Legoland Part 1

On Sunday, November 15, we had to check out of our condo by 10 a.m. and could only check in to our next resort at 4 p.m. We decided that would be the perfect day to do another park, so we decided to drive to Winter Haven (about 45 minutes away) and to go Legoland! There were signs with different Lego characters all over the parking lot so that we could remember where we parked. Everything was made of Lego and I was really impressed with how much detail went into them. Our first stop was the Island in the Sky, which allowed us to see the whole park from way up high. Here is an aerial shot of my favorite ride at that park: Mia's Riding Adventure. We sat on horses and it swung back and forth while spinning around. Here's the Legoland Florida Resort Posing with the Lego Movie characters: Emmet and Wyldstyle Posing with a Lego Friends character: Olivia Legoland used to be Cypress Gardens and they kept some of the beautiful trees, flowers, etc. so it is a beautiful park! We actually got all 3 kids on this ride: Coastersaurus. There aren't very many wooden roller coasters left in Florida. I've always liked these kinds of signs. We were really impressed with the Ford Lego! Kiera and Blake did the Ford Driving School and it was SO cute to see all of the kids driving around in their little vehicles! At the end, they got their driver's licenses. :) Kiera did Flight School and before that, we all did Boating School. I was NOT good at steering the boat. It was really difficult! The line-up for Safari Trek was probably the longest that day...about half an hour. I really enjoyed seeing all of the intricate Lego animals! They had Lego to play with while we were waiting in line, which was great! Posing with Darth Maul (I think). I'm not really up on my Star Wars characters but Google is! Darth Vader I took over 100 pictures at Legoland, which I'm not posting all of them, but I have so many pictures that I have to split up the day into 2 blog posts! More Legoland to come...

Florida Trip Days 7, 8 + 9

On Thursday, the 6th day of our trip, I didn’t take any pictures. That was the day that Jared finally decided to listen to his wife and go see a doctor since it was his 3rd day of almost non-stop fevers. Thank the Lord that we had 100% travel medical coverage. Our provider picked the clinic that Jared was supposed to go to, faxed over the paperwork and we didn’t have to pay one penny out of pocket, besides for the prescription he got, which we were later reimbursed for. Just to see the doctor, the base price started at $325! YIKES! God provided so that cost wasn’t our’s! I just hung out by the pool with the kids while Jared laid around inside the condo after getting back from the doctor. We went to Longhorn Steakhouse for supper and all of us had steak except for Haley. I had brought some games along to play at our condo and while we were there, we taught the kids how to play 6 Nimmt. A girl from Germany gave it to my friend who then invited me over to play games and that’s when I first heard of it. My Mom ordered it for us online as a gift one Christmas, so now we own it. It was neat to teach them a new game, although Blake didn’t quite understand exactly how it worked and needed help. It became a favorite “after breakfast” game. Friday was our 2nd last full day at our condo (the 13th) and as Jared finally didn’t have fevers anymore, we decided to explore the grounds of our resort. This was the beautiful roundabout that we took to get to our condo building. We went to see an alligator show at one of the other pools. This was the pool We then went to the clubhouse pool and ended up spending the afternoon there. That pool definitely had the best view out to the lake. They even have their own beach but unfortunately, these water activities were ridiculously expensive. I discovered that palm trees with no tops on them actually aren’t pretty. The size of this tree made me stop in awe! God’s creation just wows me! This was a different tree…there was beauty all around! Another picture of the roundabout When we got to the clubhouse pool, the kids immediately gravitated to this middle-aged man from New Brunswick. I noticed his laugh right away and I would describe him as “jolly.” The kids just loved him (as you can see)! There was also a sweet older Spanish lady from Naples, Florida who wanted to take Haley home with her. Although I have no doubt that Haley would have been doted on, we decided to keep her with us. ;) It was so neat to be able to connect with different people from all over the place! Kiera practicing her back float I think people were looking at me funny when I walked up to the bar to take a picture of this bush, but it was too gorgeous not to take a picture of! That night, we wanted to try a pizza restaurant and after doing much Google searching, we decided on Uno Pizzeria & Grill as they had deep dish Chicago-style pizza. It turns out that was the most memorable restaurant I’ve maybe ever been to! First of all, they brought out what looked like red play dough for the kids. It was actually pizza dough that they got to make into whatever shape they wanted. Then, the server took the dough shapes, baked them in the oven and brought them back with chocolate sauce and icing sugar sprinkled on top! That was all free, too! We ordered one pizza and it was plenty of food! It actually wasn’t my favorite pizza as it had chunky tomatoes instead of pizza sauce but I’m still glad we tried it. Plus, my smoothie was only a couple of dollars and they gave Jared his Coke for free! As we were waiting for our pizza, there was a guy walking around making balloons for people. He made a flower for Kiera… a Minion for Blake… and a puppy for Haley! I loved how our kids were entertained the whole time and it was one of our cheapest restaurant meals! It was just such a neat experience! Apparently, I only took one picture on the first Saturday we were there but I did keep track of what we did in my Thankful Journal. We spent the day by the pool and a girl came up to me who looked close to my age. She had heard that we were from Manitoba and she said that she was originally from Winnipeg, she has a daughter named Kiera, an aunt who lives in Steinbach and is related to Derksens and Barkmans (my Grandma was a Barkman). My jaw just dropped! The world can be so small sometimes! We went to IHop for supper and we had a waiter who cracked jokes the whole time which was great! At around 8 p.m., we took the kids to see the Cinderella Movie that was playing on a big screen outside by the Clubhouse pool at our resort. They got multiple bags of free popcorn. Jared stayed with the kids while I went to finish up the laundry (it was fantastic having in-suite laundry) and finish packing up all of our stuff as we were switching resorts the next day. This was the one Saturday picture Jared took of us outside a gift shop we stopped at. There are some interesting-looking gift shops around there! More adventures to come in week 2!