Orlando, Part 7

Legoland!  A short drive, but we made it without incident thanks to the Ipad.  Let's talk about what we did!

My favorite part about Legoland was that it was fast, all day long.  No long lines.  I hate those.  We did a dragon roller coaster twice (Tyler has become a big fan of coasters), a few smaller rides, and then a shooting Gallery with moving stuff and legos.  Jess and I tied, and Tyler didn't get any.  We are really good at rides.  

After lunch, we saw Wildstyle!  Tyler went up and nerviously waved hi for a while, we got some pictures, as you do, and then we found a place where you got to *build* with legos.  Tyler really liked that one.  We made a bunch of lego cars and raced them.  Tyler named his car "Serious Guy".  They had a place where you could build buildings with Duplos and then try and shake them down with earthquake power, but what I mostly learned from my experiments was that Duplos are really strong.  

Then Tyler got to drive a car.  It was all very controlled, but he definitely did it.  He made turns and avoided obstacles, unless mom asked him to wave hi.  It's not good to drive distracted.  We were quite proud.  

We did a bunch more rides, they move you around fast.  

Then was miniland, and that was neat.  That's where they have all the lego replicas of Vegas, the shuttle, Star Wars, various cities, it was really neat to see the stuff.  Also they had buttons that made things move.  

They had a waterski show we got to watch, too.  They had pirates, and action, and people going off jumps.  Neat.  There were fireworks at the end, and they only scared Tyler a little.  

And, of course, there were lots of legos to see.  Tyler and Jess got some ice cream while I wandered through shops.  Lots of things to like, but nothing that made me want to buy it right away.  I would have had to get it home afterwards.  I did end up getting a few small things to play with, but Jess is right, it's too small to have those around the house while Casey is learning to crawl.  Cats knock them off tables, they end up all over the place, and Casey is definitely at the stage where those things are too small and probably dangerous for her.  Soon, though.  I have some saved up for later.  

Then we came back to the hotel, got some sleep, and flew back home.  We had some fun at the airport, too.  Tyler made some new friends and drove cars and Dinosaur puppets around with them.  It was a good way to spend the time before the flight.  

Of course, then the kids got sick on the flight home, and we spent much of the past week with them at home fighting off fevers and bad attitudes.  It's definitely the most exhausting vacation I've ever had.  

-N

Orlando now 6 of them

Did you know that Epcot is still a thing?  I'm convinced that it only still exists because of 1) corporate sponsorship and 2) that sweet golf ball.  Anyway, we went.

The first thing we did was a ride where you got to 'design' your own car and then test drive it. Tyler did a pretty good job designing the car with a little help from dad.  He made a big truck with a jet engine and huge wheels.  Also there were flames on the side.  And it was green.  Then we got to go through a coaster.  Tyler was pretty into the coaster, especially when it went outside and went all fast.  Then he got a score for his car, and we went into the 'check out these cars' area, brought to you by Dodge.  Which was actually pretty cool, because one of Tyler's favorite things to do is to just sit in the drivers seat of a car.

We went on Mission: Space next.  It's in a centrifuge!  It was pretty intense, actually.  I clenched my legs, just in case.  Then you had to push some buttons or else...well, or else the computer did it for you.  I was curious what would happen if everyone on your 'team' deliberately tried to fail everything.  We probably would have still made it to Mars.

While Jess went on the ride, Tyler and I sat around and ate goldfish.  We took turns.

We went to 'The Seas" next.  There's a Nemo ride, and then an aquarium!  I liked the critters to see.  Eels, lionfish, cuttlefish, even a dolphin.  I had good fun.  I liked the part where they tried to make Sharks less scary. Cause they are just fish, after all.

We stopped for lunch and had to put up with a tantrum, but after that we got to go on Soarin', which is the dumbest name for a ride ever.  Kinda fun, though.  It's like Imax with a big moving chair.  Then a boat ride through their experimental greenhouse.  I hope some of their experiments work, because they look pretty neat.  Also, Tilapia!  Yum.

A few other rides.  Went through the imagination station where they actually used the phrase "next stop: imagination".  We decided to skip Captain EO, too weird even for us.  We saw some other stuff, and then decided to call it early.  Epcot is pretty strange.

