We took it easy on New Year's Eve and just hung out as a family. We thought about having some friends over, but I was glad we hadn't made any plans, because the house is still in an after-Christmas-mess sort of state. We decided to actually let the kids stay up until midnight this year so they took naps in the afternoon and were ready to go! (The last few years we have always tricked them into thinking they stayed up, but we just set the clocks ahead - haha!) So we did a few extra fun things this year. We made homemade pizza for supper, drove through the Lion's Club Christmas in the Park displays, then went sledding in the dark! Our local sledding hill is lit up so you can go at night and it was perfectly icy and slippery for sledding. We all had a blast!
Here are our goofy kids on the way home. Bad pictures from my phone - sorry.
Another showing off their headlamp stocking hats from Great Aunt Laurie and Great Uncle Eric-so fun!
After sledding we came home to watch movies in our jammies. We bought some sparkling juice to celebrate with, but drank it all before midnight. Using fancy glasses is fun!
We watched Robots and The Elf On The Shelf. Nick was sleeping by 10pm, no surprise. :) The movies were done about 11:30, so we tried watching TV with news feed from New York, but all the stuff they were talking about was pretty inappropriate for kids, so we turned it on just for the ball drop and then it was time for bed! They both fell asleep pretty quickly!
We all slept in and were lazy all morning. The kids watched another movie and I watched the Rose Bowl Parade. We decided not to be lazy all day, so we went and played tennis as a family, then came home for naps.
We ended the night at a hockey game - our team won! 2016 is off to a great start!
My New Year's Resolution is to sleep more! Which really boils down to going to bed earlier. I'm a night owl and often stay up too late and then I'm tired the next day. It kills my motivation to get stuff done and it's probably why I get crabby sometimes too. I get tired around 7pm, but then get a second wind, so I'm going to try less technology at night and more reading to slow my brain down. So far, not doing too well, as I'm blogging at midnight! But I get to sleep in tomorrow, so I figure I can stay up a little later on weekends. What's your resolution?
Day 3 was spent at Disney's Magic Kingdom. It started as a chilly rainy morning, but turned into a great day!
The only picture of all 4 of us from the trip (maybe we should have bought that selfie stick, just kidding) and I look weird with that hood on. Should have just accepted the wet hair.
It's a small world!
My homeland! :)
We caught the tail end of this parade and it was just right. The kids weren't crazy about watching parades and Mackenzie had no interest in meeting princesses (much to the relief of Nick and Rylan) - all they wanted to do was ride, ride, ride!
Mackenzie was excited to see Mickey though - he's her favorite thing about Disney!
It felt we hustled from thing to thing to get it all done, but this sign in the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse made me pause a bit. A good way to think about life.
Goof balls!
I didn't take a ton of pictures at Disney - partly because I wasn't feeling the greatest. I think I was getting a bit dehydrated because after guzzling a $4 bottle of powerade and a little rest in the shade, I did feel better. We were all sure to drink more water after that.
We watched Elsa freeze Cinderella's castle! It was pretty magical and gave me goosebumps when it all lit up. I can't believe I got the fireworks in the picture!
Our favorite things at Disney were Thunder Mountain, Splash Mountain, and Space Mountain. We went on all 3 multiple times and had a blast! No tricks at Disney - we tried getting right back on rides, but no go there. It was definitely busier at Disney than at Universal, so we decided as a family not to spend any more days at Disney. We found the fast passes confusing too, they weren't explained well, so we didn't know that things filled up. We never ended up using them because the timing was never right.
We spent one day hanging out and taking it easy. We slept in, watched TV, drove around the area a bit and found a great mini-golf place. I was the big winner, beating these 3 by quite the margin! I thought I saved the score card to prove it - Nick must have thrown it away! :)
We then were able to hang out and have dinner with a high school friend of mine who lives near Orlando. It was so great to see her again and our kids had so much fun together. Because the 4 of us had been spending every hour in close proximity to each other, I think it was much needed for them to run and play and for us to have adult conversations!
We spent 2 days at Universal and we were never bored. Here's some of the other stuff we did.
The Jurassic Park area was really fun. This is the Discovery Center, set up to look like the original main building in the first movie.
We even got to witness a dinosaur hatching!
Mackenzie kept asking if the dinosaur stuff was real. We had to keep reminding her that all the stuff we were seeing wasn't actually real, but that it was just fun to pretend that it was. There were a couple times she would ask with a little nervousness in her voice, so she was relieved that "everything is just robots".
Here's a great example - the Raptor Encounter - we got up close with a velociraptor. We found this little area by accident because it wasn't on the map I was using. There was a line entrance area so we followed it and found a few people standing there with a man who was explaining that he was the raptor trainer. (I wish it had been Chris Pratt, but no luck) At the time, the raptor was "being fed" but would be back in 10 minutes. They obviously had to make sure she was well fed if we wanted pictures with her! He spoke about raptors like we were at the zoo, so it was fun to forget it was all an act. Finally this animatronic raptor came out and it was amazingly real! Each group took turns having their picture taken with the raptor. The kids and I got close and Nick recorded it. It was neat!
