We had a two hour delay at the airport in Detroit due to weather. It was a very pleasant shock to get away from below freezing Michigan (-10 when we left) and into warm Orlando (when we landed it was 75 degrees!)
We stayed at the Polynesian Isle Resorts. James found a great deal on travelzoo for half of what his conference was paying for a single hotel room. It was only a couple miles from the conference (and also right by Disney World and Sea World). We had 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms (the master had a huge jetted tub which I loved and took full advantage of).
Our local Lansing Potter Park Zoo membership got us in free to the Central Florida Zoo. Ellie was so excited to see the Animals. As we were driving to the zoo she was in her car seat continuously signing and saying "animal." I guess she wanted to make sure we didn't forget where we were going.
The armadillo wasn't even actually part of the zoo. I've never seen an armadillo in the wild before, so that was pretty exciting. It didn't seem at all scared of us, which made me nervous because Brielle wasn't scared of it either and was trying to get close enough to touch.
After driving through the city of Celebration (a city built by Disney with a very Truman Show feel), we decided to try miniature golfing. I don't think James and I have ever been together before. Brielle obviously loved the new experience.
This course had "volcano" in the middle of it, which periodically made a loud noise blowing fire out of the top. Brielle jumped every single time, and would have been scared if she didn't look at us to make sure it was normal.
While James was at the conference Tuesday morning Brielle and I went over to the Peabody Hotel. They happen to have ducks that live in their own penthouse and everyday at 11am they ride down the elevator and come jump in the water. It was a bit random to see ducks racing off an elevator, but Ellie and I were both excited to see the ducks. At 5pm each evening they get out of the pond in the lobby to trek back up to their penthouse suite.
We decided not to go to Disney World on this trip (due to lack of time and money) but stopped at Downtown Disney to capture a little piece of the Disney experience. They have a lot of fun shops there. This is at Rainforest Cafe.
And this is outside the Lego store. The dogs and people are obviously all made out of legos...very cool.
One of the vendors at the conference gave away some free tickets for an after-hours event at Sea World. They provided a free dinner and then had a few of the attractions open. Ellie wasn't tall enough to ride on anything and I wasn't supposed to due to being 7 months pregnant. We still enjoyed seeing the baluga whales and penguins at the Wild Artic. Brielle loved playing in the sand at Happy Harbor.
But the Shamu Rocks Show was our favorite event. It was cold that night (for Florida at least...it was in the 40s) but that didn't stop us from sitting in the splash zone to see the killer whales preform!
Just as a side note we did more than play. James attended sessions at the conference and also had a couple interviews for a residency position at University of Florida. They were impressed enough with him that they are flying him out to their school next weekend so he can actually see the facilities and meet the others there.
1 comment:
Wow, it looks like you had a lot of fun! And that's so great that the weather was so nice! And guess what! Only 65 days until I'm coming out!
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