Wednesday, February 26, 2014

One last time

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Tuesday was our last opportunity to go to the water slides again.

Boy am I glad I got the 14 day pass! After the first day, you basically just pay for parking and then you can go as many times as you like.

And the kids love it there!

It was SUCH a beautiful warm day. Our view pretty much looked like this all day...

Can't believe it's almost time to go back to cold snowy Canada...

Monday, February 24, 2014

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Today was the last day that we could go to the huge flea market out of town.

The kids took the last of their holiday money and we made the drive out to Webster.

Blade filled his bag with Hot Wheels. He wanted me to take a picture of him unable to count SO many cars.

Storm bought more bands. Of course. Stocking up because after paying a dollar for them here, it will be a long time before I pay five dollars in Canada!

Hunter had already spent the last of his money on a t shirt at Universal, so he just wandered around. Although, I did buy him some venison jerky to take home, so he was happy.

And I actually finally found some sunglasses that I liked! Four pairs for $20! A good price for someone who drops and scratches and breaks shades a LOT!

We ended the day with a few hours at Wet and Wild. It was cloudy but warm, and since we have free passes into until we leave, snagging a couple more hours, even if they were not sun filled, seemed like a good way to end the day!

Saturday, February 22, 2014

Essential items..

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We made a quick trip to Downtown Disney to pick up a few gifts for Summer.

She was out shopping with Mary Ann and fell in love with Minnie, so we went to go get her one and ended up with Mickey and a Minnie purse too!

A girl needs her purse!

And apparently a girl's monkey needs his Sully outfit too!

Thursday, February 20, 2014

Universal Fun

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The last three days have been busy. Like calves and feet hurt so bad busy.

We finally made a decision on which parks we would go to on this trip, and that was Universal and it's water park Wet and Wild.

I have to admit that I wasn't overly excited about the water park but the kids love going so I decided I'd do my motherly duty and include the slides in our park tickets.

Tuesday was a beautiful sunny day so we set out for the slides. And we had such a good time. I went on most with Storm so she could say she did every slide available to her at the park. Some I wasn't too sure of before heading down but I didn't find one that I hated! All were good and the kids quickly decided we needed another day at the water park if possible.

We came home a bit sunburned, sore feet and in my case sore calves! There's a lot of steps to those waterslides! Especially if you have to carry your tube up!

The next day we set out for Universal Islands of Adventure. Storm needed to go back and ride the two dragon coasters in the Harry Potter section. Thankfully, she grew just enough to get on any ride she wanted to go on. And she wanted to go on them ALL.

After the dragons, which we hit right away, we shopped a little and had lunch at The Three Broomsticks. Or I should say, we had a feast..

After a really good lunch, we headed off to all the other areas. Unfortunately Hunter's favourite ride, Jurassic River Ride, was closed for seasonal maintenance, but Storm and him did go on Rip Saw Falls again. I declined, not wanting to get soaked.

We talked Blade into doing some Popeye barrel ride.

Right before the ride....in which we got totally soaked! There went my plan of staying dry!!

Storm and Hunter went on a few more rides while Blade and I sat back and he navigated the map.

When they came out of Spider-Man, a couple of the X-Men characters were doing a free photo shoot, including Storm!

They asked Storm her name, and the X-Men Storm was quite impressed!

She even did a separate photo with Miss Storm.

Storm says to me "I'm so happy I have a super hero named after me!"

Yup, that's right. And a ride too!

We then headed back through the areas we had speed walked through in the morning to get to Harry Potter. Blade likes the Dr Suess area. No crazy rides, just fun.

Then we made our way back up to Hogsmeade so that we could go on the castle ride.

We did it last year, and I swear I don't remember it being quite that crazy. I convinced Blade we should all do it, and he very reluctantly agreed.

Um, oops. I think I scarred the poor kid. He was very unimpressed! There may have been more than a few tears and a declaration he wanted to go home!

There was a bit of placating with an owl and a new toque and glove set!

The Hogwarts area is pretty magical at dark. I'd love to be able to stroll through it when it was empty and all lit up.

The kids are all sporting different House toques. And much to Storm's delight, she's sporting a whole Griffindor ensemble!

Today, we went back to the waterpark.

Although I vowed to just lay on my lounge chair, we did a few more slides.

