I'm backkkkkkkkk....................

I had quite a week+ with my family in sunny Orlando. We visited the Animal Kingdom on Sunday, Typhoon Lagoon Water Park on Monday, Universal Studios on Tuesday, Epcot on Wednesday,  the Magic Kingdom on Thursday, and Typhoon Lagoon again on Friday. My favorite parks were Epcot and Typhoon Lagoon. They were less crowded and at the Lagoon I was able to lie in the sun for a bit and read. Reading while sitting the sun...now that is MY idea of the ideal vacation activity.

Lara (our youngest) was sick was a really super bad stomach virus on our first Saturday, Sunday, and Monday--which was really and truly a bummer. On Monday she was so sick that she opted to stay at the condo with my mom (my parents were with us). My mom is basically a goddess for staying home with her. (Thanks Mom!) My mom also bought her little treats like a stuffed Yedi from Animal Kingdom and a stuffed Crookshanks from Harry Potter World to make her feel better. (She was pretty upset when she puked on the Yedi, though...) At any rate, both my mom and Lara were troopers throughout the whole thing. Lara kept a fairly good attitude even after barfing on the plane, in the car, at Denny's, at the Animal Kingdom, and numerous times into her blankie as she sat comatose on the coach in the condo. She willingly downed the Pedialyte, too, which is saying something b/c that stuff in nasty.

I know Pedialyte is nasty b/c I used it as fueling for a run later in the week. It's like grape KoolAid--only somehow worse.  Blek. But I had nothing, and I needed SOMETHING for my longish run. The ingredients on the Pedialyte container looked very similar to the ones on the PowerBar Endurance container. So there you go. Speaking of running, my runs in Orlando were awesssssommmmeeeeee. This is for three reasons: one, it is flat there. That was dreamy. Two, it is warm there. I ran in a tank and shorts every day. That was bliss. And three, I was unable to bike or swim in Orlando, so it was ALL about the run. It made me realize how much I love to run every single day... and how much MORE I love running than the other two disciplines. But I also know that my body doesn't do exceedingly well when I keep running every day indefinitely. It starts to rebel by way of injury. And I like racing triathlon better than road racing. The landscape of central Florida is pretty ugly, It think, but it sure is great to run there at this time of year. As I write it is snowing here. I have a run planned for later today. Can't wait to deal with the slush. Sigh.

This is Lara being a trooper on our first night there, at the Magic Kingdom. She felt like ass.

We had perfect weather the whole trip. How lucky is that? Somewhat unlucky were the unbelievable crowds. I think going in January or May might make the trip more enjoyable in terms of lines and crowds. The worst crowds were at the Magic Kingdom on Saturday night and at Harry Potter World in Universal.
Check out the crowds in this snapshot as we entered Harry Potter World:

We waited 90 minutes  to get on the Harry Potter Hogwarts ride. It was a great ride... I admit. But it wasn't worth 90 minutes! Andy captured our sentiments with a video. This was shot 70 minutes into our 90 minute wait.

Looks fun, huh?
We DID have fun though... on rides like One Fish Two Fish:

And the roller coasters were pretty cool at Universal. Jordan is a roller coaster junkie and she forced me to go on the Dragon roller coaster in Harry Potter World. That was a doozy. I was messed up for the rest of the day. She wasn't, of course, and went on the Hulk, by herself I will add, because she was so determined to ride every scary coaster she could find.

Luckily for us, Lara felt much better by Tuesday. She was psyched for Universal:

I liked Epcot best, except for the simulation rides, which made me want to barf. Here are my parents with Jordan and Noah:

 And here are the kids in front of a Lady and the Tramp topiary. It would be cool to be a gardener at Disney. (Okay, I might be the only one to think that...)

By the end of the day at Epcot we were spent, and had dinner in Mexico. At this point we were all a little punchy:

The Magic Kingdom is not nearly as great as I remembered it (as a kid), but my kids did love it. The best ride is Space Mountain, by far. Here we entering the park. 

Typhoon Lagoon was awesome, as I previously mentioned. After this picture was shot Andy took the kids to the slides and I took a reading break on a beach chair.

This is Lara on one of the kiddie slides. She was psyched:

This is the wave pool at Typhoon which we all thought was pretty darn cool:

The pool at our condo was also pretty sweet.
Check out that slide!

So there you have it. Our Disney vacation in pictures and videos.

And now back to our previously scheduled program.