Come sail away...

On Wednesday, we took a break from Disney and headed up to Port Richey and chartered a boat to take us to a private island just off the coast in the Gulf of Mexico. The two hour drive was hard as everyone struggled to stay awake (we left Magic Kingdom after 11:30 the night before and headed out first thing in the am).

We met out captain, Mark, and headed off on an 8 hour adventure! This was Shay's first time on a boat, so we didn't know if she would get seasick. So I made her chew on some ginger. Yuck!

Riding on the front of the boat.

We sailed out for some time, then stopped to snorkel! The flippers were a hit. The mask and breathing tube, not so much. So Shay wore goggles. Ed and Peyton went out first to check everything out. Tami and I decided- eh, we'll stay on the boat and watch.

The boys out snorkeling.

After some father- son time, they came back to take Shay who was so excited to go!

Oooh, the water is warm!

Not scared of water anymore!

They found a live scallop!

After a little bit of snorkeling, we sailed off for another 2 hours to our private island. Some of us were a little tired.

Don't know why she'd be tired!

The very small private island!

Her first beach experience- and she ran right out to make sandcastles.

Whole shell.

Sand dollar pieces for Grammy.

Her footprint!

See the dolphin?

We spotted at least 2 dolphins circling the island. I only took about 30 pictures, and this is the best I could get. Shay never saw them (later on Grammy had asked her if she saw any dolphins and her reply was "No, because I can't follow a finger point!").

Another 2 hours back to the dock, so we just chilled and enjoyed the beautiful day. There were storms off in the distance- Orlando got slammed, so we were glad that we picked this day to go to the beach instead of Disney.

Me (l) with my pretty cool sister (r).

So much fun!

Ended the day with a rainbow!

It was such a great time. I didn't know I would enjoy it so much. I had no idea that Shay would really love it.

Tomorrow- Roar! Guess where we are going?

I know Mickey and the Gang- but who are these other characters?

Magic Kingdom! Isn't it the ultimate Disney experience?! I think when most people think Disney, they think of the Cinderella Castle. It's iconic. And all the magic that is there. It is awesome. So, we went in with those expectations, and let me tell you, the hype is well deserved. IT IS AWESOME! Like I said on the Surprise Vacation post, we didn't plan this trip. Shay had no expectations. In fact, she has only seen one 2 Disney movies ever- the Aristocats and Bambi. We tried Finding Nemo and The Little Mermaid, but those have conflict (AKA- villians) and we just couldn't get through those. Shay knows who Cinderella, Belle, Sleeping Beauty, and Tinkerbell are, but only because of the overly marketed princess stuff you trip over in every store. However, she doesn't know anything about the characters or the stories.

Is it sad that I am the only one who looks happy to be at Magic Kingdom?

 First stop, after getting one of those cool motorized wheelchairs (best money spent- Pop Pop could keep up with us), it was off to stand in line to see Princesses.

Sleeping Beauty

Belle

Cinderella

 

 

The Castle!

We caught a quick show on the castle, with a whole bunch of characters Shay didn't know (Peter Pan characters). Then off to the only two rides Shay knew existed- the Teacups and Dumbo!

Spinning fast.

No picture of the Dumbo ride because it was too hard to fly and take a picture!

She also got to drive a race car- I let her steer (oh what was I thinking!)

Yikes!

 

 

She met quite a few characters- way too many to put pictures up with. And we watched the 3o'clock parade- held at, you guessed it, 3 o'clock. Went through It's a Small World (air conditioned!) and climbed up Swiss Family Robinson Tree house. Then, in Florida fashion, a thunderstorm rolled up and we took cover and caught a bear show. We waited 45 minutes to see Tink and some other fairy. Met up with Tami, Ed, and Peyton, ate dinner, and then headed out to watch the Electric Light Parade. If you do any parade- this is a must (photos by my sister- thanks sis)!

It was crowded, and hot, but awesome. Then we hurried off to get a good view for the fireworks over the castle.

After the fireworks, we walked by an Mickey was still taking pictures! It was after 11- poor guy works so hard!

Long day.

After seeing Mickey, who was awesome, of course, we went to get her ears. No pics with the ears yet. Shay was so tired, after the monorail ride back to the parking lot, she was sleep walking to the car. She was snoring before I finished buckling her carseat up. It was a long day! We were so tired, I missed the exit somehow and ended up in a neighborhood called Celebration. No idea how we got there, but talking to my sister when we got back to the condo, she had done the same thing when she left the park too (we left at different times!).

Tomorrow- Did someone say snorkeling?

What's it take to get Disney Tickets?