My calves are so sore.

Tomorrow, I do as little as possible without dying.

Saturday, February 15, 2014

Wild wild Florida

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Today was the day to go out on an air boat and explore the Everglades a little.

We started off the way every good adventure should....

With breakfast at the Waffle House of course.

And then, with Hunter as chief navigator with the GPS, we set off to find Wild Florida.

Our GPS works really well, but I swear it likes to make the trip there the 'scenic' route and then on the way home, it will take us down the interstate...

But we made it, so that's all that matters!

It was quite literally in the middle of nowhere.

We got there early enough to explore the wildlife park before our reservation time on the airboat.

We checked out the swamp walk, the zebras, zonkies, zorses, lemurs, birds, and gators. Oh, the gators...

They have some HUGE ones there.

Safely inside our cage, the kids fed them.

We were lucky as no one had fed them yet that day so a whole bunch of big ones came out and ate.

The kids also held a three year old alligator named Allie. Pictures to come after we get home and I can get them off of the flash drive that we bought.

Eek, what's that?!

My, what a big mouth you have...

Meh, no big deal. High five him!

We went outside to wait for our names to be called for the airboat and found this guy.

Looks like Blade's about to become a master gator wrestler.

Finally, we were on the boat and ready to go. Front seat view.

It was windy. It was chilly. It was awesome.

When they take off at high speed, it feels like flying. On a magic carpet. And no, I didn't break out in song, but it was very cool!

The sun finally came out and we managed to spot four gators out sunning themselves. Mostly small ones like this one in the picture.

It was definitely worth the money. We got about an hour and a half tour, seen some gators, a snake, a lot of birds, and I got a bug right square in my eye. Oh yes, it was lovely.


It was definitely the trees' knees....

Thursday, February 13, 2014

Lego day

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It's windy out today. And chilly.

A good day to play inside!

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Random Park

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One of my favourite things to do in a new city is to sometimes just randomly drive around and see what we can see, and see if we can get home without the GPS.

Today Storm and I went to Staples and we seen a huge gate stating Historic Kissimmee. So, we went for a drive and ended up finding a really cool park.

I love finding random places we wouldn't have known were there except for a left turn down an unknown road!

We went home and got the boys, played for a while, and then ended the night with supper at the Outback Steakhouse.

Delicious. And then, the heavens opened up and boy, did it rain!

Looks like tomorrow is a stay at home day!

Gators everywhere!

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Yesterday was our trip to Gatorland. It's only a short drive from the house. A couple of turns, down a toll road, left down the road and watch for the huge gator head.

There is a whole lot of scary gators in there! Big ones. Little ones. White ones. Crocs. Gators. Snakes. Tortoises and birds.

That's one full platform of teeth!

Wowsza. They look big and dead, but they are definitely not dead...

First up though, a train ride around the park.

We had the pick of the seats since we were the only ones on it. Blade and Hunter preferred to sit with me...safety in numbers?! While Storm and Bananas hung out in their own row.

We caught a couple shows and tried out some gator bites.

A gator 'stache?! Tasted a lot like pork anyways..

The kids seemed most excited about Dipping Dots!

We watched the gator wrestling show. And the kids sat on one as well.

Expensive five seconds.

Anyways, we toured the rest of the park and the kids got some gator jerky.

Think I'll let them take it home to share with their dad.

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

One lucky monkey

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Bananas, all suited up for his outing to Gatorland.

One lucky monkey. He even got snacks packed in his new backpack!

Monday, February 10, 2014

Downtown Disney

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We are definitely on holiday time around here. It's hard to drag them out of bed, or out of the house to do anything.

Promises of a Lego store and supper out though did the trick.

We headed out to buy tickets to Gatorland for tomorrow and then drove down to check out Downtown Disney.

First stop turned out to be the T-Rex store and somehow we managed to come home with a couple dinosaur friends and some new clothes for Bananas.

And then next up, of course, the Lego store!

The kids have been missing their toys at home lately, so we bought a couple sets to give them something to play with.

They were quite happy they left home after all.

After we walked around a bit, everyone decided they were starving and since Hunter had wanted to go to Chilis the night before and we didn't, that's where we headed to.

Crazy boys. That's the pictures you get when you set the camera to timer!