We went to a Rainforest cafe with the family.  We had to do walk along Downtown Disney, which we had to do slowly, cause of grandparents, but I had Casey on my chest, and she was very cute, and was holding on to my fingers a lot.  We walked through the shops for a while, and then had some food at the Cafe.  Tyler was clearly concerned by the animatronic monkeys, but after a few storms he settled down.  He needed me to cover his ears for the first rainstorm, though.

I checked out the art store on the way out, which was pretty neat, but certainly too expensive, and then we went home and fell asleep.

Orlando the Fifth

The next day we went to Universal Islands of adventure, A similar thing, just with different intellectual properties involved.

Jess and I rode the Hulk coaster first, definitely too fast for Tyler, but we both really liked it.  Then we got to the Spider Man Ride.  No line, thank goodness, because we rode it like 5 times in a row.  It was really neat, it had 3d stuff, bookended by real props.  It made for a terrifically impressive ride.  Tyler loved it, though he mostly closed his eyes for the parts with the bad guys.  In the middle of all those rides, we went across the street to meet with the real, live, Spider Man.  He was pretty great.  Had spider-banter and everything.  He even did it for the spanish-speaking family in front of us.  Tyler told spider-man he had just been on his ride.  He also told spider-man that the bad guys "were using potty words outside the potty".  This is how you calibrate the moral compass of a three-year-old.

We rode a ride called the Pternadon flier, which you had to be *under* a certain height to ride.  But you got to bring an adult, so Tyler went twice and took each parent once.  Kind of him.  Then we got churros.

Next stop was Harry Potter Land!  It's really pretty looking.  They had a big Hogwarts building with a ride inside that Jess and I went on.  Similar to spider man, you went back and forth between video screens and real things, both of which looked pretty great.  The ride moved a lot as well, it was fun.  While Jess and I alternated rides, they had a ride-share room that was playing the Harry Potter movie.  Tyler was entranced.

There was a smaller roller coaster next door that was perfect for Tyler, he went on it three times.  Having less busy days at the park certainly makes it easier to enjoy yourself.  Then we got lunch.  They had butterbeer and Pumpkin Fizz.  The Fizz was pretty good, mostly just a soda, but with a nice flavor.  I'm pretty sure butterbeer might just be pumpkin fizz with foamed butter on top.  Certainly looks like beer, but tastes like candy.  I can see why they'd put it in the book.

Jess went on another ride while I looked around at the shops.  I bought a crap-ton of candy, but little else.  I considered the wands, but it didn't seem right to buy someone else's wand.  You'd want to make your own.  Anyway, while I was looking at things, the park got hit by a *downpour*.  I got trapped under an awning and ended up getting my shoes really wet.  Jess managed to ride it out with Tyler in the entrance of a bathroom.  Eventually the rain passed and we went on a roller coaster called the Dragon.  It was pretty fast and fun, though it took us some time to figure out how to reconnect for the parent-swap.

Then off to Dr. Seuss Land.  Which was neat, because Tyler finally got all the references.  We did a few rides there, and the Cat in the Hat ride is surprisingly creepy.  Tyler liked it enough to ride it twice, though.

Next we went off to a stuntman spectacular called Sinbad.  It started off with a firecracker bang that scared Tyler pretty good.  He covered his eyes and ears for a while, but eventually opened up and watched with wonder for the rest.  He got really excited when Sinbad picked up a sword.  Anyway there was fun, and stunts, and more fireworks at the end, but Tyler had a great time.  We met the stunt-people at the end, too.  Tyler asked if the Bad Guys were good now.  We told him yes.

A final thing called Poseidon's adventure, a neat tour through a few rooms with clever tricks.  My favorite was when they flashed you with light and when your eyesight came back, you were in a completely different room.  That was a neat trick.

Jess and Tyler wrapped up the day by going on Spider Man two more times (total of seven!) while I looked around the shops for anything interesting.  I didn't find anything of note.  On the way home we picked up Pizza, and went to sleep early.

Orlando thing 4

Our plan was to go back for more Magic Kingdom this day, but we decided to take it easy and go to the park later, getting as much sleep as we could after our gigantic roller coaster party the night before.  We had one more breakfast  with the Halls and sent them on their way home.  We relaxed around the hotel for a bit, too, making some plans and recharging batteries.

