Florida - Part 3

Day 3 we headed over to the Wild Animal Kingdom. Before we even got into the park, we spotted Timon. I adore Tad's big smile in this picture.

When we got in we hit "It's Tough to be a Bug." (Yes, the same show we have in California Adventure.) Even though I've seen it, what, five or six times now? Maybe more? It's still cute. And the kids liked it. Well, except youngest nephew. He cried. But he did that a lot, haha.

After some wandering we got Fast Passes for the Safari and headed over to a train to take us to Rafiki's Planet Watch (lots of hippie propaganda... thanks Disney). But as we were waiting for the train I pulled out my phone to check the time.

And I had missed a call from a school that I had interviewed with.

I checked the message and all the principal said was to call her back. So I did. And got the machine. So I left a message and sat there feeling sick. Longest thirty minutes of my LIFE.

FINALLY, we actually get in touch with each other and I got offered my job! So I'm sitting here, away from the rest of the family because I had to stay where I could get a signal. And I'm shaking because all of a sudden in the middle of my vacation I've been offered a job. I thought I was going to pass out for a minute.

Once I compose myself and am able to speak somewhat I call my mom (hi mom!) and she promptly celebrates (along with Claudia, who danced in their office) and starts emailing people. I texted a few people and walked around still not believing that had just happened for the rest of the day.

So back to the parks, right?

The kids got to see Rafiki. Tad got a solo picture because Rafiki is my mom's favorite. They also got to see Jiminy Cricket. And do a lot of cool exploration type stuff, including a little petting zoo. Our little Willow threw a tantrum (no pics necessary) and we decided it was time to head over to the Safari.

So, the Safari was definitely cool. We did get to see a lot of animals, more than I expected since it was already early afternoon. It's a bumpy ride though. And your driver doesn't pause for very long. So there were definitely more than a few out of focus pictures. But like I said, it is still really cool to get to see the animals out and about.

THIS is the Tree of Life. It was SO cool. I have more shots of it, but in this one you can see more than one animal. The whole tree is like that. There's over 300 animals carved into it. You could spend so much time trying to spot them all.

When we drove into the parking lot we thought this looked a lot like Matterhorn. It's totally not the Matterhorn, it's Expedition Everest. And it was a super fun roller coaster! Tad should have been tall enough (according to one measuring station but not the other?), but ended up not being tall enough. We got Cole on it with us and it resulted in the BEST PICTURE EVER. Which I haven't scanned, and I don't want you seeing a crappy copy of it, so that picture will just have to wait. (Did I hear someone say upcoming Friday Photo?) The coaster was seriously fun, and if you're there, you MUST do it.

After we rode Everest, hubby and I took Tad and split up (so necessary when you're in a group of ELEVEN people). We headed over to Dinoland where they had a reproduction of Dino Sue (you know, the most complete T-Rex they've found? It toured museums for awhile). Anyway, there's an employee right there that talked to Tad for almost 10 minutes and played some games letting him guess bones and stuff. She was really sweet and Tad loved hearing about the dinosaur.

From there we did the Dinosaur ride. Tad liked it. Mostly. There's some intense parts involving a carnivore trying to EAT YOU. Those weren't his favorite. But he didn't scream or anything. Just held on to me for dear life. (I told him he saved me from the dinosaur since the dinosaur was on my side and Tad was NOT letting go of me.)

Outside the ride there was a little trail with some fake dinosaurs. Tad posed with this one. I think the picture should go in his room.

There was also a playground nearby, where Tad showed off just how much weirdness he's gotten from hanging out with hubby and I.

There's a river rapids ride that we didn't get soaked on (thankfully). After that we headed to the Finding Nemo show to take advantage of our dampness combined with air conditioning.

This isn't the best picture, but I wanted to make sure you guys saw Nigel. How awesome is that??? The show was really cute, and judging by how hard Tad was clapping I'm guessing he really enjoyed it. I wouldn't mind going to see it if they extend it and turn it into a full-length show.

