The Best Lawn!

The resort had the most beautiful grass I have ever seen! I am so used to seeing the pitiful bermuda grass in our neighborhood, and I would LOVE to be able to plan whatever this is in our yard. It's perfect for taking pictures. I have a feeling our HOA would object since whatever it was has to be kept long. Oh well. Anyway, I took each kid out on different mornings to take pictures with my new camera, and I just love the way the grass looks. The kids are cute too... ;)

Downtown Disney

We did not go to Florida to go to Disney World. Kids are too small, especially EB, so we were planning to save that for another Florida shebang. However, Downtown Disney is free and sounded like a fun place to explore, so we did that on Sunday night and Monday morning. It was really fun! The kids had fun building at the Lego store and fingering lots of souvenirs at the World of Disney store. K bought himself a Mickey Mouse golf ball, and A picked out a little treasure box that she could fill with as many necklaces and bracelets as would fit. K also picked out a bucket with Legos at the Lego store. They had a huge wall covered with bins of Legos that you could pick from to fill your bucket, and he had fun building most evenings back at the resort. We decided to eat lunch at the Rainforest Cafe, thinking that would be a really fun diversion, but it turned out to be a bit of a disaster. We didn't realize that there would be simulated thunderstorms every 30 minutes inside the restaurant, so that made lunch a very scary experience for our little guy who is terrified of storms. There were a few more stores I wanted to see that we just didn't have time to visit, so we'll definitely have to go back.

A liked the princess statues; EB did not!

fun in the disney store. while A filled her jewelry box, EB had fun trying on logs of diffferent hats and princess shoes.

A shows off all the princess bling she stuffed inside her treasure box



service was SO SLOW at the Rainforest Cafe - we were all relieved to be done and back outside!

Admiring the lego sculptures at the Lego store

fun at the Lego building stations outside the store

EB played with duplos in the Lego playhouse. Jordan filled his bucket with Tech colored legos and built the VT logo

Bin after bin to choose from when filling his bucket with Legos

skywriting over Downtown Disney

Sea World

(this is SOOOOO long! sorry!)
We went to Sea World 3 times over the course of our week in Orlando, but I'm going to lump all our visits together in one post. We thought Sea World would be a great destination for much of our vacation with 3 preschoolers, and we were right. We had so much fun there, and it was the kind of park that let us move at our own pace and just enjoy. It was also right down the street from the resort, so it was easy to get to. The first exhibit we went to was the stingray lagoon, at A's request. She loves rays, and this was her ultimate ray encounter. We had to keep revisiting the rays over and over so she could reach in and pet them, and she even brought home Ray, her own stuffed sting ray, who she says is the fastest ray in the world. On Friday night our very last stop before heading home was to say goodbye to all the rays, and A was reaching so far into the tank that G had to hold her by the ankles to keep her from diving in.

She still talks about them, and when she gets sleepy she starts crying because she says she misses them so much. Now, I would have thought a little girl would be enchanted with the dolphins or whales, but I should know better by now...

K's favorite was no surprise at all - the manatees. They are slow and gentle and there's nothing unpredictable about them. They don't jump out of the water or swim very quickly, so there was nothing to be startled by with them! (K was a little jumpy the whole trip, anxious about storms, lightning, loud noises, etc.). I have to say, I really enjoyed viewing the manatees with him. They are such strange creatures and really very beautiful. As tired as I was for much of the trip, sitting in a dark, cool, underwater viewing area watching 2000 lb creatures slowly float by and roll about was very relaxing. :)

The shows at Sea World were amazing. The kids were all memorized by them, even EB loved it. She learned to clap at Sea World - as we were walking from one exhibit to another I noticed her clapping and bouncing in her stroller to the beat of the music playing in the park. At the very last show we went to, she was practically jumping out of G's arms, dancing and clapping like a wild woman. It was cute.

The kids made it onto the jumbotron during the Shamu Rocks pre-show!


Shamu Rocks

Blue Horizons dolphin show

I could have stayed at the dolphin pools all day watching them swim and play.

This post could go on forever!!! Another cool thing about Sea World with kids is that they have a great kids play area - Shamu's Happy Harbor. There were 5 fun rides for kids, including a family roller coaster, so now K&A have each ridden their first roller coaster! There was also a great Water Works area, filled with all kinds of ways for kids to get soaked. On one particularly hot afternoon, we let the kids get soaked for about half an hour and them took them to the Wild Arctic indoor exhibit, so they stayed cool for a while!

New shoes and she was tall enough to ride!

cooling off under misters and in the splash zone

K gets a bucket of water dumped on his head!

exploring the arctic

We spent some time at the Pacific Point Preserve observing the sea lions. There were lots of new baby sea lions curled up with their moms. G surprised the kids by purchasing trays of fish to feed the sea lions - A and Jordan were brave enough to handle the fish and throw them in. It was a challenge to avoid the birds that would swoop down and catch the fish in mid-air and drive the sea lions mad!


he said it wasn't as close to his mouth as it looked! Gross!

and FINALLY, our last big event at Sea World. We made reservations to Dine with Shamu at the Cove, behind the scenes of the Shamu Stadium. This was REALLY fun! The tables were right next to the pool, and we had seats right in front of one of the spots where Shamu came up for demonstrations. It was wild to be eating dinner and then have this enormous animal surface or jump out of the water just 15 feet in front of you! The kids were thrilled, and they also got a chance to meet one of the trainers and ask her questions. A's question - "is Shamu's favorite color black?" K's questions - "are the whale's safe from lightening in the water? and do the whales have ears?"

underwater view before dinner and our table

A got the trainer and Shamu's autograph

Shamu's buffet was a little different than ours!

eating my dinner, and then, HELLO!

We will definitely be back at Sea World again!