**Warning** I have nothing clever or amazing to say regarding this trip. This is just a travel log to document that my kids actually did get to do fun things in their life - in case I need proof for their eventual therapists later ;0)
We started off our magical adventure in the steaming hot sweat inducing land of Florida by hitting up Islands of adventure. We threw all sensible thriftiness to the wind and splurged for fast passes. The only lameness with those was that the castle was not fast pass - rude! Luckily we hit that up first thing in the morning so we weren't complete puddles of goo by the time we got thru the hour plus line. We were wishing the snow on the rooftops were real. The rest of the time was pretty awesome with the fast passes because we just walked onto most of the rides.
I guess it is worth commenting that indeed I was wearing a dress to which my family mocked me for the entire day. Listen! The older I get the uglier the veins (or as I like to call them - growing a human tattoos) on my legs get and the less I feel inclined to wear the mormon mom shorts that are super unflattering on someone with short stubby legs. Dresses provide quite a bit of ventilation so while everyone else was getting chaffed, I was as cool as could be - especially after getting drenched on a couple of the rides - my dress aired out quite nicely, thank you very much. So instead of looking like a Mormon mom, I looked like a Mennonite, minus the cap - gotta keep people guessing!
We rented a house this time. This is the first time we've done it in Orlando and I will never do anything else again. We were in a gated community that was a summer rental community. It was 150 a night! You can't get anywhere close to that a night in a resort or hotel. We had an entire house with enough bathrooms and bedrooms for everyone and a pool and a game room. We were also just a block away from Nate's bro and his family. It was awesome.
We spent time together with the families at Ed and Carol's rental. The kids loved getting to see their cousins and we had fun hanging out with Jake for a couple of days before his wedding.
The girls were all sporting pretty hair that lasted just long enough for the ceremony before the humidity ruined it. I was the unofficial hairdresser for Maddy and Jordy. I only had time to curl and braid Maddy's hair before we left for the temple and then while we were sitting waiting for Jake and Jenny to come out for pictures, I did Jordy's hair. Emma did hers by herself.
Just a couple of the pictures, I seriously have a couple hundred. I love my boys in bow ties, and don't they look like future missionaries in front of the temple doors and aren't my nieces gorgeous?
We also attended a reception that night. My FIL was cracking me up because he was making the rounds talking to everyone - we teased him that he was in stake president mode. Once a stake president always a stake president - or city manager :0) Ethan had some fun making sculptures out of his food and Brianna was looking with a certain longing at her newlywed brother and new bride dancing......hmmm could we be attending another wedding soon? She says no, but we shall see....she was spending large amounts of time talking to (texting) a boy (an RM), while smiling a lot, that she said she was only keeping around for the summer (long distance wise).
We also managed to fit in a beach day. I will confess that it was Sunday. We attended sacrament meeting in the ward Ed and Carol used to attend when they lived there. It was the coolest chapel I've ever been in - it had a sloped floor so it was kinda like stadium seating. To make it even more enjoyable, the bishop got up and chastised everyone for being so slothful in caring for the building. There was no skirting around the issue, he just laid it on out there. It was awesome. Everyone ended up going to the beach after with us - we were bad influences. We just couldn't be that close to water and not see it before returning to the desert. We did wait until we stopped somewhere for lunch to put on our swimwear - we had to explain to the kids that going into the church building to put on our swimsuits was not a good idea. I tried to pack a lunch so we didn't need to even stop for that but the logistics of feeding that many people with the supplies we had wasn't working out. One of these days I will reach my goal of attending all 3 hours of church no matter where we are - baby steps.
It was Memorial weekend so the beaches were a nightmare. We wanted to go to Siesta Keys but when we first arrived there was nowhere to park so we went a little further to turtle beach (or something like that) and then we tried again on our way home for the 'best beach.' The pic collage is of both beaches. The wait was worth it because it is a quartz sand beach. It is super white and the sand doesn't get hot in the heat. It is super cool to the touch. We had a scare when we got there though. It was still really hard to get parking so I told Nate that I just wanted to hop out with the kids, run to the beach, see the water, touch the amazing sand, snap a pic and run back to the car before he made the circle in the parking lot. While we were walking back to the car we met up with our other family because they had found parking and said that Nate found a spot too and would be joining us - that's when I realized Ethan was nowhere to be found. I forgot to include a picture of how packed the beach was so you could get an idea of what I was up against if he were lost. I panicked. I couldn't remember what he was wearing and I didn't know which direction he would go if he thought he was lost. Did I think to pray? NO! I would have had to do too much repenting for being at the beach on the Sabbath :/ My SIL was heading for the lifeguard station to report him missing when my other kids spotted him walking towards us with Nate. He had run ahead to find him in the parking lot. We don't know how he found him, but thankfully he did. It's one of those moments you want to hug your kid and then immediately slap them.
There you have it, our little trip to Orlando to have a little fun spending way too much money at a theme park, getting to play in the sand and ocean, and most importantly being there to support my nephew while he was sealed to his eternal companion in the House of the Lord at the Orlando temple. We also got to spend time connecting with family. Life is good - even though my kids look miserable in this picture :0)
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