Colorful Way to Start the Holiday!
Jenn unofficially started planning this trip near the end of last summer when she and her girlfriends, Kandis and Alex, decided they wanted to compete in a half Ironman race. They did a little research and found one in Haines City, Florida, about a half hour drive from Orlando / Disney. Jenn then booked us a house with a pool, called up Grandma & Grandpa Boys and Tim & Wendy, and voila – we had a vacation to look forward to! (And a little bit of training for the race of course!)
So, with Jenn’s bike in tow, we arrived in Florida late on a Friday night and drove to the rental house to meet Jenn’s folks who had already moved into the house earlier that afternoon. Auntie Wendy was there with baby cousin Ruby, too, and Uncle Tim was due to get the party started the following day upon his arrival.
Of course, it wouldn’t be holidays if we didn’t have to get up early the day after a late arrival for some sort of activity! ;0) Jenn’s friend Destiny (who was also vacationing in the area at the same time) had suggested both our families do this little 5K race called ‘Run or Dye’. It was pretty fun and totally kid friendly – I don’t think we ran a single step! Everyone had fun and got ‘splashed’ with this chalky (dry) dye at every km marker, we were all pretty colorful by the end.
Whoa.
After quick showers back at the house (I’m sure I looked funny driving back to the house with dye all over my head and face), we all got a drink and commenced relaxing by the pool! We had fun with Ruby in the pool, too, as it was her first time swimming – she seemed to enjoy it!
Naturally Jenn couldn’t relax for too long before getting the itch to hit the nearby Super Target… I believe she actually went twice this first day!
The following day involved more relaxing and Target shopping – we were laying low and hanging with Grandma & Grandpa as it was their 40th anniversary! The girls brought out their culinary skills and we had a nice celebratory dinner at the house, complete with the customary box(es!) of wine. Good times!
We started the week with a trip to Legoland, we arrived as they opened at the reasonable hour of 10am and had a pretty enjoyable day. We had been there before when it was brand new a few years back and it was SO much better this time, mainly as it wasn’t as crowded… hardly any lines for anything. We – um, I mean the kids – even got to meet Wyldstyle and Emmet from the Lego Movie!
Tuesday was the only rainy day of our whole trip, and of course it was the day Ryley had an appoinment at the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique to have a princess makeover! Kandis and Destiny brought their daughters (as well as Kandis’ sister’s daughter) in to meet up for makeovers too, they all went for lunch afterwards at a dino-themed restaurant called T-Rex. The rest of the family hung around Downtown Disney in the off-and-on rain, popping in and out of stores and eventually hitting Fulton’s Crab House for lunch. Then it was back to the house in a crazy freak rain storm for yet more relaxing… isn’t that what holidays are for?
Welcome to Epcot
Wendy had a burning desire to pick some fresh citrus fruit while in Florida (“when in Rome”), so we found some ads for ‘Showcase of Citrus‘ which was just up the highway from the house, promising over 60 varieties of fruit and much fun and enjoyment. Unfortunately it wasn’t to be, upon our arrival there on Wednesday morning the place seemed frozen in a time past (not in a good way) and there wasn’t much fruit to speak of (we tried finding some!). We were nearly temped to stay for a monster truck school bus ride, but it just wasn’t enough. ;0)
Later that afternoon, Jenn and I took the kids to the swimming pool at the hotel in Disney’s Animal Kingdom to meet up with Kandis the kids. Josh & Ryley took a liking to the baby waterslide (they were scared of the bigger one for some reason!), and Ryley had a great time dancing to the music being played and playing games on the pool deck put on by the kind folks there at Disney. Meanwhile Josh kicked my butt at ping-pong (then later I beat him at fooseball)… I’ve said it before – Disney sure knows how to do a family resort right.
We ‘spaced out’ the following day, taking a little drive over to Cape Canaveral to soak up all that the Kennedy Space Center had to offer. We saw an actual rocket launch (the rocket was putting a spy satellite into orbit – no kidding!), plus we saw our 2nd space shuttle, Atlantis (the first being Discovery during our trip to Washington last year). It was fun for the whole fam-damily, and what a better way to finish up a day of space exploration than with dinner at PF Chang’s?
Iron Women!
The weekend was approaching and with it Jenn’s half Ironman – there was a mandatory race briefing on Friday so Jenn took Ryley to Haines City while the rest of us went off to Epcot for an enjoyable day of food, culture, rides, and flowers! (There was some sort of flower festival happening while we were there…) Disney struck again as we all had a great day – it was busy but didn’t feel crazy busy, there was lots to see and the food was really great; I think we all agreed we could go back someday! Plus Josh was a trooper, he walked all day long and didn’t complain a bit which was awesome.
The day before Jenn’s race there was an ‘Ironkids’ race – just a short running race along a part of the actual race course. (Ryley had to try out her new running outfit, of course…!) Then finally, after months of her diligent training, the big half Ironman race on Sunday! Jenn did amazing (as did Kandis and Alex), coming in well beneath her goal time of 6 hours – further details here!
Unfortunately we had to get up super early to make our flight the next morning – but we had another great trip; lots of visiting time with the family and of course lots of pictures below per usual… enjoy!
