Utter Chaos: Fun-filled, busy weekend

We decided last minute to head out to Orlando late Thursday night rather than Friday morning, and had a WONDERFUL time on our trip. The kids were great on the way up--Summer slept the ENTIRE way because it was her normal bedtime. Garrett chatted and sang and read books for almost 2 hours, before passing out around 8:30 in the car. He was so excited, he kept saying "I want to go to Sea World!" the whole way up. Once we got to the hotel, he did a reasonable job of falling asleep. We were up at the crack of dawn, thanks to Garrett, and were sitting at the gates @ Sea World waiting for them to open.

The first thing we did on Friday was feed the stingrays. I think we spent an entire hour there, Garrett thought it was the coolest thing ever. If we would have let him, he would have happily slithered right into the tank with them. They were really active while we were there, poking their heads out of the water and doing all sorts of other crazy things. When he and Brad fed them, they literally SWARMED around. Garrett was SOAKED by the time all was said and done.

Next we went to the underwater viewing for the dolphins. Garrett seriously thought that was the coolest thing ever. He was running around trying to see them all. And the dolphins were playing with balls, which of course Garrett thought was neat as could be.

Next we went and did the Wild Arctic exhibit. To "get there" we rode The Polar Express. Garrett of course thought it was cool. Brad and I were not impressed. They had the whole Arctic exhibit set up with Christmas decorations, complete with Santa. Yeah, Garrett was NOT impressed by Santa at all. He insisted "Santa's scary!". It pretty much ruined the whole Arctic exhibit--we were looking at Belugas and Walruses and Garrett was still saying "I don't like Santa, he's scary!"

We had a picnic lunch in the parking lot, then came back in for more fun. Garrett finally fell asleep in the stroller. Brad and I went to the whale and dolphin show with him, thinking he would wake up during the show, but he slept through the whole thing. While these pictures aren't the best, you need to understand we were at the TOP of the stadium--I love my camera!

Dolphins throwing trainer in air (I missed it, but still a decent pic)

Of course Garrett woke up as soon as the show was over, so we went to see Clyde and Seymore Take Pirate Island. Garrett really enjoyed it, but the whole time after he kept saying "No more pirates!" He's so silly. Summer actually watched this whole show too--other than that, she slept most of the day.

That was it for day 1. We met Nick and Lindsey and their kids for dinner at the Olive Garden. Garrett was amazingly well behaved considering it was WAY past his bed time. Once we got back, getting him to bed was crazy insane. We won't be going anywhere else any time soon, it was so bad, but that's another story.

Day 2, we started out by feeding the dolphins. They've changed the rules there, so that EVERY adult who goes in (and every kid over 3) has to buy a tray of fish at $7 a pop . . . so I went across the lagoon and took pictures instead. It ended up working out nicely, I got some decent shots. Garrett was sooo excited by this, he had been talking about it all week . . . "I'm gonna feed those dolphins. They're gonna LICK ME!" (Not sure where THAT came from!)

After that, we went and spent another half hour with the stingrays. That was by far his favorite part of the weekend. We went for a drive to get him to take a nap, then had another picnic lunch. We saw the "Pets Ahoy" show, which ended up being super cute. Garrett kept saying "I want more puppies and kitties". We did a few other things, then went to see Shamu's show. Garrett was pretty fried by then, and I don't think he really enjoyed it that much. We headed back to the hotel after that.

Brad and Garrett played at the hotel playground Saturday evening, and then we had to struggle with him to get to bed again. But the upside was we were ALL asleep by 7 and pretty much slept through the night until 6:30. So it was some good much needed rest.

We got up in the morning, checked out of the hotel, had breakfast at IHOP, then drove an hour to Kennedy Space Center. It was soooo cool! Garrett was on his best behavior while we were there--probably due to the wonderfully long night of sleep he had. He was excited by the space ships until we did an exhibit they had on robots, then that was all he would talk about.

Me and the kids in front of the Explorer replica and the rockets.