It obviously startled me, but it was really fun!
Deciding where to go next
There wasn't a ton to do in Dr. Seuss world, but it was fun to walk through, it was just so whimsical and straight out of a Dr. Seuss book!
The trolley ride!
This was the Sinbad Stunt Show. The set was amazing!
The show was great, but the best part was when Nick and Rylan were chosen to be part of the pre-show! Here are two little videos, sorry for the shaking. I wish I could have seen Nick better, but the stands were already full so I couldn't really move.
Not a great photo, but I had to document the Spiderman ride - this was Mackenzie's favorite, by far! It was another moving simulator with 3D action, so when we were falling off a building and then caught by Spidey's web, I had to close my eyes to keep from getting sick, but it was really fun. We went on this one at least 4 times, and Mackenzie has decided (at least for now) that she wants a Spiderman birthday party next year!
I knew Mackenzie would love the Curious George area - but it was mostly a water park. We ended up here both of the evenings and it had cooled down a bit by then, so we didn't actually get wet there.
Happy Girl!
Directly behind this little town was the kids' favorite part - the Ball Factory. A huge room with foam balls and blasters to shoot them at people, so Nick and I had fun too!
The Ball Factory!
I thought the Despicable Me ride was just okay, but the kids loved it. Mackenzie was excited to have a picture with the minion, and Rylan was WAY too cool for it!
Last photo of the day! Good thing we're dark - I'm not sure the kids were smiling, they were completely tired out.
Of all the places we went in Orlando, I would go straight back to Universal first, we had such a great time! And they're currently working on a whole new King Kong area, so maybe I can convince Nick to go back in a couple years! ;)
Ahh, where do I start? This will be split into multiple posts because we have a lot of pictures. We have always wanted to take our kids to Disney World, but were waiting for them to be tall enough for all the rides and past needing a stroller or naps. So about a year ago we decided 2015 would be the year to go. It was actually pretty easy to narrow down when we would go - not during summer, not on a holiday, and not during peak hunting season, planting or harvest. That pretty much only leaves winter. A search found that a slow time at Disney was between Thanksgiving and Christmas and that seemed like the perfect time to go. We started making plans and decided not to tell the kids until the day we left. They both had classmates that had gone to Disney recently and were asking a lot if we would ever go. We always said, "I don't know, that's a big trip, we'll have to see." I'm pretty sure Rylan gave up ever going, but Mackenzie continued to ask all year long. I almost spilled the beans a few times because I was so excited! We planned to not only go to Disney, but Universal Studios as well because I really wanted to see Harry Potter World. We knew Rylan would want to see it as well. Last year in 3rd grade, his teacher read the first HP book to the class and since then, we've been reading the books and watching the movies together as a family. Well, we read books 1-4 to both kids, but then only read after Mackenzie went to bed as I think the books are too scary for her. Anyhow, Rylan loves Harry Potter (oh yeah, you probably know that already, he was Harry for Halloween) so we knew he would probably be most excited for Universal.
For the big surprise, I got them each new t-shirts and a journal (Mickey & Minnie for Mackenzie, Harry Potter for Rylan) and wrapped them up. We told them we were going to let them open one Christmas present early as they might need these things. Here's the video - it's a nice view of the recliner and cabinets - Nick put it on a tripod and wasn't watching so their faces are at the bottom of the screen most of the time.
Not sure why their excitement led to wrestling, but whatever. I thought Mackenzie would cry, but nope, just try to take Rylan down. Stinker!
We stayed at Cabana Bay Resort at Universal and it was great! We wanted to stay at one of the parks so we wouldn't have to drive at least one day. Cabana Bay Resort had the best rate for the space. Our room had a kitchenette, 2 bathroom sinks, 2 beds and a pull-out couch. Our kids are violent sleepers and they fight, so they can't sleep together and neither Nick or I want to sleep with them, so we wanted them each to have their own bed. Usually pull out couches are terrible, but this one was actually really comfortable so it was perfect! The kitchenette was perfect because we chose to buy groceries and eat breakfast in our room every day and pack sandwiches for lunch.
Here are the only pictures of the room - chips and dip for bedtime snack!
Pull-out couch in the foreground and two beds on the other side of the divider.
The bathroom set up was great - a sink in by the shower, a sink in the middle, and the toilet was in it's own room to the right.
The lobby at Cabana Bay - it was super fun to see everything decorated for Christmas while we were wearing shorts.
Palm trees and Christmas trees, I love it!
