The Sunshine State

My computer is seriously trying my patience right now. It’s crashed a bunch of times as I’ve attempted to get my vacation photos online in an album. Since it’s not really working, I’ll just upload a few here for now. The one above is at Downtown Disney.

So, here is an overview of the trip: We arrived pretty late on Wednesday night. It was totally humid and about 90 degrees. Despite the humidity, the heat felt great, especially because of the rainy yuckiness we were coming from.

On Thursday, Steve and I went to Animal Kingdom at Disney, as that was the only non-water park attraction we hadn’t been to. It was really fun. I particularly enjoyed the “Expedition Everest” roller coaster, that was a bit of an homage to The Matterhorn at Disneyland. There was a great “Indiana Jones”-like ride called “Dinosaur” and a super-fun spinny roller coaster that I don’t remember the name of. The safari ride was cool, even though most of the animals were sleeping in the shade when we came by. Here’s an elephant we saw:


On Friday, the whole crew went the Universal Studios. We bought these passes so that we didn’t have to wait in any lines. They were expensive, but with a group of 17 (including little kids and old people) they were worth it. There was a roller coaster there based on “The Mummy,” which was definitely the crowd favorite. I also liked the “Men in Black” ride, where you got to shoot at aliens and earn points. I got the high score in my car! Another fun thing happened on the “Jaws” ride. My little cousin Rachel got to hold the tour guide’s grenade launcher, and when Jaws popped out of the water, she shot him and saved us all. The whole boat was cheering for Rachel and she seemed very proud. Here’s a photo of Rachel and her sister Bethany with their kill:


On Saturday I discovered my personal Mecca. Well, first Steve and I went to Panera Bread for lunch, which is a restaurant chain that I didn’t think we had around here (further investigation has resulted in me finding four within a 30-minute radius). Panera is absolutely fabulous. I had a warm and tasty artichoke and turkey panini with delicious melted cheese. Just thinking about it is making me salivate. We went there again for breakfast the next day and discovered the cinnamon crunch bagel. Holy cow. I would balloon to 300 lbs. if there were a Panera closer to me. Then I discovered Mecca. We went to see “The Benchwarmers” (very hilarious, but totally trite) at this movie theater in a shopping center that I could easily spend the rest of my life in. It included familiar favorites like Macaroni Grill and SUPER Target (I had never been to a SUPER one before) and new finds like this cosmetics place called ULTA, a salad place called Crispers, this awesome scrapbook store, a very cute clothing boutique, and so many more. AND they had a Panera. I’m seriously considering moving to Orlando just so that I can experience this shopping center more regularly.

After that, we drove to Daytona to meet Erika and Andy at the Chart House for dinner. Daytona is such a pit. Seriously, I was fearing for my life as we drove through some of the bad sections. But the marina (where the Chart House is) was lovely, and we had a very good time visiting with them.

Sunday we hung around my cousin Cara’s house, ate a delicious Easter meal and had a little egg hunt for the kids in the yard. After that, we hung out at Downtown Disney and headed back to the hotel.

All in all, a very nice trip that was WAY too short. Here are a few more pictures. Hopefully I can get an album together tomorrow.