Best thing about Florida in the Summer

Luckily we didn't spend all our time in FL visiting the parks. We actually could have spent one more day at Disney and didn't even us our tickets to universal. It was to hot and I was not going to wait in line and fight crowds in 98 degree weather with 100% humidity. I love the pools at the resort. All the kids would float down the lazy river holding onto each others intertube (so we could stay together) we ended up causing quite a few traffic jams. But we didn't car. We were making some pretty fun memories. I love being on vacation because everyone gets a long. My family is still pretty young with two sisters still in school. So naturally they tend to annoy each other when we are at home. But on vacation we are all friends. I wish I would have gotten some of my own pictures at the pool but we never brought much to the pool with us.


We would go around the lazy river a few times. Then go play a round of putt-putt then go down this huge inflated water slide. Then we would repeat with a nap or two in the middle. One afternoon I was pretty worn out that I feel asleep pretty hard next to my grandparents. An hour or two later my grandma is yelling my name trying to wake me up because a HUGE storm is rolling in fast. They sky is black and the thunder is getting louder and louder. I grabbed Mike's stuff beside me and all the towels. I through the towels in the dirty bin and ran to find Mike and the boys who were finishing up a game of putt-putt. Mike asked where his phone and car keys were. I panicked. I didn't see them. He told me they were wrapped up in a towel... GULP. You mean the ones I just put in the bin that not have over a hundred of other towels piled on top of them. At this point the storm was right over us and the lighting close. We are all wet and by a ton of water. We all started to panic. Luckily there was a towel under the chair I didn't see and when Mike went back to the seat he found his stuff and we were able to make a quick escape!

The huge pool and putt-putt was about 5 minutes away from our condo. Right across the street from the house was another small pool that was never very crowded. After lunch we would go there and swim/play water games.



As I am not a big golfer I didn't go golfing but all the men did. They had a good time in the 98 degree heat. It was pretty brutal. We told them to take good care of grandpa in that heat. Mike got one of the best scores but is convinced he does not golf well in FL. But regardless of the scores and the heat I know they all had fun. And how could you not when you are golfing on a course that looks like this?

Magical Birthday Celebration

It's no secret that my first 2 days at Disney on this trip were not quite as magical as they have been in the past. In fact I had one horrible night there. However, my day at Magic Kingdom with the girls made up for it all.

We had reservations to have breakfast at Cinderella's Castle. Sigh.... How magical it was. We were greeted by Cinderella at the door then lead upstairs to our table. It was beautiful. The food was just as good as I remember, especially the stuffed french toast. It was even more fun to watch my mom and sisters. They really enjoyed themselves. We were able to meet Snow White, Aurora, Arielle and Belle. We also got wands and a wishing star!



Since my birthday was 4 days away we decided to celebrate it at breakfast. They gave me a card signed by the princesses and a birthday cupcake.

Suffice it to say I was more than in 7th heaven.

After breakfast it was off to conquer the park. We were lucky enough to catch the Fairy Godmother, Lady Tremaine and her two daughters (Anastasia and Drizella.) I love getting pictures with the characters.

We rode almost every ride in fantasyland (minus dumbo and the teacups, they make us sick) in 2 hours. We didn't wait more than 8 minutes in line. I think that was my favorite part. Not waiting in line for the rides :) We even saw Mickey's Philharmagic, a classic in my eyes.

Then we walked over to Frontier and Adventure Land. It was getting later in the day, the crowds were getting bigger and the temperature hotter. Not a fan. But we still managed to ride Splash Mt, Thunder Canyon, Pirates, Haunted Mansion and Jungle Cruise. All the rides worth riding in that area of the park. I had my birthday pin on all day. I got so many happy Birthday's from random people and cast members. I even got a few gifts.


My mom isn't a fan of roller coasters. Somehow we convinced her to ride Splash Mt. She was seriously terrified the whole time and hanging on ready for "the big drop." When it finally happened I'm positive she thought she was dying. The picture turned out really funny. The look of fear in her face made it completely worth buying. So she went up and bought a copy. The cast member at the desk saw my birthday pin and asked me why I was celebrating my birthday there. My mom jumped in and told him I was more of a kid than my little sister when I was there. I admitted the truth to that and he promptly printed out another copy of the picture {free of charge} and wished me a happy birthday. SCORE!

