, when you save $20 a ticket, I don't complain much. And when he told us to go to the younger park employees at the turnstile, I didn't question it. Sounds legit to me. So after getting through security (phew!), we plotted our day at the park.

The kids kept begging us to look at the crazy bands. They sell them everywhere!


We got the kids to go on the Haunted Mansion ride first - not sure how we did that, that ride is pretty dark inside! Both kids said they liked it, but definately didn't want to go on it again :) Then it was off to the Pirate Ride. Once again, a dark ride, but it was a nice, cool INDOOR ride. I like those kind.

It was a bit crowded at the park, but not as bad as I expected. This was the first year we haven't taken a stroller to the park. Both kids did a great job walking around.

The kids couldn't wait to ride on the Buzz Lightyear ride. They were skipping through the line holding hands, since it was going to be kids vs parents. It was so cute! Then I think they went back to fighting with each other right after the ride ended. haha

We went on that ride several times, it was a hit with everyone!

After spending hours sweating in the heat, it was time for some yummy ice cream. Yummm, melty mess!

The Big Thunder Canyon Railroad and Splash Mountain were a couple of Zack's favorite rides. He was so excited to be big enough to be able to ride on the "big rides". Maybe next time we come he'll be ready for Space Mountain!!

Girls vs Boys on the speedway.

Zack has been talking about going on the Barn Stormer ride for the past 2 years. Sydney didn't go last time, so now it was time for Zack to show Sydney the ride. They got to go on it a whole bunch of times, and ride in the front because there wasn't a wait for the ride! At the beginning of the last time around the spectacular fireworks show started and we got to see fireworks on the ride.

Note, the show was much better than my sad little picture here! It was awesome!!

By 10:45, we decided we should try to "sneak out" of the park before the 11pm parade started. Good idea, but hundreds of other people had that idea too! By the time we got to the car it was about 11:30 and the kids zonked right out when we pulled out of the parking lot. What a long day!

Day 4 - Florida trip - Kennedy Space Center

Today we made our way over to the Kennedy Space Center. Zack is really interested in space, rockets and all things space right now so this was the perfect fit.



It was cool to see how big the rockets are - and how tiny the space capsules were! I could never be an astronaut - for many reasons :), but especially since I am claustrophobic!

For Zack it was exciting to see the rockets we learned about in his books up close.

We took the special tour: Discover KSC, Today & Tomorrow. The bus tour took us into some restricted areas where the other general tour would not go. We got to see this space shuttle building up close. Zack really got the best tour because he got to sit with Alan, who knows many many things about the space program. Sydney and I got to look at the birds and I would retell her stories that I hear from the tour guide!

We spent a large portion of our day at the Apollo building. This building was devoted to our trip to the moon. We saw a cool show and lots of stuff like moon rock (we got to touch one!), space suits and lunar rovers.

We even got an autograph from this Shuttle astronaut, John Blaha.

The kids even got to hold a space shuttle!

After our long day at the space center, we headed over to Ron Jon surf shop to spent some money. We got some t-shirts and a swim suit. Then, after a walk along Cocoa Beach we headed to Taco Bell and went back to the condo.

Day 3 - Florida trip, Clearwater beach

As I am sitting here typing this post I am reminded of how darn loud washing machines can be! We got back to our condo room and I decided to throw in a load of wash since our towels were all full of sand & wet from our beach excursion today. The washer / dryer combo is right next to the kids bed and I started it right when they went to bed. What was I thinking?? We have a high efficiency washer at home and it is very quiet. I often have to check to see if it's running (from a distance) by looking for the lights turned on. Oh, not this one. It is over there chunking away!! However that apparently isn't bothering the kids because they have not got up once yet. The day at the beach must have wiped them out.

Which is where I begin - today we went to Clearwater Beach. It was a slow start, but a nice lazy vacation day. Apparently we had set the entertainment bar too high with our visit to Typhoon Lagoon, because when we told the kids we were going to the beach they said "what's a beach?
(it's at the ocean...) "do they have water slides at the beach??"

When got to the beach we had our lunch out on the beach. We were all shocked when a seagull swooped down and tried to steal the peanut butter & jelly sandwich right out of Sydney's hand - while she was eating it!! We all got a big laugh out of it - except Sydney at the time, who was a bit shaken up. After a few minutes though she thought it was pretty funny too.

This picture must have been taken just minutes before the bird swooped in!!

Shortly after lunch, a big storm cloud rolled in and it rained for about 30 minutes. Hardly anyone went home, and we all just hung out in the ocean - which was a toasty 88 degrees! Soon the black clouds rolled away and the hot sun was out again.

