Hochhalter Happenings: traveling to warmer weather

Sunday, January 4, 2015

traveling to warmer weather

New Years resolution numero uno: keep up on my blog. I need to make time for it. I love looking back and remembering all the things that we have kept busy with. The biggest thing that we did this fall was take a trip to the happiest place on earth! I just love Florida. Before kiddos, I had been there once, but now that we have kids, it just makes it so exciting to see everything through your children's eyes. So now here comes the picture and description overload :)

We flew in on a Sunday, in October. Rick's mom and step dad Jim were with us. We stayed at a fun resort in Kissimmee that had lots of pools and fun things for the kids. It was close to the parks, shopping, and close to a Chick-fil-a for Rick.

The first day we had to get in a trip to the pool. We didn't get in until dinnertime, but of course the kids wanted to swim before bed. The resort had a lazy river, fountains, hammock park and slides.

On Monday we stayed back at the resort and did even more swimming. My kids are fish and if they could stay in the water all day, they gladly would. That night we decided to do something a little different and went on a night air boat ride and searched for gators. We drove about 30 minutes away from our resort to this huge swamp area and put our faith in a tour guide. I was a little hesitant, but the kids were excited and suited up in their life jackets, goggles, and flashlights in tow. We went very fast on the air boat and it was a little scary the first time the air boat went over the swamp weeds. It didn't take long and we saw our first gator! The driver went right up to the gators and we saw so many! Seriously I lost count of all the gators we saw that night and the kids had SO much fun.

On Tuesday we went to Magic Kingdom. This is of course a place you have to see when you have young children. However, with this came lots and lots of people. The crowds are always tough at Magic Kingdom. However, the kids had so much fun. We went on many many rides, saw lots of Disney characters, and ended the evening with my FAVORITE things: light parade and light show on the castle. Seriously there is nothing I could say to describe the light show on the castle. It's an amazing experience and one I won't forget.

Wednesday we took a day off to recoup from Magic Kingdom. We did some more swimming, went to an outlet mall, and had a wonderful lobster dinner.

Thursday we went to Sea World. I have never been to Sea World, so I was very excited. We saw a dolphin show, whale show, pet show and lots of different animals. The crowds were much more minimal which was great. Rick and I went on several rides, a couple of which I almost lost my lunch! Our family had so much fun at Sea World, and I would definitely go back.

Friday we hit up Universal Studios. As most of you know, Jaxon loves super heroes, so we were super pumped for him to meet Spiderman. Well, we saw him of course, and Jaxon wanted NOTHING to do with him, obviously. He was also very scared of every character he saw at Magic Kingdom. We went on lots of rides, and Jaxon's favorites were the Transformers and Spiderman rides. We *may* have had to stuff Jaxon's shoes with napkins so he was tall enough, but it was worth it!

Saturday was our last day. Our good friends, Ryan and Becky also happened to be in Orlando that day as well! They live in Washington D.C. currently. So we went to their hotel and visited and of course did some more swimming. It was a great end to the trip. The kids did great on the flight and were overall really good kids the whole trip. It's exhausting, expensive and busy, but of course I can't wait to go again!

Ok, picture overload coming!