Rainy Morning

Tuesday

April 14, 2009

Today we woke up to rain and storms. Not really something that we wanted to deal with again, but we did. We turned on the tv and just waited. We went thru another Tornado warning. I think that they were following us or something. Who has 4 tornado warnings while on vacation? I never have...and I really don't want to go thru that again.

So, yes we waited. We played cars, watched the radar and talked about what we wanted to do for the day. The original plan was to go over to the beach, but that didn't happen. It rained all day and that would have been a total waste of our time. But we will be going to the beach someday down there. Donny is still talking about that.

Around 11:30am we decided that we would go to the mall and then find the brazillian store that we liked. We can buy some of our favorite drink and maybe even some candy. And then we will decide what to do later...later. We just went to the smaller mall in Orlando. I had never walked around the whole thing, but it is a pretty nice place. Had a lot of nice stores. The main store that we went to was the Ron Jon Surf Shop. We all ended up getting something from there. And Donny managed to come out with a new truck...yes a Ron Jon Suef Shop truck...crazy kid!

At the entrance to the store from the mall is this really cool car. Or as my son would say...look at that really sweet car. LOL This picture isn't the greatest, but it did look pretty sweet!

We ate lunch right there at the mall. At Subway. It was an interesting meal as they were running out of bread. And that just isn't a good thing to do when it is lunch time and you seem to be really busy. But ya know...what do I know about that kind of stuff?? Not a whole lot...I just eat there. :-) Donny likes to eat there too...as long as it is a cheese sandwich. Nothing else...just cheese and bread. He LOVES it! And yes..he put a hole in his bread and he is looking at me thru the hole. I thought that it was pretty funny, as he has never done that before. And yes, he did manage to eat about half of the bread and all of the cheese.

After lunch we continued to walk around. We found a really cool John Deere tractor store...lots of little tractors that Donny would have loved to bring home. And we also found a store with a lot of the larger sized diecast cars in it. OH MY GOODNESS.....Donny wanted everything in that store. And yes he was naming the cars off one by one and I think that people were looking at him in amazement...like how does that little kid know what all of these cars are? I don't even know what all of the cars are....he still impresses me. And I hear it every day!

One of the larger stores in the mall is Outdoor World...Bass Pro Shops. Pretty neat store...with a very large aquarium in the center of the store. We have course had to go and check it out. I tried to get pictures of the fish....but they didn't turn out the greatest. I did get this one of an albino catfish.....and I still cannot believe how massive it was. All of the fish in this tank were massive. Kinda creepy.

We also managed to find a penny smashing machine in there too. Donny now has 3 books full of these smased pennys and I don't think that it will stop there. He loves to see them and hold them. So I make sure to go with plenty of quarters and pennys....just in case.

And outside of the store in the mall, there were these really big 4-wheelers. He wanted to sit on one and we let him. He just loved that. I think that he loved everything about this day so far. He even got to walk around the mall like a big boy...no stroller at all. As we didn't even really think that we were going to be walking around the whole mall.

He is turning into such a big boy...where did my baby go? I can't believe that in just over a month you are going to be three. That isn't even possible...is it? Where did the years go?

We love you big boy!

Our last stop before leaving the mall would have been a place called Monkey Joe's (or something like that). It was a room filled with all of these inflatable toys (kinda like our Jungle Joe's here in Kalamazoo). We didn't know if Donny would like it or not...but we figured we would give it a try. We didn't have anything else going on for the day and we really didn't want to go and sit in the hotel room with nothing to do. Not really a fun thing to do on vacation. But let me get back to telling you about the inflatable fun time.

Once Donny got used to it, he loved it. He even wanted to go on the inflatables that were for the older kids...we tried to convince him that he was too little for them. But that just didn't work out. We did let him try one, but he got stuck in it and he just didn't know what to do...Daddy was able to reach in and get him from the side though. He didn't go back to that jumper, but he did try to get to others that he wasn't supposed to be on.

I would have to say that his favorite was the on pictured here. It was the easiest for him to play with and not get hurt from larger kids. It had a boat and a whale and a seal that they could sit on and jump. And he loved to sit on the whale and jump so much...that he fell off....and guess what. He would get right back up on there and do the same thing over and over and over again! He loved it! And I loved hearing him have fun!
And he was a really tired boy after this fun event...so to make a kid tired go let them jump on the jumpy things at Jungle Joes or something. It works!!!