We did a pretty good job of putting our sunscreen on and only got a little bit of pink today. We had to veto buying ice cream for everyone, because it was $4 a cone. yikes. So we shared a frozen pink lemonade cup instead, and it was delicious. It was a good thing we splurged on that huge ice cream treat at Typhoon Lagoon, because the bucket and shovels were perfect for the kids to play with today.

After our great day at the beach we went over to Five Guys Burgers and Fries for dinner. That was really good - and the "large" fries could easily serve a family of 6. We ended up throwing some of them away.

We got back to the condo just in time for showers and then watched the Epcot fireworks from the hall of the condo. Pretty!

Day 2 - Typhoon Lagoon!

Typhoon Lagoon was the destination on our first full day of our vacation. I have never been a fan of water parks - well, I was before I got my bathing suit almost ripped off and feared I was going to drown going down a tube slide at Wet and Wild on my high school senior trip, but I digress...

Typhoon Lagoon was really beautiful - but of course, it's a Disney park. And in true Disney fashion, everything was perfect :) We got there early to grab some beach chairs in the shade.

The kids favorite area was the wave pool. It periodically created waves - huge ones, and sometimes a bunch of smaller ones. Disney boasts that this is one of the largest created waves in the world! It's true, those waves really cranked out of there. A pretty amazing technology to witness.

The lazy river was nice. It took us all around the park.

Even though we took a cooler into the park for lunch, we had to have some ice cream for a treat. And what a treat it was! This is called the "garbage pail" because it had every kind of topping availalble in there - cookies, sprinkles, hot fudge, caramel, whipped topping, cherries... and more. Even after all four of us shared it, I thought it was too much. Yes me, I said it was "too much ice cream"!

Soooo yummy!

We took another trip around on the lazy river while the boys played in the waves.

We went on several tube slides and even tried going snorkling in the shark tank - but the water was too cold and kids couldn't figure out how to use snorkels, so that was a bust. But the slides were a lot of fun. Around 4pm a storm rolled in and the park closed. Just in time really, we were getting pretty tired from hauling those tubes around.

For dinner we went to T-Rex, a dinosaur themed restaurant from the owners of the Rainforest Cafe. As expected, the interior (and even exterior) was pretty elaborate.

One of the dining areas was the "ice room" and the "ice" walls changed colors occassionally. It was pretty weird inside there, I'm glad we didn't get seated in there!

Florida - Day 1

(3:30am - buzz, buzz, buzz) and so our trip begins. A bright and early start to our day. Grabbed our bags and headed to the airport. Luckily we got up early enough and everything went well. The flight was good, and we landed in Florida around 10:30 am. After picking up our rental car, we cruised over to our condo.

Since the room wasn't ready we had some lunch, and walked around Downtown Disney. Both of the kids had some spending money, and they were ready to spend it the minute we got off the plane. We had to break the news to them that we were going to wait until Thursday to purchase anything, to make sure they had time to select the right items. Zack wanted to buy everything at the huge Lego store!

The kids made some cars to race... Zack won! (but he was still mad that he couldn't buy his Legos...)

After a trip to the grocery store for some food, we were finally settled in. Our condo was very clean, with granite countertops. One king size bed, and bunkbeds for the kids. A nice size for our family.

Our condo was on the 9th floor. The building had a workout room, and a large pool with several small pools and a hot tub.

The view of Lake Bryan was really nice.

By 7pm I was ready for bed... too bad no one else really was! Alan was finishing up his 20 mile (!!) run. The kids really liked the bunk beds - and Zack only fell out once, thankfully when he was on the bottom bunk.

I was glad the day was over, I was exhausted!!

Freeze Daddy's

I think it is so awesome that we have an ice cream stand right near our house!  well, it's not TOO close - we need to ride our bikes for a mile to get there, but close enough that the kids can actually ride there.  It's been a long time since we could actually ride over there because they have been working on the bridge.  For the longest time there was no road, and no bridge, so we just couldn't get there easily.  But now, our passage is open again and the new bridge is even better for the kids to ride over. 

Take me out to the Mud Hens...

One thing I definitely miss about working in the corporate world are the nice perks I used to get.  Granted, I get some nice free stuff at Centaur, but we certainly don't get event tickets like sporting events and parties.  But, all is not lost.  I am very honored to be the recipient of tickets from my generous customer Payak Dubbs Insurance.  Tonight we got tickets to the Mud Hens.  They were great seats!

 We didn't stay for the whole game, but we did last a pretty long time and the kids really liked it. 

Dinner at El Camino Real

We met Grandma and Grandpa for dinner over at El Camino Real.  The kids were definately more interested in the water fountain out on the patio than they were with the actual dinner :)