Last Florida post

Of course you can't go to Orlando without giving some money to Disney.  We hit Magic Kingdom one day and Epcot the last day.  We didn't get as many photos these days - since the hurricane had passed, these days were starting to approach typical Florida-in-August weather, and we were starting to get worn down from all the walking we were doing on the trip.

 Had to get a photo of the castle.

 Jim and Alex on the Dumbo ride. 

 Grace was always game for a silly photo.  The Toy Story ride was lots of fun for all of us.

A great photo op that we somehow missed on the way in that morning.

  

 Our final day was at Epcot.  We really didn't get to take full advantage of the park since it was so hot and we were quite worn out.

 Grace was up for getting her photo taken with just about every costumed character we ran across.

 The kids worked together to get through a game about saving money.

 

The kids and their piggy bank before the end of the game.

 

Grace and Jim took off on their own, so Alex and I completed as many of the Phineas & Ferb/Agent P Adventure segments as we could.  You got a cell phone that played programmed messages (cartoons) that gave you clues of things to find in each of the World Showcase areas in order to find the evil Dr. Doofenschmertz (it used to be a Kim Possible adventure, but has been updated with the newer cartoon). Once you found a particular spot you used the cell phone to "connect" to it before you got your next assignment.  My stick-in-the-mud kid really got into it and took it very seriously, even going so far as to ignore his shyness and going up to a person working in a tea shop in the United Kingdom area and saying "Danger is my cup of tea" in order to get the Twinings tea packet with the next clue on it.

And just before we left Alex FINALLY found a costumed character that he wanted to take a photo with.  Duffy the Bear has only been in the United States Disney parks since 2010, and was who Alex had chosen the day before at Magic Kingdom as his souvenir (because he didn't have enough stuffed animals as it is, the mother comments dryly). We saw him as we were heading on the way out and couldn't pass up the chance to stand with him.  You can see from the photo how happy the boy was to be with the bear.

More Florida

So if Legoland was Alex's favorite park in Florida, Universal Studios was Grace's (and mine, too).  I think if we ever did an Orlando trip again we would maybe blow off Disney properties and go to both of the Universal ones.  We only did the Islands of Adventure, mainly because we needed to make sure we went to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Alex wasn't in a great mood that day, so most of the photos I have are of Grace.

We went straight to Harry Potter, and Grace was greeted by the conductor for the Hogwarts Express.

 

 I was so impressed with the detail given to the entire area.  The snow on the roofs in Hogsmeade was wonderful - almost making you forget it was an August day in Florida.

 The Hogwarts castle which houses the Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey ride.  Fantastic ride, but it FREAKED Alex out.  Enough so that I felt bad about taking him on it afterward! 

 If the Hogsmeade detail was cool, the Forbidden Journey detail was amazing.  Here is one of the Mandrake plants you pass by while waiting in line.

 While he didn't care about the Harry Potter stuff, Alex loved all the Marvel Hero things.  Unfortunately most of the Marvel-based rides were way too big for him.  

 The Dr. Seuss area was fun too - Grace's second favorite area after the Harry Potter part.  Alex even cheered up some.

 The Lorax area was really big since the movie had recently come out.

 Truffula trees!

 

Grace is always game for chasing down a costumed character to get her picture with them.  Alex, not so much.

 

 Grace and I decided to ride the Harry Potter ride one more time before leaving because it was so awesome.  And we had to stop and try a butterbeer before we left.  It wasn't too bad - butterscotchy ginger ale with a foamy top.

This sign cracked us up.  This specific one is from the Harry Potter ride, but they used the bottom portion of it for any ride applicable.  We thought the cartoon of the guy barfing over the side of the boat was funny!

Vacation!

Well, the kids finally wore us down and this summer we took them to Orlando ("But M-O-M, ALL our friends have been to Orlando").  In order to be economical, we drove down rather than fly, which was a beating in itself (thought we could do it in one straight shot by taking turns driving and sleeping, but realized that we needed that extra hotel night on the way home).  Of course a hurricane hit while we were there, but it largely bypassed us.  It was a blessing in disguise - for dealing with one full day of rain we were given lower crowds (people scared away because of the storm) and lower temperatures (from the cloud cover).

 

 Even though we were driving to Orlando, we had to make a pit stop at the first Florida beach we could once we hit the state before heading west.

  

All we did was walk out onto the sand for 5 or 10 minutes, but it was a nice refresher after being in the car so long.

 Since we were doing Legoland in addition to Disney and Universal Studios, we found a townhouse in Kissimmee to rent to be somewhat centrally located.  It was very nice and very affordable. Grace was in love with it because she got her own bedroom with television and her own attached bathroom.  We had a tiny pool just for ourselves, but the better bet was the pool at the main club.

  

 

It was very Paradise-esque.  And there were never more than a couple other families there at any given time - possibly because of the off-season, or the hurricane, or because the development was only about halfway finished.  No matter - it was very nice to virtually have the pool to ourselves.

 

Legoland was the first park we visited.  I think was the best one of the trip for us.  The kids were just the right age for the rides; the rides and shows weren't too much for Alex but were still entertaining for Grace. Plus Alex is so Lego-crazy you couldn't help but enjoy it. 

  

 Characters from our favorite Lego game.

