Orlando Weekend

We had a pretty jam packed weekend last week.  On Saturday afternoon we made the last minute decision to accompany Big Red and his boys to Orlando for special trip to Bass Pro Shops then Seaworld on Sunday.  J had to leave for DC on Sunday evening so he had to pack his bags for a week.  It was a complete whirlwind of a trip but it was such fun.  I love being sponateous 🙂

Since my car is the only vehicle that could seat all seven of us, J got the honor of driving us all through the rain and lovebugs to O-town.

Big Red, who is never without snacks, brought a couple of teeny, tiny Slim Jims for himself and J.  I’m not much of a beef jerky girl so I passed on that little delight…

All of our luggage somehow fit in the itty bitty truck space I had behind the third row.

The little dudes and I kicked back to watch the movie, Avatar.  Before we knew it, we were at Bass Pro Shops!

T-bone has taken a real interest in fishing lately which pleases Big Red to no end.  T-bone wrote him a special note a while back requesting a trip to Bass Pro Shops to pick out his very own fishing pole.  Big Red was so excited to make T-bone’s wish come true.  It was really special to be along to watch their special moment.

All six of the men were in hog heaven at this store…  This kind of store isn’t really my thing so I spent my time laughing at all the silly fishing lure names displayed on all the packaging and taking pictures of the boys.  After every rod had been tested and every reel was inspected, we were finally able to leave the outdoor sportsman’s paradise.  Cutie Pie scored his first fishing rod along with T-bone.  They were over the moon!

We grabbed a yummy dinner at Carrabba’s then headed to the Hilton resort by Seaworld for the night.

We grabbed a quick breakfast at the hotel on Sunday morning and headed out to Seaworld.  Our hotel gave us complimentary quick queue passes for the rides so we didn’t have to wait very long for the rides or pay for things like the Sky Tower.  Wildman wanted to do the Sky Tower first thing so up we went.

The view was pretty awesome at the top of the tower.  I spotted all of the roller coasters I wanted to try.  J gets motion sick so he is never able to ride them with me.  Lucky for me, Big Red is a huge roller coaster fan and happily joined me on Manta (which we rode 5 times) and Kraken ( which we rode twice).  It was so awesome!!!

Feeding the dolphins was a fun experience for the kids.  Cutie Pie didn’t like it so much when one of them spit a huge stream of water in his face though!

Shark Encounter is always a hit too 🙂

No trip to Seaworld would be complete without a Shamu bar to beat the heat.

We left the park around 5 pm in order to drop J by the airport in time to make his flight to DC.  We were all completely exhausted and happy from the fun that we had together.  I’m looking forward to returning to Seaworld again soon since we have Fun Cards and we never actually saw a single show while we were there.  This trip was all about rides, rides and more rides!

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ICE and SNOW

J and I took the boys to ICE and SNOW at the Gaylord Palms Resort on Saturday.  If you’ll recall, J won two adult tickets to the event when he won the pumpkin carving contest back in October.  We were happy that J did not have to be in DC on our ticket date although the friend who gave them to us would have happily traded tickets with us if we found ourselves in a bind.

I took the boys to ICE last year with B and Steph.  While the event was awesome in 2009, I have to report that it has much improved for 2010.  Santa Claus was there, we were treated to steaming cups of hot chocolate, the boys were able to e-mail Santa their Christmas wish at kiosks set up in the hall…  It was all very neat and definitely put us in the Christmas spirit!

Many things were the same like the nifty blue parkas, the ice slides and amazing colored ice displays.  Nine degrees once again proved to be too cold for my camera.  It locked up after an hour or so of below freezing temps.  At least it worked long enough for me to capture some good pictures.

Perhaps the best improvement to the event was the addition of SNOW!  Wildman was thrilled as you can see!  Cutie Pie was feeling a bit under the weather and refused to participate in anything snow related.

That didn’t prevent Wildman from enjoying the powdery stuff with gusto…

It was perhaps the only chance that Wildman will ever get to go tubing on snow in Central Florida!  He had so much fun!

The cherry on top of our wonderful day came when Wildman won the hourly raffle at SNOW!  He played several carnival games for raffle tickets and ended up winning his pick of prizes when they called his number.  The prized husky now has a place of honor on Wildman’s bed.

I think going to ICE and SNOW needs to be a family tradition!

Burgers and Blue Man Group

Look who’s 39!!!

Last Tuesday, Steph and I took our friend, B, out for her birthday.  We surprised her with a trip to Universal’s City Walk in Orlando.  We had originally planned to take her to Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville for dinner but the wait was atrocious.  We headed over to Pat O’Brien’s instead and were seated immediately.  It was two-for-one hurricane night too!  Too bad the hurricanes were 32 oz and we didn’t have time for another round…  Our server gave us free drink tokens for our next trip though.  We ended up ordering yummy cheese burgers for dinner because our original plan of Margaritaville had us craving a cheeseburger (in paradise).  Our entertainment was a lone pianist belting out hits from Billy Joel and Neil Diamond.

I tipped him $10 to sing B “Happy Birthday” and her favorite, “Brown-Eyed Girl”.  B was a little embarrassed but loved it and sang right along!  In fact, the entire restaurant sang along.  It was so fun!

The night’s biggest surprise came when we took B over to the Sharp Aquos Theater to see Blue Man Group!  She was so surprised.  The show was the same one that J and I saw a couple of years ago.  It was just as entertaining and hilarious.  We all had a wonderful time!

Happy birthday, B!  We love you!  Can’t wait until next year when we celebrate a real milestone year…  🙂