Before we drove down, my sister told us about this deal Disney is running for the military: $138 4 day Park Hopper Tickets for Members of the US Military.  Pop Pop was in the military during Vietnam, so we thought he'd qualify. Unfortunately for us, you have to be current military or retired with 20 years service. Great deal if you qualify. Bummer for us as Pop Pop only served 4 years. So Monday morning (8:30am!) my sister and her boyfriend went to a time share meeting in hopes of scoring good tickets. Over 2 hours later, yeah, not so much with the deal. So we ended up going to breakfast and would try to figure out which park to go to since it seemed like we could only afford one day. While at Denny's I saw a sign for discount tickets to Disney. Another time share tour? We decided that spending a few more hours at another tour would be worth the price they were asking for tickets. So Grammy, Pop Pop, and my sister went to the the tour.

That left Ed (my sister's boyfriend) Peyton, Shay, and myself with nothing to do for a few hours. So we hit the pool at the resort.

Watch me!

By myself!

Look how comfortable she is!

This was the first time she's been in the pool without a life jacket. She was so traumatized after last years swim lessons that she was afraid of the pool. Looks like we'll make a swimmer out of her yet.

A few hours of swimming, and then Shay and I headed back to the condo to get cleaned up. After her shower, she fell asleep! (anyone who knows Shay knows that this NEVER happens!) While she was sleeping everyone came back to the condo, and we scored some sweet tickets. No soul selling today!

So off to Epcot we went for the evening! We got there around 5pm. The park is so much bigger than it looks on the map, and being our first time at Disney, we were overwhelmed!

In front of the "golf ball."

We walked aimlessly around, searching for characters, and not really knowing what to do first with so little time. We decided to go across the pond and go to see "The Hall of Presidents."

All the way over there.

When we got there, all I saw was an empty room. So I asked a cast member where the hall was, and he replied "You will find the Hall of Presidents at Magic Kingdom." Yeah. Fun times. So we walked around to the other countries instead, and made our way over to Mission Space. There was a ride to Mars, so of course we all went on it. Shay was excited.

Looks cool from the outside.

Excited and a little nervous.

So while we are in the room waiting to go on the ride, they keep mentioning how if you are unsure about this ride, to go to the exit. Yeah, should have listened. It was a simulator ride. I thought, not so bad, right. Wrong. All of a sudden we blasted off into space and Shay was gripping my hand so tight. I couldn't see her because we were strapped in so tight. We dodged asteroids, landed on a cliff, part of the planet broke, and we skidded down a runway. I don't have an after picture, because I was on damage control. Poor Shay. And now she is no longer interested in being an astronaut!

To make up for it, I took her to Club Cool for some FREE soda tasting. There was soda from different parts of the world. This might have helped me secure cool mommy status again.

Worst picture ever.

Her favorite was a ginger ale from Mozambique.

When it got dark, there was an awesome firework display. There was the Earth in the water, and fire coming out all over. It was cool. Very loud and bits of firework powder went everywhere. But it was awesome.

We saw it from the wheelchair section because of Pop Pop.

The Earth was out on the water and changed colors.

The Earth opened up and fireworks came out.

Overall, I thought Epcot was ok. It might have been nice if we went earlier. Some of the attractions closed earlier in the day, and we found only one character. This was not Shayleigh' favorite park. I heard about how the Mars ride was awful the rest of the night until she fell alseep.

Tomorrow- Magic Kingdom! Can we open and close the park?

Suprise Vacation!

This past week we went to Florida on a last minute trip with my sister, her boyfriend, and his son, Peyton. We were asked to go on Thursday evening and left bright and early (5am) on Sunday. Friday and Saturday were spent getting last minute things for Florida. Ever try getting a new bathing suit in August? Ha! You'd have better luck buying Christmas wrapping paper.

So Sunday morning we packed up the car, got our thermoses of coffee ready, and headed out.

Bright eyed and bushy tailed. The grown ups, not so much.

 Shay was super excited that we would be going to Florida. We have driven through all the states south of us before- but always stopped at Georgia. The whole way down "I can't believe we're going to Florida!" was peppered in between her playing her leapster (thank goodness for headphones!) As we drove through each state, she asked if we were going to go through the capitals. She started naming the capitals, and I think she enjoyed when we either went through them (Richmond) or saw signs for them. We found out that Richmond is super stinky and that the Cay River in Georgia has this indescribable smell. Because the van doesn't have a CD player, or a ipod usb, we also learned the words to many of the songs on the radio because they played them over and over again through the different cities. While, Adele's "Rolling in the deep" is an awesome song, it started to lose it's awesomeness after hearing it on every station for 13 hours!

