Florida

We flew to Florida on a very pleasant Jetblue flight and ended up, as usual, near the back of the airplane.  It took a long time for everyone to get off and as we waited I heard, every minute or so, "I want to get off the plane!  I can't wait to see Nanny and Bumpy!" from Ryan.  He was so excited he could hardly contain himself.  It was so nice to see them waiting for us as we arrived and there were, of course, hugs all around.  It was great!

Happy boys eating candy from Nanny!

We acquired our rental van and everyone piled in (it was a tight fit with six people and a bunch of luggage!) and we were soon on our way to our rental house.  It never fails when we leave Orlando Airport, I inevitably take the wrong first turn.  There are two exits close together and, despite having the GPS on, I managed to miss ours.  To remedy the error I simply had to take the first exit I saw and get back on the correct highway, but when I did that I noticed some debris in the middle of the off ramp.  I attempted to straddle it with the van but when I drove over it there was a loud bang.  It turned out the debris was a turtle trying to make his way across the road.  As I checked my mirror I could see the shell spinning around but I'm pretty sure he was okay.  We'll assume that he was anyway.

Over the last few years we've rented a few houses in the Orlando area.  They end up being cheaper than most hotels and it's really nice having a pool and hot tub to yourself and lots of room for everyone to move around.  This time the place we rented was in an area called Davenport, ideally situated in the middle of all the places we planned to visit.  The four bedroom home turned out to be the nicest we've ever stayed in and we had a blast just being at the house, forget the parks!  In addition to the pool/hot tub and a great patio area, there was a game room with a pool table and air hockey that we actually made use of.

It was so nice to be able to sit outside for supper!

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As it turns out, October isn't the most ideal time for us to visit Florida.  It was quite hot and humid and we had rain at some point everyday.  The good part was that we still had valid tickets to the theme parks we wanted to see so we weren't paying for those.  When you aren't forking out money for every visit, you aren't so likely to feel obligated to stay anywhere for an entire day.

Monday we visited SeaWorld:

Watching the babies at the dolphin nursery.

Thursday we went to Legoland:

Family photo - minus Ryan.  He's in a camera-shy stage.

Fire fighting ride!

Elephant made entirely of Lego.

Same with the dinosaur.

I think they were pretending to be sick.  Not sure why.

Ryan loved R2D2.

Not so fond of Darth Vader.

Ryan was too short for us to see him so I had to get him to jump for the picture.  He actually did it!

Friday we went to our favorite park, Busch Gardens.  While there Tim and I convinced my dad to ride with us on Sheikra, a really cool dive roller coaster.  I had ridden it once in January and it was a thrill!  I started to worry a little though as we quickly made our way to the ride.  Dad had never been on a real roller coaster (except for a crappy wooden one the day before) and I was a little concerned that he would either: a) hate it and us for saying how awesome it was or b) find the adrenaline rush a little too much for the ticker.  He doesn't have any known conditions but at 64 and 5/6th years of age, you never know.  I guess though, I probably would have been nervous for anyone I had talked into riding a floor-less roller coaster that takes you up two hundred feet, holds you out over an edge, then lets you go down a 90 degree drop.  I don't usually try to convince people to do that sort of thing.  Anyway, it all worked out.  Dad loved it (or at least he said he did!) and I got a good rush out of it.  The rest of the day was pretty fun, too.  We managed to get Nick to go on the Congo River Rapids ride (by bribing him) and although he said he didn't like it, he was smiling a little bit.  Of course, that could be because he made $30 in the deal.  Smart kid.

Waiting for the tram with Montu in the background.

The boys' favorite ride.

Getting splashed by Sheikra

Mom and I did the log flume ride.  It was fun!

Congo River Rapids - Nick's having a GREAT time!

Oh, Ryan!  What are we going to do with you?

Saturday we decided to check out Dinosaur World, a park we had driven by many times on our way to Busch Gardens but never visited.  Nicholas is really "into" dinosaurs now so it was a perfect time to go.  It turned out to be a fantastic display of life-size dinos as well as a fun fossil dig for the boys.  It was a great way to end our week in Florida.

Doing the fossil dig - although you can't see the sand, shovel or fossils.  Nice picture taking, Tim.

I took this one.  Notice how you can see exactly what he is doing.  Take a lesson, Tim!

So, that was Florida.  We really didn't want to leave we were having so much fun.  Next up, Nova Scotia!