Okay, we didn't eat in our room every morning. We got in late the first night, so we ate breakfast in the hotel the first morning. They had a great cafeteria style diner. So many choices and they were delicious! Of course, the kids picked chocolate chip muffins! They were so big, they ate the leftovers the next morning too!
I should have taken more pictures of the whole resort - it was great. Not super fancy, but perfect for families. There were 2 pool areas, one had a waterslide and the other had a lazy river, both had sandy areas to play in. The kids only swam one evening as we were usually dead tired getting back each night. The evenings were a bit chilly (upper 60's) for swimming, but the water was warm so the kids had fun. Here's a link to the website - click on 'photo gallery' in the upper right corner to see photos!
When you stay at one of the Universal resorts, you get into Harry Potter Hogsmeade 1 hour early. It was totally worth it because the lines for the Harry Potter stuff were some of the longest later on. There are two different Universal parks: Islands of Adventure and Universal Studios. We liked Islands of Adventure better, but we got the 2-day park to park passes so we could go between both for 2 days. They get you on that one, because you can only go on the Hogwarts Express (that goes between the 2 parks) if you have tickets for both parks. It was a neat train ride too, really felt like you were there. The whole Harry Potter world felt just like being on the movie set, it was amazing! I could have stayed there all day!
Waiting in line to get in on the first day!
Walking into Hogsmeade! (a wizard village from the books)
We were surprised how many people were visiting the park in HP robes - it wasn't hot, but hot in robes I would suspect. I appreciated it though, it added to the ambiance!
One of the first rides we went on was Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey - it was in the Hogwarts Castle and the line wound through familiar places in the castle, so there was always something neat to look at while in line. We only waited about 20 minutes, and it actually was perfect to be able to see everything along the way - talking portraits, one of the classrooms, Dumbledore's office, the Gryffindor common room - it was all like being right in the books! Here's the fat lady.
A classroom with Harry, Ron, & Hermione talking to us.
Dragon skeleton hanging in the classroom
The sorting hat. The pictures aren't great because they are from my phone and it was dark in the castle.
The ride itself was fun, but Mackenzie got off crying - I think she had no idea what to expect (none of us did) and some parts were a little scary. Each 'cart' sat 4 people side by side and we went through the ride seeing actual things and then screens that simulated flying on a broom. I had to close my eyes during the flying parts because it would make me feel a little sick, but other than that, it was super fun. But there was one part when a dragon head came right at us and blasted us with some heat. The seat where Mackenzie was sitting got the brunt of the blast, so she was scared by that part. But the next day we convinced her to go on it again and she sat in a different spot and said she liked it better. All the details of it all were just amazing.
Hogwarts Castle
The first day we ate lunch at The Three Broomsticks - a pub from the books.
It was spendy, but really good! The best part was the butterbeer! We were advised that the frozen version was the best and we certainly thought so! It was basically a cream soda slushy with butterscotch creamy froth on top - so delicious!
The Hogwarts Express (this was just a replica to take photos with)
On the train, you actually sat in compartments like in the books.
The window was a screen that played a video of what you would expect to see if you were actually at Hogwarts - it was very realistic. Even the frosted windows to the hallway were screens that had shadows and voices of the characters walking by.
The Knight Bus
Mackenzie laid her head on her hands in this photo and I didn't understand why right away. But we kept calling it the Knight Bus and she heard Night Bus. I didn't bother explaining it as we were quickly off to the next thing!
The Gringott's Bank ride was one of our favorites - it was part roller coaster, part simulator with screens and 3D images. Here is part of the line, in the bank lobby with huge chandeliers and animatronic goblins that look freakishly real!
We went on the Gringott's ride 4 times, and 3 of them right in a row. We discovered a neat little trick at Universal, but maybe it only worked because it wasn't that busy. When we got off a ride, we asked if we could get right back on, and almost every time, they would say yes and send us through a hallway or door to get back into the express pass line or the child swap line, it was great! This trick didn't work at Disney.
Checking out all the wands. Rylan wanted a wand pretty badly, but for $50, we told him no. They were pretty cool as they were interactive, so there were a couple dozen places where you could do magic. Through infrared sensors if you moved your wand in just the right way, something would happen at the various spots. But we were busy trying to hit all the rides, and we didn't want to be carrying a wand all day, so he was bummed, but got over it. They each got to pick out an ornament (something smallish and unbreakable) while there to remember our trip.
Here is a little video of us walking up to the Gringott's Bank. I tried to capture the magic of it, it really was amazing to feel like you were right in the movie! I was nerding out!
We happened upon the Frog Choir performance - we saw it labeled on the app, but didn't know when it would be - it was pretty cool. Here are two clips.
Speaking of the app, if you ever go to Universal, get the free app - it had a great map with all the wait times listed. We found that most of the rides had shorter wait times than were listed, so that was nice too! Much easier than trying to fight with a paper map.
Okay, that seems like enough for the first post! Stay tuned for more!
