Orlando 2013 - Part 3

Is she STILL blogging about her vacation?  Doesn't she have anything ELSE going on? 

No.  Not really.  Ever since I got home it has been F-to-the-REEZING and I can actually feel the air particles as I breathe in and out so needless to say we have been stuck inside doing NOT a lot of exciting stuff. 

So....back to the trip.

Next up was Epcot.  We weren't sure the kids would be entertained all day but we all had a great time.  They all liked the Nemo ride and had a great time looking at the seahorses and sharks (in separate tanks of course).

Unfortunately, Arden got too close to one of the sharks and it ate her.  They both seem happy about it:

After that we did some more big fun rides...Test Track and Mission Space!  It was my first time on both of these rides, and they were pretty fun.  I made everyone go on the "less intense" (less vomit) side of Mission Space.  Have you been on that ride?  Thre are four people in a spaceship simulator, each one is assigned a task.  I got assigned to be the Engineer.  I immediately started practicing.  "SHE CANNA TAKE MUCH MORE A THIS CIPTIN!"  I yelled to my sister Val, who had somehow been assigned as Commander instead of me. "I CANNA CHANGE THE LAWS OF PHYSICS!" I got a couple of eye rolls from the commander, who clearly doesn't know what is funny.

Gary Sinise helpfully explained to us via video monitor that we each had two very important buttons to push to make our missions successful.  I got to push the button to put us into hypersleep on our way to Mars, and then I got to push the button for I forget what else.  Thanks, Gary Sinise.

We loaded up into our simulator, pulled down our shoulder harnesses, and looked for our buttons.  There were actually lots of switches and buttons, but the two "important" buttons were clearly labelled.  I immediately noticed the air sick bags and verified with the pilot that we were in the non-vomit version of the ride.

I also immediately noticed a huge air vent blowing a 70 mph wind directly into my face.  My arms were under a shoulder harness and I couldn't block this hurricane-force wind from hitting me.  I started madly pushing buttons and switching switches but still the wind blew.  I was getting fairly annoyed when Gary Sinise popped up on my monitor to announce it was time for takeoff.  I commented to him that it was way to windy in the spaceship for me to be able to fulfill my duties.  He completely ignored me!  The spaceship took off without my concerns being addressed.  My forehead was being ripped from my skull the wind was so strong.  I yelled at Mr. Sinise that if ground control did NOT do something about the air vent that I was going on strike and no one was going to make it to hypersleep or whatever my other button was supposed to do either.  Still, the wind raged.

The other three people in the craft dutifully were pushing their buttons to fire thrusters and what not, and the commander was yelling for me to stay focused.  Stay focused?  My eyes are watering too much from all the wind for me to focus on anything!  Soon that doofus Gary is telling me to hit the hypersleep button.  I loudly told him that I refused to do so since my working conditions were unacceptable, and also pointed out that he never even got to GO to space in Apollo 13, so what the heck does he know?  Commander Val was threatening to relieve me of duty, but I stood my ground and still refused to push any buttons.  Val used her freakishly long and flexible arms to push my button for me.  Rude.  Soon we got to Mars and flew around nearly crashing into things.  I was supposed to push another button for some reason, but since I was getting brain freeze from the wind I again refused.  Maybe that button was important, because we ended up hanging on the edge of a Martian cliff while Val shrieked that she was going to throw me in the brig.  Gary Sinise told us all not to move a muscle or we might fall over the cliff to our deaths.  At this point, I didn't care if I lived or died, as long as the wind stopped blowing on my face so I began frantically throwing my body against my restraints.  Gary Sinise can't tell me what to do!  Somehow, we didn't fall and our mission ended safely.  Finally I was able to get out of that stupid wind tunnel. I happily skipped down the exit when everyone on my "team," (and I use the term loosely) informed me that I was the crappiest engineer in the history of engineering.  In the history of crappiness.  In the history of history.  Whatever.  Fun ride!

We headed around the world next, picking up our Phineas and Ferb spy phones along the way.  These phones let the kids do little spy missions in the various countries to keep them entertained since the World Showcase is not exactly aimed at little kids.  First stop:  England!

Cora had no idea what this box even was.  A telephone booth?  Completely irrelevant in today's iPhone world.  (by the way, where does Superman change his clothes now that there are no more phone booths?)  See?  Here are Arden and Brynn hiding behind a garbage can so Dr. Doofenschmirtz won't see them getting a secret message using their secret spy cell phones:

The kids had a great time running from place to place finding clues, but the adults got a little bored watching them scamper back and forth and stare at their cells phones.  Oh well, we are here for the kids, right?  (riiiiight)  We watched some shows in England but then headed out of the world showcase, ate some lunch, made a mandatory Captain EO stop (Hee hee!), and then sampled some soda from around the world:

I liked the watermelon soda from China.  The stuff from Italy was pretty nasty.  While we were there, they were playing music, and they played the Electric Slide.  All the employees started doing it so we joined in...ahh, it brought me right back to junior high.  Ick.  The sun started setting:

And so we set off on a journey back around to world.  I tried to take a turn holding Daxton's hand.  He was letting me get away with it, but when I tried to get a picture he wasn't too pleased:

We did another Phineas and Ferb mission in Mexico, and then saw some Uh-MAZE-ing acrobats in China.  We headed over to a pub by the water back in the UK for dinner, and watched the fireworks show from there.  Awesome!

 

The next day we went to the beach.  The weather was supposed to be warm, and it was!  Yay!  I went for a run that morning and it was about 75 degrees and 100 percent humidity.  I ran pretty well but was dying from sweat, and started to get a little worried about the race that was only a couple of days away.  I was looking forward to hitting the beach and jumping in the nice cool water.  We headed to the closest beach, Cocoa Beach.  Unfortunately, by the time we drove to the coast, it was pretty cloudy.  Boo!  Oh well.  High-70's temps and some clouds sounds pretty good, doesn't it? 

It wasn't as nice as Siesta Key beach, but in January, a beach is a beach, right?  The water was a little cold, but some of us (not me, but Dan and Kohl) were brave and ventured out pretty deep.  They even rented boogie boards later on.

A couple of times it started to sprinkle a little bit of rain on us, but we got a little bit of rainbow to make up for it:

There was lots of splashing, a little swimming, lots of bird chasing (the seagulls there were aggressive!), and some sandcastle building:

I can't believe I still didn't finish blogging this trip, but I am giving up again.  Someday I will be done....