Family Vacation 2015

To kick off our Spring Break, we ventured to Universal & Islands of Adventure with the Goobers!

Best choice of our trip--renting a van.

Will I ever buy a van? No.

Did I love the endless space & automatic doors? You betcha!

Both boys enjoyed the movies played on the DVD player, as well as having all the snacks for our trip within arms reach.

(C and I call eachother 'eye twins.'  His eyes are always amazing in pictures.  Love him so!)

This goon was supposed to nap for the whole drive there, but opted for a quick cat nap then was recharged for movie time and endless snacking.

Whatever Noah saw Connor eat, he had to have some too.

The Pringle Monster.

Side note:  Why is there not a vacuum extension invented for the sides of carseats?  Chip crumbs are the devil.

Oh & this Smarty Pants knows how to navigate the Ipad on his own.   It's really the oddest thing seeing such a tiny person use technology without assistance.

If Matt had a say, we'd own a minivan.  He loved it!

When we arrived at the hotel, the boys enjoyed a good bath together.  Big brother gets a kick out of messing with the Noah Monster.  C always takes full responsibility for teaching Noah how to identify and say his numbers from 1-10.  Having siblings is great!

The next day we took on Islands of Adventure & Universal allllllll day.  Since C is so much into the Avengers right now, I was happy to see he was tall enough to go on some of the super hero rides, like SpiderMan ride and the Transformers Ride.  He was pumped to go on the SpiderMan ride first (simulated 3-D ride).  After being on it for a few seconds, I had a Mom Panic Moment where I realized my sweet boy may be tall enough, but it still may be too scary for him.  Sure enough, I practiced the art of 'close your eyes when you're scared' and kept talking calmly to him, reminding him it wasn't real & it was almost over.  My whole 'this is going to be the best vacation ever' started to crumble after getting off ride one.  I just kept with my upbeat Mom voice & C was just the cutest...

"Um, Mom.  I think I will really like that ride when I'm a little older.  Like 7 or something?!"

Bless his little heart.  He seems so big yet so little sometimes.

When we saw SpiderMan was there for pictures, we hopped in line.  After pictures with him, C said to me,

"I know he wasn't the real SpiderMan, but he sounded a lot like him."

We then had a short talk about even if he realizes the characters aren't real, that he needs to 'play along' for Noah's sake.

See what I mean?! Sometimes he seems so little yet seems so big sometimes.

Why must they grow up?!

But it was when we reached SuessLand, that my Mommy voids were fulfilled.  Both boys were in HEAVEN!  It was the Grinch, Sam I am, and Cat & the Hat!  The rides were fun, not scary.  The lines were short.  It was magical & I savored every last second of it!

Noah's favorite (and only) ride!  He loved the carousel!

I decided to snap a pic of the boys after lunch in SuessLand.  C was giving Matt bunny ears (or trying to) and Noah was pooping in the photo.  Kodak moments.

From there, we hopped over to Universal for some rides--faves were Despicable Me & the ET ride.  We scarfed down dinner at the NBA City restaurant there, rode a few more rides in SuessLand, and ended the day on a high note!  Noah was fast asleep before we got back to the hotel (which did super awesome things to our night's sleep...he woke ready to party from 2am-6am).  I spent the final hours of the morning holding Noah asleep in bed to catch just a few hours of sleep (since he wouldn't let me put him down).  When we got up, Matt & I must've been out-of-our-vacationing-minds when we threw out the surprise stop of Legoland on our way home!

The lines were long, C may have had a grumpy meltdown when he didn't get a carousel horse next to Noah, BUT lunch was wonderful, the boys had fun, and we ended the trip happy!

Waiting in line for lunch.  Noah has the 'innocent, but definitely guilty' face on.

A pizza buffet?!  The boys enjoyed every second of it.

(If you notice, I'm wearing strapless the entire trip.  This was my once chance to get sun (and no tan lines) before my sister's wedding in a few days.  What we didn't know was there was a cold front that came through that morning & I'm pretty sure I was the only one without proper clothing coverage for the weather conditions.  What Floridian in their right mind would think to pack jackets & sweaters to go the a theme park at the end of March?!  I was worried about everyone getting too hot.  Definitely not the case this day.  I think it was in the mid 60's.)

On our way out of the park, we spotted a giant 'W' (Noah's absolute favorite letter for some reason).  The whole trip he was pointing out letters & fascinated with all the large lettering everywhere.  We thought it was appropriate to have Noah pictured with his 'W.'  

When he realized he was on a 'W', he kept pointing and repeating "duh-doo" while I tried to get a decent picture.  Funny, odd little kid.

We hopped across the street for some Perkins dinner before hitting the road home.  We were all exhausted, but the food helped a lot!  The kids were great & the entire weekend was worth it!