After that we hit Bug's Life one more time and then left. Everyone else had left already (the park closes early) so step-dad came back for us and then dropped us off somewhere for dinner. We had to celebrate my new employment. :)

Ahhh, half over. But the third day I was pretty tired already. But there's still three to go...

Florida - Part 2

Good morning. I'm not thrilled it's already Thursday. I have only two weeks until school starts.

Wow.

So let's just jump in here so I can block that out momentarily. Day two we headed to Epcot. I had read mixed reviews on Epcot. Boring for kids, okay for kids, great for kids, only good for the food... so I didn't know what to expect. But it was nice. The kids had fun. They got to see characters...

This was actually good because there were five characters in a row. One line to meet all of them. But I think the Donald Duck picture might be my favorite.

It was (of course) warm out so the kids jumped in fountains for awhile.


The whole character thing didn't go over so well with Willow. She was excited to spot Marie from The Aristocats. Until it was our turn to take pictures. Then she freaked out and ran for her mom.


We bought over-priced frozen drinks. Good: they cooled us down a lot. Bad: the price and the fact that they totally made us feel full. Ugh.


I of course had to attempt an artsy picture of the Epcot ball. Which I think turned out pretty cool.

There aren't as many rides over in Epcot. The highlight was probably Nemo. Because it's one of my favorite movies. And Turtle Talk with Crush. Which is always amusing. A couple of the "world regions" have a mini-boat ride. So that was kind of fun, but definitely not a thrill ride. There was plenty to do, just don't expect a ton of rides there.

I just realized I don't have a whole lot to say about this day. Guess that shows you how uneventful it was. If you don't count the tantrum thrown by one kid and Willow crying over Marie. And me hauling butt out of a show as the doors were closing because I had an unfamiliar number calling and I hoped it was about a job.

It wasn't.

Yet.

You'll hear about that tomorrow.

Florida - Part 1

I don't know how I'm going to spread this out, so there's no telling how many days you'll get out of this. But let's just jump in.

I'm gonna throw this out there: I don't like flying. This made traveling feel reeeallly looooong. We flew out of San Francisco at around 6 in the morning on Saturday. We weren't about to use vacation money on a hotel, so we just decided to leave our house at an ungodly hour. Making the travel day even longer. But we got to the airport, made both our flights, and got to Florida. Step one, check.

This has been on Tad's calendar for months. I love that it's his handwriting. And yes, it's HIS calendar, not mine. It happens to be a Cars calendar, courtesy of grandma.

We got in with Tim's sister and her family first. Mom and step-dad and the kids didn't get in until late. Once Tad got there he informed me he was sleeping in our room. :) I love that boy.

Sunday was Universal Studios day. It was warm. Seriously warm. Actually it was the humidity that killed. Yuck. I'll try to make that the extent of the weather-related complaining I write here.

Most of you probably don't know, but Tad has a small collection of pressed pennies. He keeps them in a little wooden treasure chest. We have them from Disneyland, Pismo, Arizona (thanks mom), Sea World... and now we've added 38 from Universal and Disney parks. There was a lot of this on the trip. The kid has a good eye for penny machines.

We did rides of course. Mom and step-dad took turns sitting out with the kids that couldn't do it. The rides were pretty uneventful, except for Jaws.

Tad totally knows what Jaws is. The kid used to put on his shark socks and shuffle into the room singing, "Dun dun, dun dun." I wasn't sure which side of the boat Jaws would come up on, but I put Tad and Cole (our oldest nephew) on the side that I hoped it would be.

I was totally right. (cue evil laugh here)

They're having a good time, and then we spot a fin. Cole started to hide behind Tad a little (chicken). Then when the shark came out of the water, Tad jumped up out of his seat and tried to fly across my lap. I've never seen the kid move so fast and I haven't laughed so hard in a long time. I sat him down and he was fine. No tears, and he handled the shark coming back at the boat pretty well. Our younger nephew did not.

It was a fun ride.