Then we went back to Magic Kingdom for a shortish day.  We went on the Winnie the Pooh ride a couple of times, which was nice because they had things for him to do in the line.  He liked the ride, too, which was funny because it reminded me a lot of Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, which scared the pants off of him last time we went to Disney.  So he's growing.

I liked taking Tyler on the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse.  For one, he really likes treehouses, and I got to try and explain the story to him.  It's a fun story.  I got to do that a lot on other rides, too.  There's a lot of disney lore and Tyler hasn't seen most of it.  Peter pan?  No idea.  Brave?  Not seen.  Lots of stuff like that.

After a few more rides we had lunch, then had to wait out a bout of rain.  In the afternoon we got to meet Mikey. He talks now!  I don't know how they queue it, but Mikey had a few phrases he could say, and his mouth moved and everything.  Tyler was mostly silent, but we got some nice pictures, and when we were done Tyler saw some Mikey dolls and got really excited, like this was a Mikey Mouse that was safe to talk with.  He played with the doll and shook his hand and everything.  It was cute.

When we stepped outside we were in the middle of a parade, so we stopped and watched.  There were some really impressive floats.  I liked the Tangled one a lot, the princess had a frying pan, and the guys were on swinging hammers.  We made our second trip to Splash Mountain after that and then departed the park.

Afternoon dinner was a thank-you dinner to Grandma and Grammie for watching Casey all day for us.  They insisted that they didn't need thanks, and that the Grandbaby kisses were thanks enough.  Still, we went out for some dinner, got home, and all fell asleep again.  We did that a lot, it was a fun vacation, but quite tiring.

Orlando, Post #3

The next day (Monday, for those keeping track) was all about the Magic Kingdom.  We started in the morning with the myself, Jess, and Tyler, and then continued in the evening with Shannon and her family, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

We got there nice and early, and the park was largely unoccupied.  We took the opportunity to go on a Buzz Lightyear ride a few times.  You get a zapper and get to zap bad guys along a big, indoor track.  Tyler got 1200 points, which isn't bad until you consider that I got nearly 200,000!  I am the best at shooting things!  I didn't brag at Tyler too much.  We went on the ride twice cause there was no line.  My favorite way to do Disney rides: quickly.

We also went on the Tomorrowland Peoplemover, which was a nice tour of the area.  Another ride in the middle that's essentially just the Dumbo ride again (there are a lot of those, but Tyler does like them) and then a track where you can drive a car, though there is a guide bar in the middle so you don't crash into anything.  That ride was terrible, everytime Tyler hit the bar, it jerked the wheel out of his hands.  I took over the steering eventually and got us back home, but we were done with that one.  Also, gasoline powered cars in Tomorrowland?  Lame.

Mickey's Philharmagic was nice.  It was a 3D show with some puffs of air and a lot of classical Disney tunes.  The music was, as always, great to hear, even if the 3D was wonky.  Tyler's favorite part was where Donald got shot at us at the end of the movie and when the house lights came on, you turned around to see an animatronic Donald Butt stuck in the wall.  He laughed at that.

Small world, Tyler may have even remembered that one from before.  We saw the big clock at the end chime and tell the time.  Tyler wanted to have that happen every time, but we never got the timing right again.

We got some lunch (Disney is really, really good at feeding lots of people) and then Jess and Tyler went on a carousel while I wandered around and looked at stuff.  I ran into a parade in the central area that was quite insistent that 1) it was time to party and 2) you needed to put your hands up.

Then we went on a Roller Coaster with Tyler.  Definitely the most extreme ride he'd ever gone on, but he *loved* it.  We went on it twice.  He had a huge smile and kept saying "whee" as we zipped around corners.  It was called "Barnstorming", in case you're curious to look it up, but Tyler was a huge fan (and just tall enough to ride on it.  40 inches turned out be a magic number for him, lots of fun rides at that height.)

Then we went on Pirates of the Caribbean, which Tyler liked, and then Splash Mountain, with may have been his favorite ride of all, surprisingly enough for us.  He really liked the big drop at the end, though he closed his eyes because he "didn't want to get wet".  The main reason he didn't get wet is that he is pretty short, and most of the water just went right over him.

