Florida Vacation - Day 11

Day 11 of the Florida vacation was a bit rainy. Mom helped Poppy clean out the garage in the morning. After lunch, a trip to Sandbridge was scuttled when the beach was closed due to thunder. So the boys headed home and played with Sarah.

Florida Vacation - Day 10

Day 10 of the vacation was Saturday. Everyone went to the First Tee golf course for a round of golf. Sam did a great job, with an excellent temperament and consistently good shots. After golf and lunch at Sal's Pizza (near Aunt Stacey's office), there was time to swim at the College Park pool until closing at 7pm, followed by a barbecue with Aunt Stacy, Sarah, and Ashleigh.

Florida Vacation - Day 9

Day 9 of the Florida vacation was a sad one. After snapping a few pictures of the deserted hotel, everyone loaded into the car for the 13 hour drive to Virginia Beach, with brief stops at Subway for lunch and a combination of Pizza Inn / KFC /McDonalds for dinner in Dunn, NC.

On the bright side, Mom would no longer have to sleep in a Sam-dominated bed:

Florida Vacation - Day 8

Day 8 of the Florida vacation was Disney Magic Kingdom. Despite waiting a long time for the bus, they made it to the park 5 minutes before rope drop at 8am. Pete ran off to get fastpasses for Buzz Lightyear, while Mom went to meet him at Space Mountain and Dad and Sam had a brief but poorly-timed stop at the bathroom. By the time everyone got there, Pete had already finished riding Space Mountain one time. So he went a second time with Mom, Sam, and Dad.

When Pete/Sam/Dad went to ride Space Mountain again, they had the good fortune that the ride broke down and was closed right before they got on. This got them one free fastpass for any ride, which they were able to use in the afternoon to get on to Splash Mountain.

At lunch, like they did at Animal Kingdom, Pete and Sam ran off to get fastpasses for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad while Mom and Dad finished eating. It took them a while to find the ride and make their way back, but Pete enjoyed figuring out everything on the map.

Throughout the day they enjoyed the following rides/activities:

• Space Mountain (4.5 times)

• Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin (2 times)

• Stitch's Great Escape
• The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (2 times)

• Mickey's Philharmagic

• Peter Pan's Flight

• It's a Small World

• Haunted Mansion
• The Hall of Presidents
• (lunch) Pinocchio's Village Haus
• Thunder Mountain Railroad
• Splash Mountain:

• Tom Sawyer Island:

• Jungle Cruise
• Pirates of the Caribbean:

• Walt Disney World Railroad
• Monsters Inc Laugh Floor
• (dinner) Cosmic Ray's Starlight Cafe
• Tomorrowland Transit authority People Mover
• Walt Disney's Carousel of Progress:

It only rained briefly during the Jungle Cruise and Pirates of the Caribbean rides. Sam bought his little gun at the Pirates gift shop.

They made it back to the hotel at 10:00, so grabbed some snacks and went for one final swim in the pool at the hotel before packing up for the long drive to Virginia Beach.

Inappropriate Door

Pete and Sam grabbed Dad at the "Honey I Shrunk the Kids Set Adventure" playground. They said that they located an inappropriate door. It turns out that the door says different things when the kids pull on it. They said the door said "get away from here, you little a**hole".

Dad checked it out. It turns out that the door actually says "get away from here, you little rascal".

Lawsuit avoided.

Florida Vacation - Caricatures

Pete and Sam were each allowed to get one souvenir from Disney World. They both decided to get a caricature from Mike in the hotel lobby.

Pete went first and requested a drawing of him riding the Expedition Everest roller coaster:

Sam requested a drawing of a dinosaur eating his Mickey ice cream bar on the DINOSAUR ride:

Sam did a bunch of caricatures in his sketch pad on the drive home, so this could be a future occupation for him.

Florida Vacation - Day 7

Day 7 of the Florida vacation was Disney Animal Kingdom. The alarm didn't go off in the morning, but Mom managed to get everyone up at 7:30am and they still made it to the park just after rope drop at 8am. Dad and Sam headed off to get fastpasses for Killlimanjaro Safaris, while Pete and Mom got in line at Everest.

After a brief crisis with Pete's "lost" card (was actually in Sam's pocket), the rest of the day went very smoothly.

