Our Harry Potter World Getaway!

So Matt had a conference in Orlando the weekend after New Years.  Hotel, airfare, food all paid for.  We toyed with the idea of me going down too but it seemed too crazy.  Then I found super cheap plane tickets and had a graciously willing sister and bro-in-law who offered to come watch the kids.  It was a perfect Christmas surprise for Matt (and his present was my present too!  I've gotta do that more often.)

My time in Orlando was just 2 days but, oh, we had so much fun.


Eating lunch OUTSIDE in January.  Delicious.
We went to the movies to see Les Mis--wonderful.

Our big plans were to head to Universal, specifically Harry Potter World.  I've never been to any big amusement park, just Six Flags.  We were in for a treat. 

So of course, it rained.  Here's Matt waiting for the bus that morning.  It was an umbrella and sweatshirt kind of day.  Not surprising though.  Matt and I had lots of time to reminisce about our times with bad weather.  Let's recap
wedding day--thunderstorms and brief power outage
trip to San Diego before kids--rain
1 day in Uruguay during our time in Argentina--rain
getaway trip to Newport, RI without kids--rain
Yes, we're noticing a theme here.  Fortunately it was just light showers all day and we had no one else to worry about but ourselves.

And here's what we had been waiting for.

Look how beautiful this place is.  I think I could move to Hogsmeade.  It was unbelievable.

The big Harry Potter's Magical World ride went all through the Hogwart's castle.  We spent a lot of time in line enjoying the view.

 

Our one shot together and Matt wasn't looking.  The lady behind us took several pictures but Matt spent the whole time looking at the lady behind her who was so ticked off that we were stalling the line.  I guess she didn't realize that stopping and waiting 1 minute for us there was no different than moving forward 20 feet and waiting more.  I didn't even see her...I was trying to get a picture with my husband.  I guess we're different that way. :) Ha!

Here is a shot that does NO justice to the craziness of the lines.  We waited about 1 hour and then were able to do the single rider line for future rides.  Several times during the day, different wait times were up to 2 hours.  We tended to avoid those. :)

In front of Dumbledore's office

Awesome moving portraits.

The sorting hat talks to you about how you are going to get on the ride. 

 

 

Butterbeer---aka DELICIOUS!  We waited in line 10-15 minutes just for this tasty drink.  When we got home we read some cool articles about how they created butterbeer and how much the park sells.  1 million cups sold in less than 7 months.  Just under 5000 cups a day.  Unreal.  It is actually the highlight for most people who come to the park--more of a highlight than the rides.  Crazy.

 

just making posing interesting
There were actually other areas of the park besides Harry Potter World...it was just our favorite and the most photo friendly.  I don't need lots of pictures of comic book stars. 

Brought home t-shirts and some Fizzing Whisbees candy for the kids from Honeydukes (chocolates with pop rocks inside--crazy good).

And then I woke up early the next morning and was on a plane and Matt was spending a full day in meetings.  Reality again.  But now it's reality coupled with some really great memories with Matt.  Grateful to his work for paying for most all of it and for the conference deciding to be held in such a fun place.

Summer Lovin'--Vacation Part 3

After a great 2 1/2 weeks, we had to sadly end our vacation.  We realized that the Hill Cumorah Pageant in Palmyra, NY would still be taking place, so we decided to go home the upstate NY route to see it.  And since we were right there, we had to do Niagara Falls.  Talk about a highlight! 

We finally made it to Niagara, NY--getting tired of the car already, so we got some halleluia cheers!

We only spent about 3 hours at Niagara Falls but it was all awesome!

We took a ride on the Maid of the Mist--talk about 30 minutes of sheer happiness and fun.  I don't think the grins left faces at all.  It was cool just how close we got to the falls and how wet we really got.  It was the highlight of everyone's day.

You can see a Maid of the Mist boat in the background on its way into Horseshoe Falls.

From Niagara, we drove the 1 1/2 hours or so to Rochester and grabbed some fast McDonalds and checked into our final hotel.    Look at these happy kids--this was the state of our entire vacation...no wonder it was so wonderful. :)

We then made it to Palmyra for the pageant.  The last time I went was as a teenager--it wasn't what we were expecting because we were so used to the Nauvoo pageant (it's a musical).  It was nice being more prepared this time.  Definitely not a musical!

The kids enjoyed holding some of the props and weapons from shows past.

Before the show, cast members were walking around and greeting the audience--the kids were excited to meet them. 

If I'm being honest, I definitely prefer Nauvoo to Palmyra, but it was a good experience.  Definitely mesmerizing for the kids.  I think they really enjoyed seeing stories from the Book of Mormon come to life. 

By the end, we were exhausted and just ready to be back home in Connecticut.

A great end to a great trip.  Lucky us.

Summer Lovin'--Vacation Part 2

On to the next highlight of our vacation--Nauvoo, IL.  

Rita and Clem spent 6 weeks in Nauvoo again helping with the pageant so we headed there a few days after Megan's wedding and stole 3 days from them.  What a treat!  I love that, for my kids, Nauvoo will always be associated with Grandma and Grandpa.

Here are some highlights of our days there, along with lots of pictures.

Pioneer Pastimes--I wonder how long this place will remain one of our Nauvoo highlights--the kids love dressing up and playing all the games and playing house.

Annie was obsessed with the pulley bears.  She just went from one to another to another--we ended up buying her one as her souvenier.  She does it everyday.

This picture of Andrew doesn't capture the fact that the ring he tossed ended up in the tree about 1.2 seconds after I snapped this picture.

At the Family Living Center--hooray for air conditioning. :)

Had dinner at the Hotel Nauvoo--we did last year as well and the kids talked about it for days.  They were so excited to go back.  I guess we don't take them to eat at buffets very often. 

Clem is THE prop man behind stage but he hired on 2 co-workers for one night we were there.  Mary and Andrew were in heaven helping him set up everything right before the show.  They took their jobs quite seriously.

The Old Country Fair pre-show--another one of our Nauvoo favorites.  Seriously, I don't know why anyone who had kids wouldn't go to Nauvoo if they were close.  Everything is free, all the activities are so fun.  Even the concession stand is super cheap.

I love this one of Whitney--thanks to our Rita and Clem connections, we got great, up close seats for the show.  The show never gets old.

We had lots of time with Rita and Clem during the day for site seeing:

Outside the blacksmith shop

And gunsmith...

Made it to the quarry for the first time...

The ox-cart ride--another 'must do'  every year.

Posing at the Monuments to Women Garden

Our hotel didn't have a pool, so we headed to the public pool in Hamilton--super nice and super cheap.  A fun treat for a hot afternoon.

Probably Grandmas first relaxing moment in her whole time in Nauvoo!

We ran into several friends from North Carolina while we were there.  We saw the Nicolas's and the Cutlers but it was bad timing where we didn't get to hardly talk to them.  The next day we ran into the Brinkerhoffs and had a really great chat and then ended up eating dinner at the same place and got to chat again.  Amy's one of those awesome friends that things feel just normal and like old times no matter how long it has been, and it's been 5 years.  A wonderful surprise!!!

What a great time!  The worst part was that it was only 3 days.  We wish would could have had longer with Grandma and Grandpa--it just wasn't enough time.