Our Florida Family Vacation: May 2013, Days 1-3

In early May, we went to Florida for our 2nd family Florida vacation! The last Florida vacay was exactly 5 years previous to this one. We left on Saturday May 4th in the am... Steph, Kenny & the kids met us at our place and we headed to Detroit for our 2pm flight! We arrived in Orlando in the evening on Saturday the 4th.

Day 1

Rachel was so excited for her first time (that she remembers) in an airplane! We very strategically selected our seats so all the girls were together so we could enjoy our flight together.

 Rachel was so excited to look out the window into the "cotton candy" clouds!

The first day that we arrived, Rachel spotted the pool in the back and needed to go swimming. Even after a long day of driving, flying, grocery shopping she still went into the pool in the evening. She was sooo tired afterward!







Day 2

Sunday was a Downtown Disney day where we headed in to downtown Disney to look at the stores and displays!

This is us leaving in the morning for Downtown Disney. This was our house for the week! 5 bedrooms that housed all of us really well with lots of space!

Entering Downtown Disney!

After a little wandering around trying to find one another, we had success! We learned after this how easy it is to lose one another while driving (in 3 cars!), or in the parks...

Here's Rachel super excited to ride the merry-go-round! At this time, she didn't know the excitement that awaited her at Universal Studios and Magic Kingdom with rides and attractions... excitement for Rachel continued to get better the whole week!

This is just Minnie, Mickey, Rachel, Aleksy and I hanging out at Disney....

Aleksy's looking pretty hulky these days. He's blocking the huge hulk made out of lego! They had everything made from lego at the Lego store: the dragon in the water, the seven dwarfs from snow white and buzz and Woody on the other side of the hulk!

After arriving back from our day at Downtown Disney, Rachel needed to go into the pool as soon as possible. She was not afraid to jump right in and swim around.. deep end or shallow (with her awesome water wings).

Aleksy and I hanging out by the pool, swimming, and trying to get a tan (with not much success). We had lots of sunny days in Florida that week!

Later that Sunday night, we wen out for supper at our favorite spot to go when in the States: Eat At Joes!

This is us enjoying the MASSIVE hurricane drink that left me feeling dizzy after dinner! Well Aleksy couldn't have much because he was driving so I helped him out with that...

This is the same drink I had when we were black friday shopping in Michigan and it was so delic I needed it again!

The men all aproned up ready to eat their pots of crab legs

Also that day, 2 of these Florida birds: which we later googled and learned to be Sand Hill Cranes decided to hang out right in front of the house. The crowd of us was not enough to scare them away!

Day 3

On Day 3 we headed to Universal Studios for the day.

Well, we all thought we were heading to Universal until we stopped here in front of the gates of Magic Kingdom!! We took the wrong exit and had to get through the booths where we were supposed to pay for parking and turn around. This is Aleksy checking in to ask... what do we do now?!

But... we made it!
We had to wait for the Universal globe to turn for this picture so you could read it!

When first heading into Universal we went through Seuss Land. As you can see Rachel was very excited for this: her first ride in Universal on the One Fish, Two Fish Red Fish, Blue Fish ride! She loved it.

Guess who else loved the Dr. Suess ride?! Thats correct, my Dad and brother Matt. Matt just couldn't stop talking about this ride after universal...

It was also a great remembered moment right at the end of this ride when the water stream drenched my Dad and not a drop landed on Matt!!! Aleksy and I may have died from laughing since we had front row seats to watch the drenching happen!

More Suess Land rides: the front cart! 

The Harry Potter section of the park would have probably made more sense to me if I would have read the books (or seen the movies). But nonetheless, it was done up with so much detail (as everything in Disney is!) and they were serving butterbeer and pumpkin juice. I was a little curious about the butterbeer, but didn't want to buy it in case there was actual butter in it. Because that'd be gross.

The Dinosaurs were an awesome part for my Rachel who loves dinosaurs sooo much!

She got to take pictures with a few different kinds of dinosaurs!

The we stopped for some lunch after the dinosaurs. Disney still hasn't branched out far from their burger and fries menus...

After lunch, we headed into the Marvel part of the park with the comics and super heroes!

And Rachel was very excited to meet Spider Man. She would have gone a little extra crazy if it was Iron Man, but still a good find.

Now, I'm no expert when it comes to comics and superheroes, so I can't remember who this was. However, I'm sure this character is pretty cool and exciting to meet... may Green Goblin? That's my guess for his name...

Most important in this picture is my nephew who has grown such a crazy amount since the last time in Florida 5 years ago!

Aleksy and I outside of the Hulk ride after riding it twice back-to-back. We seemed to have lucked out with lines at Universal (and Magic Kingdom!) and we didn't wait more than 30 minutes for anything. This particular rollercoaster we went straight onto the ride so we took advantage and rode again after!

