Cousin Time

We're really enjoying the opportunity to spend time with Uncle Chad, Aunt Angie and Cousin Abby. The kids enjoy playing with Abby and want her to come along on all the activities we do. Here, we're enjoying dinner at the Floridian after a boat tour of the New River through downtown Ft Lauderdale.


They're really working on getting Abby to make funny faces. Anna really has hers down.


Uncle Chad, Becca and Kip like to hang out in Chad's kitchen.

Princesses and Legos

We went to Downtown Disney on the 16th to get our souvenir fix. William loved the big Lego store there with play areas out front. Anna was thrilled to meet some princesses she didn't need to be shy of.

Disney

Grandma came to Florida to join us and we all went to DisneyWorld Saturday the 13th and again on Tuesday the 16th. Lines were a little worse than at Universal and SeaWorld, but not as bad as I expected. Of course, we only rode kid-friendly rides, so things may have been worse on rides popular with older people. The weather was hot, but we generally stayed in the shade. I was surprised that Disney didn't have many fans. Universal and SeaWorld had fans with water-misters that were incredibly refreshing. There weren't anything like that at Disney. If you were lucky, you waited in line for 30-60 minutes in the shade. If not, you were in the sun. No fans. I thought that was a little lame. If the other parks provided fans and sometimes even TV's, why did Disney just make you stand in the hot sun?


But enough complaining. It really was fun. We forced the kids to do the Peter Pan ride. They ended up kind of liking it. Then we rewarded them with the Small World ride. They loved that. Anna liked the Dumbo ride, but the line was the worst of our whole trip. At least an hour long with no fans and no shade for the last 15 minutes. I almost got Anna through the line to meet the princesses, but when I refused to hold her for the 15 minute wait, she decided she didn't want to see the princesses after all.


We went to Epcot on Tuesday. It was fun. We went to the funny show and Kip got to be part of it - putting hook&loop diapers on dollies. He did great. The kids liked the Nemo ride. They had to be forced to leave the aquarium at the end.

Universal with Abby

Uncle Chad, Aunt Angie, and cousin Abby joined us at Universal on Friday June 12th. Becca puked on the way to the park, so I took her home to chill for the day, but the others had a ton of fun riding the rides at Universal Islands of Adventure.

Universal

June 11th we spent at Universal Studios. We were all excited to find Avatar Aang there - you know he can save the world, right?



We spent the first part of the day at Feivel's play area. Becca was thrilled to play in the water and never wanted to leave.


Once we found the ball pit, there was nothing else the kids wanted to do. It had things to suck balls up, things to drop balls and even huge air guns to shoot balls across the room. And there were enough fans that Mom and Dad didn't mind sitting and watching the kids play for hours.

SeaWorld

June 8th, 9th and 10th were our Sea World days in Orlando. The kids fell in love with Shamu. Our first day there Anna leaned over to me after one of the Shamu shows and said with total rapture in her voice, "Mommy, I love Shamu." Late the second night as we were leaving Anna told me she was sad. I asked why. "Because I just said goodbye to Sea World."


I really appreciated attractions that were indoor and airconditioned.


There's nothing better than riding an ocean-themed carousel!


Becca loved that we were at the park for the daily rain shower on the 9th.

William had a Birthday!

William turned 6 on May 29th. We had some friends go bowling with us. No theme party with cool theme games and cake like last year. We just picked up a couple friends and drove to the bowling alley. We had 6 kids end up bowling and, thanks to Jo's coupons, it only cost us $6. Wahoo! When they had had enough bowling, we headed home for pizza and cake. (Actually, it was when the bowling alley threw us out because the leagues were starting and we were on a league lane. They hadn't thought 6 kids would take so incredibly long to bowl - it had been more than an hour and they were just on the 8th frame. We got more free bowling coupons out of it so no one complained.) William got a ton of Lego gifts for which he was very excited. And he enjoyed his non-Lego stuff, too.


William and Spencer and the cake.


Butch was a little cranky after working all day.


Opening gifts.