Throughout the day they enjoyed the following rides/activities:

• Expedition Everest (twice)
• Killimanjaro Safaris
• Pangani Trails
• Wildlife Express Train
• Habitat Habit
• Conservation Station
• Affection Section
• Boneyard
• Triceratops Spin
• (lunch) Restaurantosaurus
• DINOSAUR
• Finding Nemo: The Musical
• It's Tough To Be a Bug
• Festival of the Lion King
• Kali River Rapids
• *Completed all 6 segments of the Kids' Discovery Club*

It started raining during the Nemo musical, and drizzled for most of the remainder of the afternoon. But fortunately, Kali River Rapids stayed open so they got to ride everything (except for Primeval Whirl, which was closed for the day). Fortunately, there were not as many dozens of Brazilians in the park as there were the previous day at Hollywood Studios.

Dad didn't like Kali River Rapids too much. He said he could have saved 15 minutes by just having someone dump a bucket of water on to his socks and shoes. However, it was pretty hilarious when the two Hispanic ladies got completely doused on the big drop and Sam pointed at them and shouted out "you got soaked!".

Everyone got back to the hotel pretty early, so they got some awesome caricatures done by Mr. Mike and then had dinner at the Sassagoula Floatworks and Food Factory Food Court before enjoying a brief swim in the pool before lights out at 11pm.

Florida Vacation - Day 6

Of course, day 6 of the Florida vacation was Disney Hollywood Studios. Pete made sure everyone was up at 8am and they arrived at the park with plenty of time to have some donuts and milk before the "rope drop". Dad headed over to the Star Tours ride to get fast passes, while Mom/Pete/Sam waited in the standby line at Toy Story Midway Mania.

Throughout the day they enjoyed the following rides/activities:

• The Great Movie Ride
• Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular:

• Star Tours (twice):

• Muppet Vision 3D
• Honey I Shrunk the Kids Set Adventure
• (Lunch) Pizza Planet
• Toy Story Midway Mania (twice)

• Face Painting (Pete - Sith / Sam - Indiana Bones)

• Journey Into Narnia: Prince Caspian
• Walt Disney: One Man's Dream
• Voyage of the Little Mermaid
• Rock 'n Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith (Pete - twice)

• Squirrel Eating a French Fry
• The Twilight Zone: Tower of Terror

• (Dinner) Backlot Express
• Fantasmic

Sam did every ride he was allowed to do (everything except the Aerosmith Rock 'n Roller Coaster) and only got upset once, when his gun was broken on the Toy Story ride. (But it worked when he did the ride again in the afternoon). The other upsetting thing was when a fly died in his Mickey's Premium ice cream bar:

Back at the hotel, it was time to take off the face paint before bed:

Florida Vacation - Day 5

On Monday morning, Pete/Sam/Mom/Dad headed over to the Inlet:

and then back to Sugar Sand Park for the Science Museum and some geocaching. The museum had a cool exhibit with a room full of brain teasers.

They headed back to Aunt Robin's house and packed up the car for the drive to Orlando. After a brief stop at IHOP in Delray Beach, they drove to the Port Orleans French Quarter hotel and checked in around 5pm. The boys swam in pool and went down the waterslide. They had dinner at the hotel and got ready for the long day ahead of them on Tuesday.

Florida Vacation - Day 4

On Day 4 of the Florida vacation, Pete/Sam/Mom/Dad/Skyler knew that Robin/Dean/Shayna would be asleep for a while so they headed off for some morning adventures. They stopped at Tropical Smoothie Cafe,

then headed over to Sugar Sand Park to play in the awesome playground there. Watch out for the huge banana spiders!

You can see that in Boca they don't cut any corners on the free playgrounds.

When they got back to the house around noon, everyone was still asleep so they took a dip in the pool. After some chocolate chip pancakes for lunch, it was time to head over to Red Reef Park for some more beach time and snorkeling. The tropical fish by the reef were awesome. Unfortunately Sam's snorkel was broken, but he was able to snorkel a little bit. Pete held his breath and dived down to the reef a few times.

Sam was too tired to go to the Inlet, so after buying some drinks they headed back to the house for some dinner (pizza). Dean caught a big turtle and the boys swam with it in the pool for a little while. Mom also got a nice picture of a cool bird (anhinga?):

Dad was also happy to see his old sketch of Manny's boat (from 1999) hanging above the turtle aquarium:

Around 10pm it was boisterous TV time (Entourage and Curb Your Enthusiasm). It was too loud for Pete to sleep, and Dad's bed was in the TV room, so Dad, Pete, and Skyler headed out for an evening walk. Skyler said it wasn't far to his school, so they walked there. Two hours and 4.5 miles later, they arrived back home, ready for bed.