We had the opportunity to visit Brian's brother Mark and his family in Florida this past month. We got to go for 10 days, and it was so much fun! Even though it was a little stressful at times, we sure made a lot of memories on this trip.
It was our kids first time riding in an airplane. They were probably the most excited about this part of the trip. Brian's sister Candace came with us and helped us navigate through airport security and terminals, and sat by the kids for us on the plane flight. She was such a big help throughout the whole trip!
When we were taking off on the plane, both kids put their hands up in the air just like they were ride a rollercoaster. All three kids did exceptionally well on the plane ride. Mason fell asleep as we were ascending. Lily ended up falling asleep by the end of the flight.
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| Lily at the airport |
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| Candace & Avery waiting for the plane to come |
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| just before take off |
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| getting ready to take off! |
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| all zonked out |
We went to Church with Mark's family the next day and then just had a relaxing day at their house. Later that night we went to a hotel closer to Disneyworld so we didn't have to wake up so early.
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| cousin! |
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| playing at the playground in their neighborhood |
DISNEYWORLD!!!!
-Magic Kingdom
The next day was Disneyworld! The kids were so excited they could't sleep! We rode a shuttle from the hotel to get there and ended up being a little late, but that was ok.
Since we were late getting in there, we didn't waste too much time with pictures. The first ride we went on was Splash Mountain. Avery thought that was pretty cool. Lily was a little upset she didn't get to go in, but got really excited to see Jessie from Toy Story.
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| its a small world! |
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| lily really liked "its a small world" |
Lily figured out quickly that characters would sign her princess book. She tried to get everyone to do it, but there weren't many characters just out and about. The two pictured about were just helping characters that wouldn't sign anything (since they weren't real).
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| Mason & Candace at the castle |
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| Waiting for the parade to start |
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| Lily seeing the princess for the first time. It was really magical because she was so excited! |
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Lily loved dancing with Goofy and Pluto in their street dance party. She was really grooving to the music! Avery didn't liked dancing however.
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Amanda and Lily went to see some of the princesses. Lily really wanted to see the pink princess, or Princess Aurora (Sleeping Beauty). To get to the pink princess, she had to see Cinderella first. Boy, was she mad at first. She just wanted to see the "Pink Princess!" She warmed up though and though it was really cool to see the Princesses. I (Amanda) missed getting the shot of LIly giving Princess Aurora a hug. It was so cute. Lily absolutely loved Aurora. She wanted to wear her pink princess dress once she saw all the other little girls wearing their princess dresses.
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| with Aurora, Sleeping Beauty, her favorite princess |
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| with Candace |
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| on Splash Mountain |
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| On the carousel |
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| Trying to get the sword in the stone out |
Lily's favorite thing at Magic Kingdom was seeing the Princesses. Avery's favorite thing was Splash Mountain. He only liked riding the "thrill" rides while Lily really liked the rides with singing in it. We did go to the Monster's Inc Laugh Floor (which is a comedy show) which was aweseome. Brian and Mason even got to be up on the screen (Brian was supposed to answer where he lived, and Mason was at the end of the show as being the cutest guy ever!).
It was such a wonderful, magical day. We loved the parades, the rides, the shows. It was hot and humid, but still awesome. However, we did miss our shuttle going back to the hotel and ended up having to get a taxi, and that was quite an adventure. (we had to ride two different monorails to get back to the shuttle and it took longer than we had thought). Sea World!!!!
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| a fun day with a fun crew! |
Well we ended up being late to Sea World since we were out till midnight the night before at Disneyworld. We got to see a show with some funny seals and otter as well as the big show with Shamu and the other Orcas. Mark & Sarah came later in the day and we rode some rides and saw some of the animals there.
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| watching the Seal show
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| Shamu |
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| some awesome jump! |
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| Lily & Candace on one of the kiddie rides |
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| Lily and the polor bear in the Arctic Adventure |
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| the kids kept thinking it was real snow! |
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| Avery trying to touch the sting ray |
Hollywood Studios!
This time we drove ourselves to Disneyworld. We got there as it opened. Amanda and Avery rusehd to get a spot in the Jedi Training Academy, but then Avery decided he didn't want to be up in front of people, so we decided not to do it. However, we did go on Star Tours quite a few times. Avery also LOVED
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| Avery showing off his phone number tatoo while waiting for the Tower of Terror |
So we did have quite the scary moment. We were eating lunch and Brian went off to go get some fast passes. Then all of the sudden, Lily was missing! I (Amanda) panicked and search frantically for her. I called Brian, who retraced his steps. By the time I found a Cast Member to help me out, Brian called to say that he found her. She had ran off after him, but then didn't know where she was. She had sat down on the ground and was looking really sad when he found her. Other people were trying to help her out. Luckily she wasn't missing for more than 5 minutes, but it sure made her mommy quite emotional! The Cast Member told us to write our phone number on their arms, so they got to sport phone number tatoos the rest of the time. Any time Avery lost sight of us, he was pulling up his sleeve ready to show it to someone. What a frightening experience and we are so grateful it turned out well!!!
