Tales From My House: A Very Busy Weekend! (Lots of Pictures)

Friday night, Thomas and I had our long-anticipated date night to Universal. When we still lived in Maryland, I would frequently see ads for "Orlando Informer Meet-ups". They promised low crowds with little to no ride wait times and all-you-can-eat food choices, including butterbeer. It sounded amazing! But, we lived in Maryland and it wasn't feasible. Then, we moved to Orlando. And, I saw more targeted ads and suddenly it wasn't a crazy idea. They do the meet-ups a few times a year and we decided to make it an anniversary present to ourselves and choose Friday, December 3 (as of November 28th, we have been married for 18 years!). We splurged on the tickets in June and have been looking forward to it ever since. And, it did not disappoint!

We got there around 5:30 and were each given a $15 voucher for food (the free food didn't start until 8). We used one voucher at the Three Broomsticks and shared beef pasties and corn on the cob. Then, we snagged a virtual pass to Hagrid's! We got off Hagrid's around 6:45 and took the Hogwart's Express to IOA. We got there right around 7, when the park closed to regular guests.

We rode the Mummy (twice), Transformers, and MIB all with no wait. Then, we ate at Monster's Cafe. We walked over to Universal and rode the Seuss Trolley (so fun at night with the Christmas lights) and Velocicoaster--no waits! We did have to wait about 25 minutes for Hagrid's, which we rode for the second time that night. We got hot and frozen butterbeer and watched the light show on the castle (without wall-to-wall people, which was amazing). We got green eggs and ham tater tots and then rode Spiderman (no wait and we had the ride vehicle all to ourselves). We browsed the empty shops and watched the Grinch insult people and then decided to call it a night. The park didn't close for another hour, but we had done everything we wanted to do and were pretty tired.

Rare to have an empty street for a photo backdrop

No wait!

The Tribute store is generally packed with people

The older kids watched Luke while we were out. It was their first time babysitting him late at night and by all 4 accounts, it went really well. We ordered them pizza and let them stay up late to watch a movie. It was pretty nice to not have to worry about finding a sitter!

Saturday, I was hoping to have a relaxing day, but that is not usually life of a parent. Instead, I took Jack and Kara to the downtown library on Saturday morning. Then, I took Anna ice-skating that afternoon. She is working on her backwards crossover and made some good improvements. Thomas took Jack to his basketball game, but otherwise spent the entire day putting up lights.

We (but mostly Thomas) put up all our indoor decorations before the cruise. I saw some videos with decorated hallways and thought our entrance would work perfectly. Thomas agreed and set to work. It took him a lot of hours, but it makes our house feel so festive! He also did our blue and silver front room and we put up the Christmas Village and main tree in our family room. It is very Christmasy around here!

Hallway and some of the front room

Village "left-overs"

Family room tree.

But, he still had to do the outside. It took all day (Kara and I helped for a few minutes, but it was 99% Thomas).

Living a little dangerously to get the lights in the tree

Finished view from the side

And the front

Saturday night, Thomas took Luke to Jeremiah's (where they now recognize us) and I took the older kids to see A Christmas Carol. It was performed by the girls' theater teacher's acting troupe at the Dr. Philips Center. We all enjoyed it and the girls were so excited to see their teacher perform.

With their amazing teacher

All three (I took 2 pictures and Kara's eyes were closed in both)

Sunday, we went to Legoland to see their Holiday stuff. Miniland is finally open! They had Santa sprinkled throughout, and it was fun to try and find him and the reindeer. We did a scavenger hung and saw two funny shows, one where Thomas and Luke got called up to participate. We also saw the tree light show when it wasn't quite dark, but we were ready to go and it was a school night. It was a crazy, busy weekend and it was hard to get up for work on Monday morning.