The Eastons: To Florida We Go

For Kate's twelve year old trip she wanted to go visit Spencer and Keeley in Florida. Florida also had the appeal of Harry Potter World and being a state that no other siblings had visited.

She finished listening to the 6th Harry Potter on the plane, got lots of snuggles, then got to eat Chick-Fil-A on the beach for dinner while Kenzie played at the play ground. Good times.

The next morning we were up early to get to Universal Studios. We went straight to Ollivanders to get Kate a wand.

All over the park there were places to use your interactive wand. You could make the fountain spray water, feathers float, creatures dance, all sorts of things. It came with a map to guide you to all the magic spots.

Diagon Alley and Grimmauld Place

We made a call to the Ministry of Magic.

Then headed to King's Cross Station to catch a ride to Hogwarts.

The ride on the Hogwarts Express was fun. We left the Dame's behind and came to explore Hogwarts and Hogsmeade on our own.

Kate definitely enjoyed the food. Butterbeer ice cream was her favorite form of butterbeer. But our favorite drink was Pumpkin Juice - yum.

We had to stand in a long line to get to see inside of the castle but it was worth it - so fun to see all the details inside the castle. Kate also loved shopping in Honeydukes for treats to bring back to the kids.

Then we hopped back on the train and took the return trip to London to meet back up with the Dames. I loved Hogsmead - especially all the snow capped buildings. It was fun on the train to enjoy two different rides.

Back with the cousins we caught a Deathly Hallows show and sprayed each other with water - it was so hot!

Spencer led us to the Curious George area - Kate was surprised by how much fun we had shooting balls at each other and enjoying an epic water fight. Spencer and Kenzie were soaked through. Kate stopped before she was too wet.

However, her shoe were soaked and she didn't like how they squished. She wanted to switch shoes with me (we are the same size right now) and since it was her special day I did it- nice look huh?

We stopped for a quick donut (Yummy) and some delicious Italian food then we headed back to Spencer's house. It was a long day and we got home late but it was Kate's favorite part of the trip.

Kate wanted to see manatees so the next morning Spencer made it happen. This river is packed with manatees in the winter but the rest of the year it is home to these three injured manatees. We got to watch them eat and swim around a bit - they were so huge!

We got to see a lot of other animals on the nature walk. It was pretty fun.

Then we headed to see "Winter" the famous amputee dolphin. It was cool to see Winter but the rest of the aquarium wasn't very exciting.

When Kate and I planned the trip she really wanted to go on a dinner cruise. Spencer's kids weren't up for it so they dropped us off and headed home. Kate got on the boat and ate, then realized the cruise would be three hours long and she wanted off. She missed the little girls and wasn't thrilled with the idea of being stuck on a boat with just me and a bunch of strangers for three hours. It was a bit of work to keep her happy for the duration, not a highlight of the trip but it could have been worse. I actually liked seeing the city and the sunset was beautiful.