So after a fun day at the mall..we are headed back to the hotel. Donny ended up with his Ron Jon Surf Shop truck and he loves it!

We had a great family day together. And even if it did rain on us...we are not going to let that ruin our vacation. We will do something that is still fun.

So here is to another wonderful day ahead of us.

Good night Orlando!

Good Morning Orlando!

April 13, 2009

Monday


Up around 8am. Got to eat breakfast and get going. We are going to the Magic Kingdom today! How cool is that? Hope we can see and do a lot of things. I know that I have been there before, but it always feels like the first time. Maybe it is because there are so many years in between the times that I have gone.
I would have to say that one of the best parts of the day is riding the monorail to the entrance of the Magic Kingdom and seeing the castle in the distance. To know that that is where we are going. Also, Donny talks about the monorail still. He loved it...and yes, we bought our own monorail. How can you go to Disney and not buy a monorail?
It was the perfect day outside...about 82*. We were with the crowd though. There were thousands of people there. We did manage to get Donny on a couple of the rides, but not too many. He went in the race cars with Daddy and he went on the little roller coaster with me. He loved both of them. (even though he will tell you that the roller coaster was way too fast for him...I think that he still loved it!) We didn't stand in any of the lines to see the characters as they were way too long. Donny wouldn't have been able to wait over an hour to see Mickey...we would have loved it, but definantly next time. We were really close to seeing Donald, but Donny tripped and he scrapped his knee...so he was done with that.
At 3pm we did watch the parade. Donny fell asleep which was a good thing as we knew that he was getting tired. The parade was really neat...and it was of course different then the two previous ones that I have seen.
After the parade we left. We decided to take the boat back to the parking lot. That was really neat. I had never done that, it was a heck of a lot easier to deal with too. We got to our vehicle and headed back to the hotel. Donny slept most of the way back...woke up once we got to the hotel.


We relaxed for a little bit and then decided to go to DownTown Disney. Before we went to DTD, we went swimming. It was kinda nice having the pool right outside of our room. It was very conveinient. The water was really nice also, we did have a little bit of a breeze, so the air was chilly..but as long as you stayind in the water it wasn't that bad. Also this was the first time that Donny got to try out his new boat. This boat is a toddler boat and man can he make that thing move! We left to go to DTD around 6pm. We had to eat dinner at the House of Blues. That is a must anytime we are near there. And I always get the cajun meatloaf. Still like it after all these years. We walked around for a bit and saw a lot of neat things. By 10pm we were headed back to the hotel to go to bed. It has been a long, fun day....and we loved every single minute of it!

Donny's new car collection from Florida!

So good night Orlando, we will see you in the morning!

Easter Sunday!

April 12, 2009

Happy Easter!

Woke up around 7:30am today. Wanted to get going as early as possible. So we packed everything up and we were on the road by 8:30 am. That is pretty good. We are finally headed to Florida! Can't wait. I think that we are going to Seaworld today and Magic Kingdom tomorrow. And hopefully the beach on Tuesday!

This drive isn't really all that bad. Pretty much a straight shot from Atlanta until you get to just outside of Orlando. It is like 7 hours though. But we are going to make it and we are having fun all along the way!
We drove into Florida about 1pm today. It was beautiful outside. Already like 83*...we loved it! We stopped at the rest area to take some pictures with the big Florida sign...then we were off to our hotel. Once we got there we are going to spend the evening at Seaworld. We can't wait! Really hoping that Donny likes it.

So, all along our drive to the hotel...we saw a bunch of orange trees.... I then decided that we were going to bring some Florida oranges home. And that we would do that before we left! I love oranges...but to have Florida oranges are the best! We arrived at our hotel just before 4pm. We had a nice room right beside the pool. And it was quite. I really liked that. By 5pm we were headed to Seaworld!!! Not even a 20 min. drive from the hotel. That was nice. We will stay at that hotel again, as it was in a great location.

Seaworld was awesome. We saw the dolphin show and we stayed and watched the Shamu show also. We walked around the whole park and saw a lot of awesome things. Donny really enjoyed it also. Headed back towards the hotel around 10pm. Stopped and got some food at McDonald's, as that is cheaper than buying food at the park. We were all sleeping by 11:30 pm.

We had a great day. Happy to be in warm, sunny Florida!!!

Can't wait for another fun day!