I made some observations on the drive about the different types of drivers in the states we drove through (please no one get offended if I mention your state!) Maryland drivers need to go fast. They will run you over and weave throughout all the lanes to get in the fast lane. Virginia drivers will just ride your bumper in the left lane. They don't care that you can't get over to allow them to pass. I guess they expect you to do 100MPH if you are in the left lane. North Carolina drivers seem to think they should make sure everyone does the speed limit. I followed many rolling road blocks with NC drivers leading the way. South Carolina drivers- I found they were ok. Doing their thing and staying clear of crazies! Georgia drivers were ok too- a little cautious, but Georgia was the ONLY state that I actually saw cops pulling people over the whole way down. Florida drivers only know one way to drive- FAST. I don't think there is a speed limit in Florida. Many times I found myself doing 90 and still not able to keep up with the pack. Along the way there were drivers from other states. Among the most obnoxious was New Jersey! There was this Jeep who seemed to be stuck with us for a while. He would speed up in the right lane (and try to push cars only doing 10 over the speed limit) and try to wedge himself in between packs of cars that were traveling at 85 MPH. Like getting one more car ahead would help. I think he was in and out of our pack for an hour and still only managed to get 5 cars ahead of me. We all enjoyed the high speed breaking. An hour later, he came up behind us again. I guess somewhere along the way, we stopped for a bathroom break, and so did he. Repeat for another hour. There were a few other NJ drivers that I encountered along the way that traveled the same. I really felt like I was the only driver out there that was aware of my surroundings. If people wanted to go faster, I was all for moving over, provided I could do so safely. Driving for me sadly proved that so many people are only looking out for themselves.  Maybe next time we will fly!

After 10 hours- here we are in Florida!

3 more hours to Orlando!

We arrived 13 hours after we left. Tired! But so happy to not be on the road. We ate dinner as a big family. At the restaurant there was a huge gift shop. Bathing suits galore- starting at $12! We'll have to keep that in mind for the next time.

The view from the condo was awesome. We could see Sea World from the balcony.

Screened in Balcony.

You can barely see Sea World beyond the pond.

Fireworks over Sea World!

We went down to the clubhouse and Shay watched Peyton play video games. It was funny- you needed a card to play the games and underneath the games there was a sign that said to "swipe here to play," meaning to swipe the card. Shay would go by them and run her finger across the pad, then say "I've swiped, why isn't it working!"

A little guitar hero.

The first night was a little hard to get to sleep. Monday's plan was to find tickets for Disney.

Tomorrow's blog-  what we learned our first full day in Orlando. Do you need to sell your soul for discount tickets to Disney? 

Alphabetizing and the Perfectionist

We found this website- it's a UK site, so some of the content on the site is oriented for children in that part of the world (UK history, metric system, etc), but it has an interactive alphabetizing game, that so far seems like it works for children on this side of the pond. It's called www.primaryresources.co.uk.

Pretty basic.

Click and drag into ABC order. Easy.

                                    

A little harder.

She thinks she got it  right.

I can't look, I can't look.

She is terrified of getting it wrong. I told her nothing would happen if she did get it wrong. I don't know what she thinks will happen- little men will pop out of the computer and smack her on the head? I don't know. Sigh. This is something we are working through. "It might get harder, do you want to keep going," I ask?

All "c" words.

WOW!

Oh man, going 3 letters in!

Well little guys didn't come out of the computer, but I did get this.

Going for a second try.

Covering her eyes as she hits enter.

I can't look, I can't look.

She did great! She went up about 10 levels. A few times she would put them in order, but before she hit send she would ask me if it was right, and I would always tell her (whether she got them all correct or some of them wrong) that she could check it again, and if she thought she was right to go ahead. Most of the time, if she made mistakes she found them before she hit enter. A few times, she was wrong.


After she completed 10 levels (and then it was getting REALLY hard), she asked to play it again.

You go Shayleigh!

Anyone else have a perfectionist at their house? Tell me, how do you deal with it?

The School Room- Before

This year Shay is getting her own school room. The dining room table just isn't working for us anymore. We are lucky to have a good size room available-  approximately 13.5"x8.5".

The wall coloring is currently a minty green. It seriously hasn't been painted in 30 years. The lighter green is paint from before that. There were shelves all over the walls. I've since patched and sanded. Hopefully the strips will be covered.

The paint choices.

 A paint color has been chosen, but tell me, what swatch do you like best?

The closet. The books in the baskets will go on a 6 foot tall bookshelf.

Shay's desk and art cart.

View from the other side of the room.

I painted the ceiling and the trim, both white. I am hoping to tape off the ceiling and trim tomorrow and hopefully by early next week, we will be ready to set the room up.