We were exhausted at this point, and because we took a shuttle in, we just took a taxi back.  We left the kids with Grandma, and, because we are crazy people, took the Hall family and went right back for a evening of more Disney.

It's called "Very Merry Christmas", and they limit the number of people that can go and keep the park open till midnight, which means you can go on lots of rides very quickly, if you want.  They also have free Cookies and Hot Chocolate, which we got right after we got some coffee, because we needed the energy.

Also, we ended up having a waffle with Nutella for dinner.  Not well balanced, but we had rides to do.

We did all the fast rides that Tyler wouldn't be able to do: the new 7 Dwarves ride which was not terribly exciting, but had a lot of neat things to look at.  We did all three of the 'Mountains' (Space, Thunder, and Splash) twice each.  I think I liked space mountain best, because Shannon kept shrieking at all the twists and turns.  The longest time was involved in simply walking from the exit back to the entrance again.

We were outdoors for one of the fireworks displays and took a moment to observe and wonder.  We had a nice spot, in between all the sites where they set off the fireworks.  Some of them were so big and so loud that I could actually feel them a little bit when they went off.  A fantastic finish and we even gave them some applause before running off to the next ride.

We completed the evening fully exhausted, doing a few last rides before piling into the truck to head back to the hotel.  We fell asleep on the drive home, but didn't get to sleep until about 1:00 in the morning.

Casey was hungry at 4.

Orlando, Part 2

Today was our Disney's Animal Kingdom day.  It's a neat little companion park.  We got up early, had some magic pancakes, and drove over with all of us (including Shannon and Family) in the Car.  It was really nice to have a big car on this trip.

We actually got there a little before the park opened, so we hung out by the Christmas tree in the entrance and had some coffee.  The place selling coffee also had gigantic Doughnuts and Cookies.  I declined, but we ended up getting a cookie to share with everyone on the way out of the park.

They had some neat things to see on the way in, people were standing around with huge spiders in boxes and neat bones for the kids to touch.  I liked that part.  The first ride we went on was one of those 3d+things poking you and air spraying you theatres called "it's hard to be a bug".  I liked it, but Tyler was terrified of the whole experience, and that was before the bugs attacked us.  Fortunately, he was gone by then, he would have really been spooked by that.

Expedition to Everest was their big coaster, and we went on that with the Hall Boys.  Tyler was too small, but we figured out you could do a parent swap and the second parent got to take two other people along, so we parlayed that into a couple of extra rides for interested kids.

They had a more Kid-friendly area nearby that we went to.  It had a dumbo-style ride that Tyler went on three times and really liked.  Nearby there was another ride that Tyler was tall enough for, a ride through a dark, animatronic dinoscape.  It moved a lot.  We told Tyler it might jostle him a bit, so he said the rid was a little "jossly".  Was dark and spooky for him, too, but he felt brave for having done it.  We got him a latex dino puppet to celebrate.

Nemo the musical.  A 30-minute stage production about the nemo movie.  Fun to watch, though Tyler wet his pants and had to use the  restroom halfway through.   Interesting staging tricks to move the fish around the stage.

The Safari was next, a wide, segregated area with animals that they let roam 'free' and big jeeps that drive through.  We saw a lot of neat animals, Rhino, Zebra, Giraffes, and several more whose name I don't remember.  We took lots of pictures, but I can't figure out how to get the blogger app to upload, so I'll have to share them another way.

We took a train to another area about conservation, the train ride was neat to see all the cages and other centers that they use to take care of the animals from the Safari.  At the end of the ride they had some more animal attractions: cute little tamarind monkeys, a petting zoo, and a presentation with a few animals.  I like any place with a petting zoo, and the cow they had was very friendly.

They had a Bird show as well that we went to.  Some of them flew *very* close to my head.  My favorite was actually during the pre-show where a parrot had been trained to take bottles and cans to the recycle bins, one flew by my head so close I could have touched him.  The show itself had some great birds, too.  Parrots, a hawk, an Owl, and many more.  Tyler liked it the best when one of the guys came out from the stage and sat on a bench next to us.