This was a good ride, but I think my fav was the one in Harry Potter Land...

This picture is after me, Steph and Rachel got drenched on the Popeye ride! This was definitely another one of my favorite rides because its hilarious to watch other people get soaked. It was nice because it was a circle where all 8 of us were facing one another. One of the best parts of this ride (which Dad and Matt knew from experience) was the section where people who have finished the ride can use water guns and spray the other people who are on the ride! Find your target and drench them!

Just soaked:

After a long day in the park full of awesome rides, entertainment, and meeting characters, on the way out, Rachel saw this water fountain and saw it just like a ride in the park! Good times in the simplest of places!!









Sat tuned for a post for days 4-7! More good times to come.... Just as Rachel says, I want to go back to our Florida House with the pool.

KICKSTART! The start of Summer 2013: May 2-4 weekend

This past long weekend was simply amazing. I love when you can jam-pack a bunch of different activities together and have many good times in a weekend!

So friggin excited for summer 2013 adventures: beach, our engagement party, Appin bbq on Fridays between 4-6pm (I have seen this advertised on my country drives and I NEED to go!), Chelsea & Warren's wedding and associated activities, camping! I also just had this urge to go to the OLD Wally World... man that would have been good times... too bad its closed (for 10 years now?).

This weekend started with Saturday birthday celebrations with Kenny & Steph! 

We started 'er off with a good old bbq: pork chops & veggie skewers and spent some time enjoying the warm weather outside!

And Rachel said that it was the long weekend so to fully party, sparklers are necessary!

She was a little nervous about holding a stick of fire, but still drew her pictures in the air...

Of course, it wouldn't have been a complete birthday celebration without birthday cake!

Happy Birthday Steph & Kenny!

Birthday cake & wine: Saturday evening perfection.

Pre- card game here. Several games of Asshole later, I may have ended up Assole in the end (but I held my own in top ranks in the beginning!)

My niece and nephew are so friggin cute!

On Sunday, our little buddy Colton came to visit! He brought his parents and his doggy too...

Our little buddy has grown so much and is now more than a month old! Aleksy's gonna be such a good Daddy...

He decided to wear the orange shirt that we bought him when we were in Florida.. he's so thoughtful. His Daddy didn't wear his matching orange hat though...

We were very grateful that Colton brought this card to show his appreciation for all the hard work Aleksy did on the weekend he was born. Colton thought it was best to come on the Thursday before the home show where his Dad, Al had made arrangements to be for that weekend, so Aleksy worked his booth for those few days.

Colton showed his appreciation with a weekend date night for both of us! Dinner at Milestones and a movie coming up!










On Sunday afternoon, we made an impromptu countryside drive to St. Mary's. We decided that the weather was so beautiful when Al & Steph left, that we had to continue enjoying.

After a nice, sunny drive in the jeep with the top off, we walked around St. Mary's around the lake.

St. Mary's is the perfect place for a day drive and a picnic lunch. We already ate a ton with Steph & Al before heading over (breakfast complete with peameal bacon, an egg & veggie bake, chinese dumplings, and fruit tart!) so we didn't pack a picnic, but this would have been the spot!

What we did have room for: ice cream! We got our ice cream from this little spot, and GUESS WHAT? They served my FAV!! Starting off the summer right with my Happy Birthday ice cream from the London Ice Cream Company!! Mmmmmm

After further exploration in St. Mary's, we found this adorable garden area surrounding the public library, with a checker board.. complete with checker stones for play.

We played. I won. It should be noted.















On Monday, we made arrangements to meet the Browns in Paris, which is in between our cities and an adorable little town for a nice lunch and a walk.

After some lunch at a restaurant that served portion sizes that would be appropriate for children, but had a beautiful view alongside the river, we headed to the chocolate store! My favorite.... just finished up our chocolate covered pretzels and red velvet cherries.

Ice cream was also had... peanut butter goodness.

Andzelika & Paul had plans to take the girls to the butterfly conservatory in Cambridge and invited us along for the adventure after our lunch in Paris.
We bought our coupon from good ol' Dealfind for $5 and spent some time in the conservatory. This was my first time, and it was really pretty!

These cuties were so excited to be surrounded by butterflies! If you look closely to the left of this picture, you can see the butterfly flying around the girls!

Serena really really wanted a butterfly to land on her and this one was transportable. This butterfly first landed on Warren then he transferred to Serena (who is smiling here, but then wanted the butterfly removed pronto) then another little girl who wanted the butterfly!

Lots of pretty picture opportunities in the conservatory! They even advertised weddings...

What an amazing way to spend a holiday Monday!










We were so lucky to have such nice weather for our May 2-4 weekend! It definitely helped us to get full use of our weekend!