Greg was in a trip planning mood when he realized BYU played Southern Florida in Tampa over Labor Day weekend so we made a party of it. The girls and I cut out of school after lunch on Wednesday and flew to Tampa. We were scheduled to land at 12:30am Eastern Time and the plan was to drive to Universal the next morning so I told the girls to get some sleep. No one slept because they watched Harry Potter movies on every flight in prep for Harry Potter World.
I let Kenzie wake the girls up around 7:30 and we were out the door by 8. Spencer started us off right with Voodoo Donuts as we walked through the gates.
We decided to start in Diagon Alley but on the way made a quick stop for Emmy, Keeley and I to do the Mummy ride because the wait was only 20 minutes. Emmy loved her first big roller coaster ride and I didn't get too sick - thank you motion sickness patches. Off to London.
The kids had a blast playing with the wands, eatting butterbeer ice cream, visiting Ollivanders, exploring, and tasting all forms of butterbeer beverage. Then it was time to get on the Hogwarts Express at Kings Cross Station.
The day was starting to get hot so we enjoyed the A/C in line for the Hogwarts ride. We all went through the castle but everyone but Emily, Lily and I cut out once the ride came. The ride was mostly experienced through a screen so I just kept my eyes closed, whenever I opened them I thought I would puke. Lily didn't love it either but did alright. Emmy loved it.
Then we all went to the Hippogriff ride. I kept Winston and everyone else went on the ride twice- even Kate!
The heat was absolutely killer at this point (I was ready for the water rides) and we were getting hungry but the Triwizard Spirit Rally was beginning in 10 minutes so we tried in vain to find some shade to wait for the show. The kids loved the show but the adults were done. Out of water, sweating like crazy and hungry we found an indoor place to eat and refill our water.
Less hangry and no longer dripping in sweat the kids explored some of the Jurrasic World eatting area while we all went potty and got ready to hit the rides again. This time we headed to water rides. Dudley Do Right did not disappoint. Emily forgot to change into her flip flops and hoped to keep her feet dry but no chance. Emily and Keeley rode in one log with Me, Lily and Kensie behind. I loved hearing everyone laugh and shriek as we got more and more wet. By the end we were all soaked through- it felt wonderful.
After Emily changed into her flip flops we headed off to Popeye and even convinced Kate to join us. There was no wait so we walked right on our boat and got soaked all over again. The kids were laughing their heads off trying to predict who would get the worst of which waterfall or gun squirt. They had so much fun we got right back on and did it again.
At this point I was squeezing rivers of water out of my clothes. Spencer put us all in one of the huge dryers but it didn't even dent the amount of wet we had. But with that sun we would be dry in no time...or so we thought. As we wandered back to the Jussasic area to go on a kid ride we were disappointed to notice clouds and occational drips of rain. At are arrival the ride was closed due to lightning. Such a bummer. All outdoor rides were closed. Luckily we were right next to an awesome play area- the kids wandered and chased Winston and Emma and had a blast- and it helped shake off some of our water.
Can you tell how soaked we are? Spencer, Winston and Emma are the only ones who were dry.
With most of the rides closed we decided to head back to London on the Hogwarts Express and hit the Men in Black ride. Each train car holds 8 passengers but there aren't seat belts so we figured we could fit our group of 9 no problem since Winston sat on laps anyway, so we told them we had a group of 8 not 9. We were loving all being together when the attendant noticed our extra and kicked Spencer out😢. We quickly came up with ideas of how we could have rigged it, like hiding Winston under the bench 😉. While on the air conditioned bus we started to realize that being totally wet was no longer pleasant; in fact, it was down right cold.
Relieved to be back in the humidity we visited the night bus on our way to shoot aliens.
The Men in Black ride was so fun because everyone says Winston could go. We used child swap and the kids got to go two times in a row, once with me and once with Spencer shotting aliens and laughing a lot. Meanwhile, Winston waved at them and ran around being his adorable self. The kids probably would have done the ride a few more times but we were getting to cold and needed some of that warm air again.
At this point Spencer and Keeley tried to leave because the girls had school the next morning, but Kenzie pulled out the sad card and convinced them to go on the ET ride with us before they left. So we all did the ET ride together complete with ET saying each of our names at the end of the ride (they hadn't done that last time) it was kind of creepy honestly but it gave us a good laugh.
We said goodbye and walked back over to the other park to check out Dr. Seuss land. Kate was sad to see Emma go, we were all getting a little tired, and we were hungry again so we started to look for food. Most of the real meal options were closed so we scrounged on pretzels and moose juice - seriously yummy.