Then we caught a Lion King stage show that had clearly been inspired by Cirque de Solei.  They had some animatronics that were *stunningly* impressive.  They had a Simba that moved so often and with such detail that I was several times convinced their had to be someone inside.  I don't think their was, though.  Jessie's favorite part was watching Tyler's excited expression. He liked the performance so much he actually clapped on his own.

We did a couple more parent-swap rides on the Everest Coaster as the sun fell, and then we all made our way back home, put the kids to sleep, and then fell asleep soon after.

-N

Orlando, Day 1

I like writing these, mostly for me.  It's always fun to look back and remember them.later on.  So, first day!

Tyler spent most of the morning being a big jerk.  We had to put him in time out a couple of times, but after lunch and a nap he calmed down.  We picked him up from his nap and went right to the plane to go to Orlando!

Flight went really well, our plane had TVs on the back of the seats, so Tyler pretty much just watched TV the entire way.  I got to watch Lucy.  Fun movie, dumb premise.  Casey slept on Jessie most of the way.  Jessie didn't seem to mind.

When we landed, Tyler ran up and gave Grandma a big running hug.  He's getting good at that.

We all got to the hotel and fell asleep.  We set Tyler up with a long sofa mattress in the closet.  He really liked having his own room.

The next morning, we woke up and had breakfast at the hotel.  The place had 'magic pancakes'.  It was a couple of robots that just sat there and would spit out a hot, fresh pancake every 20 seconds or so as needed.  Tyler really liked the magic pancakes.  I saw the thing break once at it just spit out one, huge pancake.

Our first stop on this, our mostly 'relaxing and hanging out with family' day, was just Downtown Disney.  We took both the kids and Grammie and had to park a little far away from where the action was, but our first stop was the Lego store.  We stayed there for like an hour.  They had a thing in front where you could build your own Lego Car and race it down a ramp.  Tyler was a huge fan.  The rest of the time he spent inside at the place where you can make your own Minifigures.  He made a few and we got them for him.  He really liked having "lego guys' to play with.  He would attach things to their feet and say they were Lord Business.  You have to have seen the Lego Movie to get the Joke.

We went back home to meet Anne-Marie, Jessie's cousin, and their little one.  He's one-and-a-bit, so he can walk but not talk, and he thought Tyler was the Bees Knees.  When we had to put Tyler down for a nap, he cried because his friend was gone.  Eventually, though, Shannon, Jessie's Sister, and her two older kids showed up.  They played with the little cousin.

We all went out to a nearby park to take some pictures and let the kids play.  Organizing that many young kids is always a challenge, but we managed.  I haven't looked at the pictures yet, actually.  I probably should.  Anyway, the kids had a blast on the playground and got out a lot of energy.  Then dinner!

We had reservations for Bucca Di Beppo, but as it turns out the place we were going was in a mall, and for those of you looking at a calendar, this was Black Friday.  Fortunately, we gave ourselves plenty of leeway, and once we got past the traffic getting out of the place, parking wasn't that hard.  We made it right on time.  Good for us.

We were at the Pope Table, which is huge and round and has a couple of neat features.  1) A huge lazy Susan that all the food goes on so everyone can eat it.  2) The Pope's head in the middle (yes, the current one) 3)  The top is arched so that the person directly across from you gets your voice funneled right into your ears.  It's really odd, but neat.  We ordered so goddamn much food you have no idea.  We put a pretty good dent in it before we all got stuffed, and then jessie ordered dessert.  She got a brownie sundae the size of Casey.  Collectively we polished it off, but it took some work.

We were loud and laughed a lot, and since our table was special, we got featured on the 'intro tour' a few times.  We started toasting people when they came around for the tour.  We got a lot of smiles from the wait staff for that.  Also I got to give our server a big tip, which felt nice.

Home and food comas for all.  Anne-Marie drove home with her family, but Shannon and her family stayed in the hotel near us and joined us for a few Disney days.

-N

Tyler and the Shingwovel

Tyler invented a new word, I thought you all should know about it, because it's for something that I'm pretty sure no default word exists for.  You know that thing you use to wrap up Christmas lights, one that has long sides?  Do you know what the word for that thing is?  I do.

Feel free to use this word as you need, when defeating bad guys and putting them in jail, or what have you.  Just make sure you credit Tyler as appropriate.  It's his word.  

-N