See? Tad was fine. He even posed after the ride. He asked later if we could do it again.


There was a Simpsons ride, complete with a Kwik-E-Mart outside. Guess what hubby's favorite thing of the day was?


Universal has a pretty decent kid area. Hubby and I ran off to do an insane roller coaster and the kids all hung out in a water area. When we got back we played with them and did some rides. Tad and I hopped on the Woody Woodpecker ride. He loves little rollercoasters. He's even willing to try out the bigger ones, which scares me a little.


Universal also had a show at night that was pretty worth watching. It was a late night, but since it was our first day we didn't feel too tired. It caught up with us later in the week.

And there's your brief rundown of day one. I'm trying to keep these short. I figure you don't want a list of every ride or anything, right? Tomorrow, day two at Epcot.

5 Things

Hello! It's not your typical list today. I picked out 5 random things about our vacation. Accompanied by pictures. I promise I will get to a recap (and I'll try to keep it from turning into a novel), but for today, enjoy this...


1. There's a chance that your child will want to ride scary rides.

The whole time we were in line for the Tower of Terror, I was sick. I knew he wouldn't like it, but I don't want to raise a sissy. Hubby insisted he would be fine. And technically he was. No crying, but his little yell will probably haunt me for a short time still. He was pretty proud of how brave he was though.

2. I cannot properly describe the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

I can tell you it was INSANELY crowded. But it was amazing. Seriously hard to describe.

3. Spiderman is a pretty smart dude.

Don't you love how Tad is listening to him? He asked if he was having fun and then transitioned to studying and working hard because being a superhero takes great responsibility. Good job Spidey.

4. The frozen mojitos at Epcot are weak.

No buzz at all, but still pretty dang refreshing given the thousand degree weather we were having. Worth eight bucks? Nope.


5. You gotta love the characters.

Buzz and Woody got into a little tiff over me. They made me choose! And Woody pouted when I chose Buzz. Which Tad still finds hilarious. "Tia Ashley, remember when you made Woody cry?"

If you're a friend on Facebook I put a lot of pictures up over there. Not even close to everything though. Stick around here for recaps. Like I said, I'll try to make them interesting.

Monday Coolness

Helloooo! I won't bombard you today, mostly because I'm still tired and it's making me feel pretty slow. Slow = not so clever. But I promise I'll have some good stories for you this week.

For today, have a video. I recorded just a little bit of Turtle Talk With Crush while we were at Epcot. If you haven't seen it, you HAVE to go next time you're at the parks (they have it at California Adventure also). It's pretty amusing.






I didn't record the whole thing, but at the very end Crush told the kids to say "dude" as much as possible the rest of the day and their parents would love it. Tad thought that was hilarious and laughed every time he heard me say "dude."

Happy Monday dudes!

*whew*

I'm alive. Exhausted, but alive.

Expect lots of recaps this week, because people have asked for them. If you don't want to hear about the different parks, how cute Tad was, how I'll never go to Florida in the summer again, or anything related... well, you're outta luck this week. :)

I did want to point out one new thing I added to my blog. At the end of each post there's a row of buttons that will make it easier to share the post you just read. For those of you that want to share. There's also a quicker way to leave feedback. There are "reactions" you can choose from now. Pretty self-explanatory. So feel free to use them. I like attention. Can you tell?

And just a quick note for those who don't follow me in other areas... I got a job! I won't post details, except to say it was definitely an answered prayer. Details for me are coming starting tomorrow. I have to call the principal and get stuff worked out now. I don't have long until school starts!

Friday Photo

Happy Friday friends!

You were probably expecting a Disney photo, even an old one, but no. That would have required extra work on my part. You should know by now I'm not a fan. So I give you Tad.

Hubby has the Cabela's hunting game for Wii. Tad likes it. And he's pretty decent. I think hubby is hoping it tranlates to a little hunting buddy one day.

I leave Florida tomorrow and will hopefully recuperate enough on Sunday that I'll feel like blogging on Monday. We'll see.

Have a great weekend everyone!