We got to spend Halloween in Florida! There was a fun egg hunt in the community and then lots of trick or treating in which the kids came back with way too much food!
Mark, Sarah, Boyce, Eve & Mack all were pirates.
Lily was a princess and Avery was....Marty from Back to the Future. Most people didn't know who he was but that is what he wanted to be. Mason was a cute little pumpkin.
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| his flyer says "Save the Clock Tower" |
One of the days wowever, our tour guide did jump off into the swamp and tried to catch one for us. We just saw the splash of the alligator was all. Our tour/bus driver was really fun. He made it quite the adventure. He even let Avery and Lily drive! He got out of the truck to pick up a banana spider and let us feel its really strong web (which is yellow). We also fed the cows some oranges, which is something new we found out. (we have seen plenty of cows in our lifetime, just not cows eating oranges.)
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| Banana Spider |
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| Enjoying fresh Orange Juice Slushies- Yummy! |
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| sitting on the Monster Truck |
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| A sweet "shark" outside the Citrus Store |
UNIVERSAL STUDIOS:
Mark & Sarah's neighbors work at Universal Studios and were able to get us some free tickets there! It was awesome! However, as we are unloading the car, it starts to rain. By the time we stopped to buy ponchos, it was pouring! But that didn't stop us from having fun. We were all drenched, including all our strollers and stuff but we still managed to enjoy ourselves. Brian will tell everyone that his absolute favorite ride was Transformers. It is a 3D ride that takes you through the city with the Transformers. It looks so real! It was pretty awesome. We did a bunch of other rides as well.
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| waiting the rider swap area with the little ones |
While there, we found something that perked Avery's interest:
Yep, it was the Back to the Future Time Machine Car and Train. He was pretty excited about that. We didn't get to actually see Doc and Marty though...
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| waiting for rides in the pouring rain |
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| all wet but still enjoying lunch |
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| enjoying the indoors on the way to the mummy ride (which had fire as part of the ride, which made us warm) |
We got to go to Hogsmeade and see all the fun Harry Potter scenery. Candace Treated us all to some Butterbeer (like a butterscotch soda) just like in Harry Potter. It was really yummy!
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| The Hogwarts Castle is behind us |
ST. AUGUSTINE:
For the last part of our trip we went to St. Augustine and Daytona Beach. On the way to St. Augustine, we stopped at a really good seafood restaurant. Avery really liked the fish that he got and ate up all of Lily's as well.
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| eating at a local fish restaurant. Yummy! |
We then stopped and went to the oldest Fort and city in the United States- St. Augustine. It was really neat to see all the things inside and learn the history of the fort. We got to walk on the top of it and it was super windy! It was also fun to walk down the old part of the town and see the fun shops and architecture.
Our last stop was a beach side resort at Daytona Beach. It was awesome! We pulled in at night and it was super windy that day. It happened to be the highest tide of the year as well as a high surf advisory. The water was all the way up to the boardwalk where there usually is a really wide beach (Mark & Sarah have been there before). However, by morning it had gone down considerably.
There was a lot of fun swimming pools at our resort, but Avery was really excited to go "belly boarding" on the ocean. We took him and Lily out. Lily kept getting knocked over by the waves, so she didn't really like it and preferred the "kiddie-cat" pool at the resort. Amanda, Brian, & Avery all enjoyed the fun waves and doing some boogie boarding as well. It did rain a little while we were there, but it was still quite fun.
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| what would a day at the beach be without sand castles? |
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| Candace, Avery & Boyce |
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| bracing herself for the waves |
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| "Belly Boarding King\' |
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| belly boarding |
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| what a cute little beach babe! |
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| The Resort Hotel |
Avery loved being in the Ocean so much that he wanted to do right up to the moment we had t leave to go catch our plane.
Overall, we had so much fun! Lily, Avery & Mason all enjoyed getting to spend some time with their cousins. Lily had fun being all girly with Ev-ee and Avery & Boyce were as much boy as boys can be. We have missed seeing them (its been over a year) and are already looking forward to seeing them at Christmas time. We hope this trip will be something our kids can remember for a really long time!
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| ready to be home! |
Cutest family ever! Looks like you all had a blast.
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