After we rode all the rides we wanted we headed back to the gift stores. I had a request from the kids I babysit to bring them back cotton candy. I asked one of the cast members making it if she thought it would survive the journey home. I told her about the cute twin girls and their request. She came back with two chocolate pops covered in sprinkles. She told me she would normally give me one for my birthday but she would give me two and I could give them to the girls. I was pretty excited. Free stuff!! yes!
On our way out we stopped at town hall to see my cousin (well Mike's cousin) SayJay who just happened to be "Friends with" Cinderella that day. It was so fun to see her, she was amazing and beautiful. She totally backed up the line talking to us :) We even got to take a "Princess Pose" picture together. So fun. Later that night she came over to the condo and hung out with Mike and I. It was so much fun to spend time with her. I love that by marriage I finally have cousins my own age who I love and can laugh with. Marriage is the best :)

Dismal Day at Disney

Wednesday the boys and I were scheduled to go to the parks together. Unfortunately, Andrew woke up with a migraine so he wasn't able to come to Animal Kingdom with us. It was an adventure just finding the public parking lot. Some how we ended up in cast member parking. I kept saying this all looks to familiar. But it was cool to show them a little from when I worked there.
Once we got in the park we worked the system and got a fastpast to Kali River Rapids and waiting in line to ride Mt Everest. The line wasn't the bad since that park had just opened. I some reason remember it being a little faster than it was. That is the problem about growing up going to cedar point. Nothing is fast enough unless it is going 100+ miles and hour.


The heat and humidity were killers. Even at 10 o'clock in the morning you were sweating bullets. My dad loves animals so we of course had to go on the safari. We actually had to wait in line for too. A whole hour. I was not impressed with the wait ;-) But it was worth it when we finally got on and saw some really cool animals and a very close distance. I didn't use the zoom for most of these. Pretty cool to be so close (and with no cages) to elephants, giraffes, lions and so many other African animals.








After only about 3 hours it was lunch time and we were all pretty hot. The resort we stay at sits up against the Animal Kingdom so we were pretty close to home. We decided to go back home and have a FREE lunch in a COOL room and maybe even take a dip in the pool. And so we did. Around 2 o'clock Andrew was feeling better and dad was motion sick. So Andrew took dads place and we went back to Epcot to ride Soarin' over California. To bad the fastpasses were for 8:00pm. Bummer. So We had to wait in line for over an hour. The only perk was it was inside and we had Mike's iPhone to play trivia games on. Oh and we had lots of snacks so we could keep up our strength.




After waiting in line for about an hour and a half and seeing the lines were that long everywhere. We said FORGET IT! We went back to the house and swam in the lazy river, played some putt-putt and took a nap. Later that night I told Mike that I really wanted to go back to Epcot to watch the night show "Illuminations," eat a funnel cake and have dinner somewhere on the world showcase, maybe Mexico (since we love Mexican.)
Being the wonderful husband he is he gave into my demands. We got there and were both pretty hungry. Since Mexico was first on the world showcase we stopped there. The menu was small (as we were eating at a "quick service" place.) I was on the phone when he ordered so I was a little distracted. When we got the food we both had ordered the same thing (we never do that) and the food looked disgusting. It tasted the same way it looked. So I saw some nachos that looked good so I got those with some guacamole, you can't go wrong with guac! WRONG. It was all TERRIBLE! Like the worst dining experience ever. I chocked down my food since I just payed over $40 for 4 tacos, nachos and guac! Robbery! To make it worse we were outside eating hot food in the heat. That alone makes you sick. Not to mention it was gross food! I was not happy but still wanted a funnel cake. Poor Mike was pretty sick from eating all that disgusting food. He had it about a 1/4 of the way around the world showcase before I had to leave him on a bench to die while I continued my journey for a funnel cake in solitude. I finally got the object of my desire (and yes, that was worth $6.50)and ate it as I walked back to find my dying husband. Can you imagine how pathetic I looked. Some worn down chick, walking alone, shoving a funnel cake down her mouth. It had to have been a sight worth seeing for those people watchers. When I found Mike he was DONE! He did not want to wait an hour for the show, and surprisingly I didn't want to either. I had been burned by Disney. We used our fastpasses from earlier and road Soarin' again. That never gets old. We were out of the park right as Illuminations started. I wasn't even tempted to walk back, I was done with walking, done with fighting crowds, done with Disney, especially in June. What made it even worse was knowing I had to do it all again the next day. I know. Words I never thought I would say. I was cranky!

American Idol Experience

On Monday the whole family ventured together to Disney's Hollywood Studios. We got there before the park opened and had a plan of attack (as one must when fighting the crowds at Disney.) As soon as they let people in the park half of us took off to get a fastpass to Toy Story MidwayMania (seriously the coolest ride. You are in a car with 3D glasses & a "gun thing" and you go up to 5 different screens and play 5 different carnival games and try to score as many points as possible.) This was obviulsy the rest of the parks idea as well. The line for just the fastpasses was huge even when I got there and I was basically running to get in line. The rest of the family was off to audition for the American Idol Experience. Andrew and KT went to audition together. We were all pretty nervous. We didn't want one to make it and not the other, but the producers told them before they auditioned that since they were siblings it was likely only one would be chosen. They wanted variety in the show and assumed they would be to similar.

While the whole family waited to find out what was happening Mike made friends with a squirrel. He even got it to eat out of his hand. Pretty crazy huh?