I was determined to get Emily on the Hagrid ride before we left but the ride was still closed for lightning, however it looked like it was clearing up so we headed that way. By the time we got there it had opened and had a 75 minute wait. The other girls didn't want to go, but didn't want to stay without me but I couldn't send Emmy alone. It was a tough, tense few minutes and I felt pretty bad leaving an upset Lily and a grouchy Kate but I knew this was the one thing Emmy wanted to do most so I left them. We got in line and I quickly convinced Emmy to get in the singles line, We wouldn't get to ride together but we would get through the line quicker for the sake of the girls. We were on and off the ride in 30 minutes- turned out to be her favorite ride of the day - so worth it.
We tracked down the girls got some pumpkin pasties to appease Kate and told Lily now it was her turn to pick. We did some wandering through souvenir shops then headed back to Dr. Seuss to ride the carousel a few times. My phone was nearly dead at this point and I still needed it to get us home so I turned it off - thus no more pictures. We thought about heading out but the girls realized there was only one area they hadn't walked through so we had to take a quick tour of Marvel land before the park closed and we hit the road.
At this point everyone was starving and McDonalds was being difficult. It took a few tries and a super long wait in a drive through line but we eventually got food in our bellies and got back to Spencer's house around 11:30pm. Like our first night everyone was asleep so we crawled into bed exhausted after an awesome day.
The next morning the girls were off to school by the time I crawled out of bed. Greg and Andrew's red eye landed at 8:15 so I woke up the girls in time to be ready to hop in the rental car and head to the Everglades.
Greg declared the day "No Complaining Day". All things concidered they did pretty well! I was so sleepy and wasn't much help keeping Greg awake on the three hour drive.
On the drive we were so excited to see Panther crossing signs - like so crazy. I told the kids if we saw 20 of those signs then we would see a panther. We got to 10 - darn it.
With the usual food drama we managed to get everyone something they were okay eating as we drove our last 20 minutes to the National Park. At some point Lily held up one of the little diced onions from her McDonalds hamburger and said, “Why did they put rice on my hamburger? Who would want rice on a hamburger?" We explained through our tears of laughter that it was an onion.
We signed up for Lily's fourth grade pass and grabbed us some junior ranger workbooks as we prepared to load our boat and head into the park.
Andrew's hair was getting in his way so I tried to help him out; too bad I didn't have a twisty!
It was hot and Kate was miserable for some unknown reason but the dolphin sighting was incredible. These pics are screen shots from Greg's videos. We saw so many dolphins. Our guide guessed there were up to 60 dolphins and they hung around for such a long time.
The best part was when we started driving away and they followed our boat, riding the wake and jumping. So cool!
We wandered looking for manatees and saw distinct manatee prints telling us they were right there but we never saw the actual beast - darn it - so close; I think Andrew counted it anyway. We saw lots of cool birds, sea turtles, and learned about mangrove trees, and islands man made from shells - so amazing.
When our 90 minutes were up we made our way to the boiling hot car and downed several bottles of cold water before heading out to look for gaters.
We went into Big Cypress Park and it took some work but we eventually found one gater on the other side of this little waterway. We were all so sleepy, poor Andrew and Greg and hardly slept at all on the plane, Andrew even choose to sleep through dinner. When we got to Spencer's the kids were asleep but we talked with Keeley and Spencer for a while, at least Andrew and I did, Greg fell fast asleep on the couch. I was amazed that he was able to drive 6 hours after being on a plane all night.
Unfortunately, those wonderful clouds had some lightning and rain so the game was delayed. We were all kicked out of the stadium while the rain dumped.
Emma found a spot to shower 😂
Two hours later they let us in the stadium where we waited another 30 minutes for the game to start. We grabbed some pizza for the kids and Spencer shared his popcorn - thank goodness for the free refills!
BYU dominated and around 7:30 Spencer headed home to put the kids to bed. Our kids were having fun so we stayed while the crowd got thinner and thinner. By the time we left with 6 minutes left in the game there were very few fans left anywhere near us and most the fans we could see where BYU fans. Fun night - end score 50-21.
The big kids had a blast staying up till 11:30 playing video games with Spencer while I chatted with Keeley. It was a wonderful long weekend - just wish they lived closer. Sunday I had felt like I was loosing my voice and by bedtime my voice was really weak. Monday morning we left super early and I was feeling a bit sick. By the time we got home monday afternoon I couldn't speak at all and went straight to bed. It wasn't til Sunday that I was feeling better and even then my voice was not normal. So grateful the sickness didn't kick in till I was home and I don't think I gave it to baby Winston. Love those kiddos.
The adults had a plan to go out to dinner after the game but with that much of a delay it destroyed our plans so Greg and I stopped at a grocery store on the way home for some dinner and Blue Bell ice cream.
Sunday we got everyone clean and to church. The rest of the day was busy with Boomerang Foo, pass the pig, scattegories, a yummy dinner, a quick senior pic by Keeley in the front yard and a sad goodbye to the kids when they went to bed.
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