In April, I happened to see an email in Mark’s inbox that
was an invitation for him to present his thesis at the Electrochemical Society
conference in Orlando, Florida. “What’s this?” I asked him. He explained that
though the university would pay his way, he wasn't going to go because he knew
that I wouldn't survive a week alone with the kids. I agreed that there was no
way I was spending a week alone with the kids, but if he did go to Florida, I
would come, too.
So we crunched the numbers, and decided that it wouldn't be
worth it to take the kids. For the same price, we could drive to Disneyland and
Mark wouldn't have to spend the day at a conference. Suddenly, a golden idea presented itself to me. Since Mark's mom was already coming out for his graduation, what if she extended her stay and watched the kids while Mark and I went to Orlando? The plan worked well with Diane, and the day after Matthew's birthday, Mark and I were off on our first vacation without the kids.
We had a wonderful time. On Sunday, we visited Cocoa Beach on the Atlantic coast. I had forgotten how much fun it is to play in the ocean. On Monday, Mark and I ran a 5K - my first ever. Mark did lap me, but I hit my goal time of 30 minutes. Mark then returned to the conference and I spent the day relaxing by the pool. That night we went to the Pirate's Dinner Adventure. The dinner was okay, and the show was rather slapstick. It was fun, but I wouldn't do it again - especially not at the price we paid. On Tuesday, I visited the town of Celebration, FL, a super master planned community. The HOA must be ridiculous, but the houses were lovely. It reminded me of driving down older sections of Salt Lake and thinking how nice the neighborhood would be if people actually fixed up all the old houses. These houses were all new, so they were well-maintained, but the went for the older style instead of McMansions. In the evening, Mark and I went to the movies and saw Divergent.
Mark's mother had two unused tickets to Universal Orlando Island of Adventure Park from years and years ago, and since they don't expire, we were perfectly happy to use them up for her. We were going to go on Thursday, since the conference had nothing interesting happening, but when we found out it was supposed to storm all Thursday, we switched and went on Wednesday. We had a fun day. The park felt rather small to me, maybe because compared to King's Island or Cedar Point, it had very few big rides. There were only two major coasters. The other two "big" rides, weren't coasters, but they were way fun. Spiderman and the Harry Potter ride really heavily on videos and special effects (you can feel the flames, etc.) They were both really well done. The Harry Potter ride was definitely the best. The first time we rode, we decided to ride together and wait in the long line, which was a good choice. The nice thing about the park was that the lines were done really well. Besides shade and water fountains, the line wove through the castle, which was awesome. The put a lot of detail into the park. Later when we came back, we did the single rider line, and instead of a 45 minute wait, it takes just as long as you can walk through the line. We did that twice, and the second time the ride broke down for a few minutes. The Hogsmeade section with all the shops was super detail-oriented, but the shops were incredibly small, which made it extremely packed even though it was a slow day at the park. Since the park was so small, we were able to see everything before lunch, and decided to actually sit down at Mythos, a nice restaurant. We lucked out and walked into the Sinbad theater show just as it started pouring. The other interesting areas are the Dr. Seuss kiddie area where the motto was "Never use a straight line where a curved line will do." The Jurassic Park area only had one ride - a river raft one which we didn't ride. But it had a gigantic play geared toward older kids / teens. It was all these crazy caves and rope courses. The best part was in one cave that was shrouded in mist. You cross a rope bridge and at a certain point, the mist is so thick you can't see two feet in front of you. It was really neat. All in all it was a good day at the park.
With the predicted rain on Thursday, we caught a quick game of putt-putt in the morning. Unfortunately the course we did didn't believe in obstacles at all, so it was rather boring. We decided the winner could pick our movie - the only rainy day activity we could come up with - so I picked Captain America 2, since it was basically our only option. I hated the first Captain America movie, but I really enjoyed the second one. It was much more like the Avengers, which I did enjoy.
We got back on Friday and the kids were happy to see us. The first thing I noticed was that Matthew no longer calls himself "Matt-mew" but says "Matt-thew" or really close to the correct pronunciation. The kids did great with Grandma Robison. Hannah apparently went through a very clingy phase mid-week, but relaxed again. Since our 5th anniversary is next month, we decided to consider this our anniversary present. We had so much fun, we are already thinking about our next big trip. Maybe a 10th anniversary in Europe?
My first 5k
Pirate's dinner theater
Me at Universal Orlando
Hogwarts
Mark at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter
On a walk with Grandma
Luckily, Grandma is nicer than Lucy is to Charlie Brown.
Happy Mother's Day. These tulips are from my yard.
Mama's home
Pictures with Grandma
We brought back a Buzz Lightyear as a
bribe in case he was mad at us.
"Daddy, take a picture of my foot."