After about an hour or so these two came out of the auditions both wearing there "Golden Ticket." They both made it and were put in two separate shows the 1:30 and 4:00 shows respectively.
To celebrate we went back to Toy Story Midway Mania. It was a ride everyone could ride and wanted to ride (Which is hard when you have an age range of 85 to 10 year old.) The only down side was we didn't have enough fastpasses. I went to the people working the fastpass distribution kiosks. They said they never had extra tickets for the ride. I told them about my siblings and them not being able to get tickets because of auditions. Then she looked a little harder and found just the right amount. It was magical. She hugged me and wished them both good luck with their performances. So all 10 of us were able to ride the ride together. I love the magic of Disney :)

With Andrew and KT both being in a show and having to be over an hour early for the show we had a very limited time to do things. Luckily their big sis knows how to work the fastpass system and asses line wait times. Both were able to ride Rockin' Roller Coaster twice before KT's show!
The whole experience for them was pretty incredible. They got to work with a vocal coach on there song and go to hair and makeup. They got the whole star treatment! About 350 cam to Kt's show at 1:30 and Probably 500 to Andrew's show at 4:00. So they both had decent crowds as well.
KT sang the song "Bubbly" by Colbie Caillat. She did awesome. Her tone is very much like Colbie's so she rocked it. They judges loved her. They told her she looked like Barbie and was as sweet as cotton candy. They told her to not worry about looking at the lyrics but the crowd next time because she had the song down. The other people competing against her sang "What Hurt's the Most" and "Reflection." In the end the Boy advanced to the final show. His whole choir of over 100+ were there to vote for him. I thought if KT didn't win the other girl would since she rocked her vocals. But oh well. KT didn't care and loved every minute of it so she was a happy girl.
After KT's show we were on our way to ride Tower of Terror when these street performers saw Andrew's American Idol tag and asked him to sing. He sang Josh Turners "Your Man" in his deep, sexy country voice. I think they were surprised. Then we told them KT had just done the show they pulled her up and she preformed "Bubbly" again. I was recoded the whole thing and they saw me and came up to me and asked if I sang. I told them "Not like these two" but KT told them I sang awesome Disney songs. So they had me come up and sing. I sang "Part of Your World." They told us we were a talented family with great teeth. LOL. Thanks. I got it all on camera so I will need to post that some time. We went to Pizza Planet for lunch then back to watch Andrew's show!
Andrew is honestly a natural. I thought he was amazing. He sang "I don't wanna be" by Gavin Degraw. Of course it isn't as much of his style as Coldplay or Josh Turner but they only had 100 songs to pick from to sing. We are all a little bitter with the judges. They didn't give him as much love as we thought they should have. They we different judges than KT had. KT's judges told all the performers to stop moving around on stage and just sing, so that is what Andrew did. He took center stage, made eye contact with the audience and just sang. They told him marketing wise he was a dream come true, but that he had basically had stage fright since he didn't move (since he didn't think they wanted him too.) At any rate he did not advance to the finale either. They other two preformeres were in there late 20's with kids and sand "Hot Stuff" and "I Hope You Dance." The lady who won the round was pretty good and did rock it so what can you do?

After the American Idol let down the grandparent and parents left the 6 kids with the keys to the van and headed home. We took the fairy to Epcot to see if there were any fastpasses left. But being the middle of June and 6 o'clock at night. There was nothing but 90 minute lines and humidity.

We went to drown our sorrows in the soda at club cool. The free samples of soda across the world is always a must when at Epcot. I think we drank our weight in the stuff. Italy was just as gross as I remembered and Japan was still my favorite. CHEERS :)

Luckily we were able to ride one ride. Mission Space. It is actually the only ride that scared me a little. You are put in a simulator that spins you around so fast you hit G force speed and feel like you are in a space ship. The skin of your face is pulled back and your eyes water. If you close your eyes or look sideways you will begin to feel the spinning and for sure get sick. I was a little worried to take my 10 year old sister on the the ride. Especially since she is still afraid of rides like that, but they boys talked her into it. Luckily we all enjoyed it and felt like we accomplished something at Epcot. So off we headed to The Magic Kingdom. *sigh*

Notice how many people are at the park? I was astonished. I had forgotten how crowded the parks get. I was disgusted. To many people, to many screaming kids, no fastpasses left, long lines and people, humidity and people! We went to the Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor Comedy show. Then got some food to give us the strength to fight the crowds for the firework show.

Luckily we were able to score some of my personal favorite seats. The street curb outside the Edy's ice cream store. I was able to enjoy a little dessert before the show. In the end...

it's moments like this....

and this...

...that put the magic that is sometimes lost in the crowds, lines, humidity, heat and dehydration back into Disney. I always get teary watching "Wishes" in front of the castle. As the tears rolled down my cheeks this time I thought "this is silly why are you crying?" and then I decided it was the lyrics being sung

"Star light, Star bright,
First star I see tonight.
I wish I may, I wish I might
have the wish, I wish tonight.
We'll make a wish and do as dreamers do.

And all our wishes...

Will

Come

True..

and that all of my dreams and more are coming or have come true!