florida randomness, part 2

 So Peyton had no clue who these people were, just saw characters and wanted to get more signatures in his book. After getting signatures and pictures, he said "Those guys were weird. SO weird!" Yes, that's right.

the end

a little randomness from FL, part 1

Just wanted to post some final pictures of things from our vacation.

(and then I'll be all done with our vacation!)

 Yes, Cole knows his glasses are on upside down. He thought he was being funny. :)

 These army guys were funny. One was standing on the side, very still. The boys were trying to get him to talk/move and he (or she?) would not. They were talking to him. Poking him. And he did not move (even I was starting to think maybe it was a real statue) until he suddenly jumped down in their face and scared them pretty bad. Like they screamed and took off. Pretty funny.

Okay, so there were more pictures than I thought, so I'll split it into 2 posts. :)

muggles

 One of the coolest experiences was The Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Universal Studios. It was really like you were in the movies. :) And on one of the rides it was like you were actually riding on the broomstick with Harry. SO cool. And they made the line for that line extremely awesome. Like so awesome it's like you were at different attractions/shows while waiting in line. And we didn't even get to see much of it because the line was so short.

  We had lunch in one of the Harry Potter restaurants and tasted the famous butter beer. De-lish! And the atmosphere in the restaurant was just as cool as everything else there.

 

 Hogwarts Express

Such a fun experience for my boys (especially Easton) who LOVE Harry Potter!! 

toy story mania

 This ride was by far the most popular. We were able to use the Fast Pass on it, otherwise we never would've stood in the line. But it was definitely fun shooting all the things.

Really I just wanted to show these pictures because Vannessa is in them and I didn't take many with her.

brock and the characters

I love how in so many of the pictures with characters Brock canNOT take his eyes off of them. And usually looked so confused. I guess Trey did it a lot too. :)

 

minnie

  Trey's favorite character is Minnie. Even though he used to call her Mickey. He carries a little doll of her around with him everywhere - including the Blue and Gold Banquet last night.

Here he is getting kissed

 

 And here he is giving a kiss

 

Pardon my sister's hand in the picture. If I was better, I'd crop it out now before posting it, but I'm not. It will be easy to just crop it out when scrapbooking. And it looks like maybe she got a better picture of the kiss than I did. Perhaps she can email it to me. ;)

He just loves looking at these pictures!! It renews his love all over again!

the airport

 On both flights, we (or at least some of us) got stuck at the airport in New York. (Which is what happens when you fly stand-by, which is the only way we could ever afford to fly out there.) 

On the way there we arrived in New York at 7ish and were hoping to get on a flight to Orlando at 9. When they called our names, they only had 3 seats available and about 30 seconds to get on the plane. So Seth grabbed Trey and Cole and got on that flight. Seth's bag didn't have wipes or a diaper and Trey decided to stink up his diaper on the flight so Seth was stuck with nothing til they landed. Oops! Luckily all our bags arrived with them so he was able to change him them.

Easton, Peyton, Brock and I hoped to be on the next flight, 2 hours later. Well, that didn't happen. They only had 1 seat available. So we waited another 2 hours. She called my name and said they only had 1 seat available. I said I needed 3 seats so we couldn't get on that flight. She then called someone else's name and 2 people got on. (What the?!) Then she called another name and 2 more people got on. (Excuse me?!) I walked up to her and said "Excuse me. I'm not trying to be rude but you just told me you only had 1 seat available and now 4 more have gotten on." She very rudely said "No! I called them before you." I said "Um.... no, you called me before them." She responded "No, ma'am. I didn't. I called them before you!!" So I cried. Yep. Right there. 

So we walked down to the gate where the next flight would be leaving and waited 2 hours. Again. We didn't make it. The next flight left an hour later so we waited for that one. That one only had 2 seats available. Then an hour and a half later we finally made it. And I did have a good experience there, when people saw that the boys and I were going to have to sit apart from each other, (Peyton right in front of me and Easton across the aisle.) they offered to switch seats and not sit by their companion. It made me so happy. We arrived in Orlando at 7. If we had all made the first flight, we would've already been done with the 7 hour drive into Atlanta. Instead, we got to our hotel right before 3 in the morning. It was the perfect start to a vacation. ;)

 On the flight back, the first flight only had 5 seats available to begin with, so we were already planning on having to split up again. But by some crazy miracle, all 7 of us (we only needed 6 seats) made it on the flight. And I got to sit with Peyton and Trey with Brock on my lap. East and Cole sat by each other. And Seth was all alone. Lucky. ;) (For the record, I was actually going to get the seat alone, but as I was walking down the aisle to my seat, I realized I was going to have to nurse Brock squished in the middle of 2 strangers. No thank you! So I switched with Seth.)

 After making the first flight, we had a nine hour wait til the flight back to Salt Lake. Luckily the airport had a kids play area, which we sat in the entire time, unless we were eating. 

And now, to the whole reason I started this post... the pictures... Brock didn't seem to care so much for the things to climb and slide on, instead he kept pulling shoes out and then making a run for it. Unless of course he saw me taking his picture.

superheroes

 Part of Universal is all about Superheroes. And of course they have the characters to meet. Meeting them was actually pretty cool. They would ask the boys questions, show them how to pose, sign their autograph book and other things.

(the green backdrop is the green screen where you can buy their expensive pictures that look like you're from somewhere Spiderman lives)

showing the web hands

 Dr. Doom. Trey would NOT turn around for these pictures, no matter how much I screamed his name. As we were finishing up, Dr. Doom said to me "He knows better than to turn his back on me." (Haha. Good one. Bet you've only used that a hundred times.)

 Captain America

Here's a story about the lovely autograph book - My sister Vannessa bought it for Peyton on our first day in Disney. So we spent that day getting signatures, the next day in Universal getting more and then the following day back in Disney getting some. (We waited longer in those lines than lines for the rides. But since nearly every ride line was shorter than 10 minutes, that was okay.) Then we were getting ready to go back to Universal and we realized we couldn't find the book. I couldn't believe it. It was bothering me to think about all the wasted time standing in lines. We called Disney's Lost and Found and they didn't have it but took our address and said they'd mail it if they found it. I truly thought it was forever lost and they just say that to people but never really mail things. We bought a second book and spent more time in lines (although this time only really short ones) trying to get some signatures back. But 3 days after arriving home, a package arrived at our house with the first book in it. I was shocked and thought it was pretty awesome. Peyton thought I turned into Super Woman because when I showed it to him, he asked "How did you go to Florida so fast?!"

Cyclops signing the book

 my favorite superhero picture

playing

 Universal Studios had a couple places for kids to just play. It was great for them to get some time out of the stroller and out of the hot sun.

Watching them play with the mirror was one of the cutest things.

Peyton was with us during this time but he was running around too much for pictures, except for this one

And this is what the older boys were doing while we were playing. Totally soaked! But they loved it and begged to go on it again. (Seth is also soaked, you just can't tell.) So glad I chose to skip that one.