 Alex loves the Hero Factory line of Legos and was very excited to see this lifesize guy.  Until he saw him from the back and realized it was just a guy in a Hero Factory suit.

 

 The kids did a little driving school.  Alex was very nervous and very serious about his driving, and got angry at me when I tried to break his concentration to have him look at me for a photo ("Mom, I'm DRIVING.")

One of my favorite areas was Miniland USA, which were these incredible recreations of various US areas done in Lego bricks.  You could see Daytona International Speedway, many areas of Florida from across the state, Kennedy Space Center, a pirate area, Northern and Southern California, New York City, Washington DC and Las Vegas. I just thought it was fascinating the detail they had.

 

30 Rock!

 

 

I tried to get a few shots showing many of the areas and to get some actual people in it for perspective. 

Need to come back

So Jim and I realized how nice it is to have the blog to look back and remember things from. So I told him I'd really try to get back in the swing of posting again.  And I'm going to try to post a lot of things that got missed while I've been lazy. So fingers are crossed that I'll get at least one up tomorrow!

Pin pin pin

I think I've said it before, but I love Pinterest.  Maybe I just like the idea of Pinterest, because I realized I haven't actually tried many of the items I've found there.  So I've resolved to start making myself actually attempt things from it, hopefully at least once a week. 


First thing I tried (quite a while back) were the mini cinnamon rolls.

These were pretty good, though I seemed to be the only one in my family that liked them much.  Made with crescent rolls, I think my family just prefers the regular out-of-a-can rolls.  So not to be made again since the last thing I need is to eat an entire mini muffin pan worth of cinnamon rolls by myself.


Next recipe (that I tried last week) was Lemon Parmesan Chicken with Peas.

VERY tasty - and very easy.  It is now part of our dinner recipe rotation - I highly recommend it.


Last night I tried Chicken and Asparagus Penne.

The description said "quick and easy - yum!".  Well, it was quick and easy, but not quite "yum."  More like "meh."  Very, very bland, which I somewhat expected when I saw the recipe included no seasonings.  It was a slight variation on a recipe the blogger had seen in a book, so I added the parsley the original recipe had, plus salt and pepper to the chicken when cooking, but it still didn't merit much of a response from my family.  So this one is NOT part of the dinner rotation.


I've pinned a lot of craft ideas, some for me to try, some to do with my kids and some for my Girl Scout troop.  Of course I've only tried one, but it was a resounding success.  Balloon bracelets.

Grace had bought one of these from one of the boutiques downtown, and when I saw the website on how to make them yourself I was struck by how easy it would be.  So I purchased a bunch of balloons and some elastic and the girls at Grace's birthday sleepover went to town, each making multiple bracelets.  I need to remember to look back over the craft ideas periodically, because I tend to forget about things I've pinned and when I see them again I think "Wow, what a great idea!"


For what it's worth, I've found websites that have debunked the "make glowing paint out of Mountain Dew" idea.

Which is too bad because it would have been pretty cool if it actually worked.  But it doesn't, so the pin is getting deleted.


So that's my Pinterest update for now.  Hopefully blogging about Pinterest ideas will actually make me do them.  I feel very creative when I pin things, but I've realized I'm not more creative if they only sit on a website waiting on me.

Vacation!

I've got to get some good photos taken of the new kitchen, but in the meantime I'm going to post a bunch of vacation pics.  We went up to Lake George in the Adirondacks for a week, and other than the two power outages, yellowjacket stings and extremely hot temps for the first half of the week, it was an absolutely wonderful vacation.

 

Our cute little one-room cabin.  It had a screened in porch with the table for eating.  And it had a loft for the kids to sleep in.  No TV and very weak wi-fi.

 The view from the door of our cabin.  The cabin seen on the right is the other one owned by the guys whose grandfather built them both.  A very nice couple were staying in this cabin - they'd been coming to this spot to vacation for the past 25 years.

 

Lake George had some of the clearest water I've ever seen in my whole life.  This area where you can see the rocks was probably at least 3 feet deep.  

 

 We rented a boat and a tube for four days.  The kids loved it.

Alex liked going fast.

 The kids loved it when we dropped anchor so they could jump off the boat and swim.  The water was cold, but not uncomfortably so.  Very nice on the days when we had 90+ degree weather.

 The beautiful view from behind the boat.  Unfortunately these photos don't do justice to how beautiful the scenery was.

 Grace very much enjoyed the front of the boat.

 

 There was a little island across from where our cabin was on the lake that we boated over to.

 

We ventured into Lake George Town to check it out.  A nice diversion for the kids, but definitely not some place we'd ever actually want to stay in.  Very touristy, but we hit a family-friendly restaurant, some gift shops and an arcade.  And found where the mini golf places were to come back to later in the week.

 This was our first time to play mini golf as a family, which was lots of fun.

We also spent a morning exploring Fort Ticonderoga, which was about 30 minutes up the road from us.  Sight of the first Revolutionary War victory, you can look out over Lake Champlain (seen in the background here) and see Vermont.

They had people dressed up like Revolutionary era people - we followed the drum and fife band in a little parade down to the garden area. 

 Alex plays with his wooden musket he got a the fort.

 Our final goodbye to the cabin.  Do you see a well-rested, vacation-filled family??  I sure do.