What is There To Say?

What can I say?  I am a lucky skunk, and I know it.
Andrea and her children, London and Raven, were headed to Orlando, FL for spring break and they took Clark, Bethany, Peter and I with them. Six days straight of Disney World and Universal Studios.  It was almost more fun than I could stand.  Almost.

I have so many pictures, but I'll try to hit the highlights.

Day one was Disney's Animal Kingdom.  We took the kids there when they were very small and Clark loved animals so much.  It was was very enjoyable to go back.  They also had a Mt. Everest roller coaster that was hysterically fun.  Hysterical because I giggle on roller coasters.

Animal Kingdom is still a happy place for Clark.

Kiddie rides are not not really his happy place.  The boys were not amused when I requested they ride the triceratops ride with me. 

 Peter rode the Peter Pan ride at The Magic Kingdom on day two.  I love the Peter Pan ride, even though it always has such a long line.  We did this very near the end of the day when the line was a bit shorter.

Little Peter was in great hands all week.  The girls were very sweet and helpful with him and he got carried and strolled around to his hearts content.  I think he had a wonderful time.

Clark, Bethany, and Raven rode the Tea Cups and spun themselves into oblivion.  I've never seen a cup spin faster, it was impressive.  It took some time to recover from that ride.  I wisely sat this one out.

Raven made us our unique wire mouse ears.

Oh my!  I've died and gone to heaven and all there is to drink in heaven is frozen butter beer.
Day three was Universal's Island of Adventure and The Wizarding World of Harry Potter.  This place was unbelievable!  True confessions-- I haven't read all the books, and although I've got nothing against them,  I'm not a huge fan of Harry Potter.  This made me want to read them all again or for the first time.

Hogwarts castle is in the background.  Of course I would have loved for all the kids to get to come on this adventure, but the only one I suffered any guilt about was Elinor.  In our family, she is THE Harry Potter fan-- having read them numerous times and wished so badly that they were real.  As we went around we kept saying, "Oh, Elinor would love this!"  We tried to enjoy it for her.

And we definitely drank her (and the rest of the family's) share of butter beer.

Bethany is holding a long thin bag that contains Elinor's wand-- the one thing she requested we bring her back.  Bethany was chosen at Olivander's wand shop to be fitted for a wand.  I told her to channel Elinor since it was going to be Elinor's wand.

That night we went to see Blue Man Group-- very entertaining.  A little bizarre, but very entertaining.

It was pretty loud, so Peter wore ear plugs.  He eventually fell asleep even through the noise.  He got pretty good at falling asleep anywhere.  Bethany's photo bomb is not because Peter was stinky-- the girls were playing some sort of nose grabbing game. 

On day four we went to Disney's Hollywood Studio for the first half of the day.  I didn't take any pictures.  It was not my favorite park we went to and it was quite a hot, muggy day.  We all decided to go back to the condo and take naps.  In the end, Peter was the only one who decided not to take a nap at the appointed nap time.  Later in the afternoon, the moms and daughters headed to Epcot center.

If you know me, you know that I don't eat seafood.  Period.  If it lives its life in water, I don't like it.  What came over me?  I ate fish and chips in the England part of Epcot.  I blame Andrea.  She makes me do all sorts of adventurous things I might never do on my own.
And that's why I love her.

The girls got the famous Disney turkey legs.  Or are they clubs to be used as weapons?

We were caught in a down pour as we left Epcot.  Rainstorms are charming when you live in a desert state.

 

Day five we went to the second Universal park-- Universal Studios.  All week the kids told me NO pictures with characters.  But when we say Curious George we all knew we had to make an exception.  A picture with Curious George for Georgie back home.

Over in this park Diagon Alley just opened and you can now ride the Hogwarts Express train between Diagon Alley and the Hogsmead and Hogwarts in the other park.  AWESOME!  More butter beer!

It was very special to me to have this time with my two oldest children.  I see how quickly time is passing and I know they will be off having life adventures on their own soon enough.  I am grateful to have had this opportunity with them before they are off.

We feasted at The Three Broomsticks for dinner with more butter beer, of course!.  

As you can imagine, by day six we were all pretty much shot to pieces.  Having this much fun is a lot of work! We dragged ourselves out of bed for one final hurrah!  WE CAN DO IT!  We got ourselves back to Universal where we hit the highlights of both parks.  We left and dropped the boys off to the Condo.  They just didn't have the staying power we ladies had.  We had had such a marvelous time at Epcot, that we wanted to go back there.  We did, indeed, go back, but that is for the next post.
We were feeling wild and crazy just before Epcot closed at nine, so we rode the monorail back to The Magic Kingdom for three more hours until it closed at midnight!  Like I said, it was almost more fun than I could stand.

 "Thank you" doesn't seem anywhere near adequate for expressing my gratitude for such a trip.  We will always cherish these experiences and memories.  Thank you.