Vacation Days 6 & 7

Our trip in Florida is winding to a close. In fact, this will be the last early morning blog I write. It has been a great trip, but it will be nice to get back home. I am not looking forward to the drive, but it is a small price to pay.

Wednesday was almost an exact repeat of Monday. Except, Thomas took Anna to the baseball game. He went to 3 games, one with each of the "big" kids. Jack was the best at following the game, but the girls were good company and he had fun with each of them. He and Anna also made it onto the scoreboard during the playing of YMCA. I told him to try and get a picture if it happened again, but he said they were too busy dancing to worry about it. He and his messed up priorities obviously don't care about my blog

It was a beautiful day for a game!

While they were at the game, the other kids wanted to go back to the same park, which is about 20 minutes from my Dad's house. When we were about 5 minutes away, I asked Luke if he was still awake, since it was close to nap time and he hadn't slept well the day before. He responded with an enthusiastic "yes!". When we were about 4 minutes away, I heard soft snoring coming from the back seat. He was out! I waited in the car with him, while my dad watched Jack and Kara on the playground. It was 90 degrees out (hot, even by Florida standards, for this time of year), so we only let them play for an hour. Luke slept the whole time. He woke up as we were pulling into my Dad's driveway and he was NOT happy. Fortunately, I was able to smooth over the situation with some ice cream. That night, I went to dinner with my dad, brother and sister. We missed my oldest brother, who lives in Virginia, and of course, my mom. We had a nice dinner and managed to (mostly) stay away from politics. Kevin drove me home and he and I had a good chat. I forget how much I enjoy his company. We don't talk as often as we should, but I am hoping we can do better.

Thursday we were back to Six Flags Universal, as Luke likes to call it. This time, we started at Universal Studios. The rides were great. Between the 7 of us, I think we went on every ride the two parks have to offer. Kara was brave and tried everything she was tall enough for, except the large roller coasters. Much to my surprise, she liked it all! She even said she might be ready for Splash Mountain the next time we go to Disney World!

No trip is complete without a photo in front of the iconic Universal Globe.

Waiting for Men in Black, I took this from the Kid Swap room.

On the other side of the coin, it was frustrating for Luke to not be able to ride many things. With each Kid Swap room, he grew more and more frustrated. Fortunately, we found an amazing kid's area where he had an absolute blast. It was tucked back into a corner near ET. There was a kid's roller coaster, which Luke proclaimed "scary" and did not like and a little water park area, where we did not let them play. Fortunately, there was also Fievel's Playground, which was awesome! Huge nets and tunnels and lots of slides. We let them play for close to an hour and everyone was happy again.

The line for Gringotts was the only long one, but we decided to wait. I am so glad we did because it was incredible! And, the line itself was pretty cool. I really felt like we were in Gringotts!

Montage of a sleeping Luke as we made our way through the bank.

We were done at Universal by about 2, so we headed over to Islands of Adventure, taking the awesome Hogwarts Express, via Platform 9 3/4 of course. We stayed there riding until the park closed at 7. Our last visit will be today (Friday), and we plan to do mostly the Harry Potter areas and see some of the shows at Universal.

Now that we have ridden all the rides, we asked everyone what their favorite ride was at each park and which one wins overall. Every one of us had a really hard time choosing, since there are so many amazing rides. But, here were the answers (IOA=Islands of Adventure, US=Universal Studios, O=Overall):

Anna--IOA: Forbidden Journey; US: Minion Ride; O: Forbidden Journey
Jack--IOA: Forbidden Journey; US: Escape From Gringotts; O: Forbidden Journey
Kara--IOA: Transformers; US: Forbidden Journey; O: Forbidden Journey
Luke--IOA: Cat in the Hat; US: Fieveal's Play Area
Kori--IOA: Kong; US: Gringotts; Overall: Gringotts
Thomas--IOA: Forbidden Journey; US: Revenge of the Mummy O: Mummy