Murdocks in Florida

My brother and his family came to Florida in February for a family vacation and Andy and I got to tag along!  It was so fun to have them in Florida and get to show them our stomping ground.

They had an action packed vacation, there was not a dull minute.  Okay, maybe standing in some of the lines at the parks was a little dull but for the most part it was a blast.  I have about a million pictures from their visit, but I'll keep it brief.  Here is their family blog about the trip, http://themurdockfamily.org/florida-trip/

Let's see if I can remember everything we did.

Bryan, Ily and their boys flew into Orlando and we met them at Universal's Island of Adventures, where the Harry Potter World is.

The boys got wands and we took a short break to enjoy some butterbeer.  It was deelish.

As you can tell from the pictures we had a blast!  

Then we drove down to Tampa for the weekend and showed them the swamps and saw some alligators. I don't seem to have any of those pictures, there are some on facebook.  The biggest gator that we saw was in  one of the ponds in our neighborhood.  We once heard someone say down here, "if it ain't a cement pond, it's a gator pond."  Meaning if you see water in Florida you can guarantee there is a gator in it.

We took them to Clearwater Beach too.  It ended up being kind of a cold and windy day but we still had fun.  They boys took turns burying each other in the sand. When we had enough of the wind we pretended like we were staying at the Sandpearl Resort and used their hot tub to warm up and showers to get the sand off our feet.  If you ever want to go to Clearwater and have unlimited funds I would recommend staying there. It is amazing.

We also took them to see the manatees!  At the Tampa electric company heats the water so the manatees congregate there, they have built up a viewing center there for people to come down and see them.  There were maybe 10 or so manatees there, pretty cool!

Then we spent a day at Lego Land and the boys were in Lego heaven.

San Francisco made out of Legos

Washington D.C. in Legos

Dino legos

Darth Vader made out of Legos

I think it's safe to say this was Micah's favorite ride at lego land.  I look like a giant next to the kids!

Bryan, Ily, Isaac, and Micah went to Universal Studios in Orlando, while I stayed home and rested with Brayden and Davis.  We had fun playing at home and I even managed to take both boys to the grocery store.  Davis played a little trick on me and opened the car door while I was driving... haha.  Luckily, I was only going like 20 mph and the door didn't actually open until I turned into our apartment complex.  But I learned my lesson; always have the child safety lock on!  That night I met the rest of the group up in Orlando and Bryan and Ily and the boys were introduced to the Florida rain.  Needless to say they got pretty soaked.  

We ended the trip with a day at  Hollywood Studios and a day at Magic Kingdom, and somewhere in the mix of it all (I can't remember now) we had a "rest day" were we just stayed at the resort and swam in their pool, and explored Downtown Disney.  We stayed at the Disney's Coronado Spring Resort.  

This is how Brayden and Davis spent the day at Lego Land

the boys were excited for the Lego Roller Coaster!

This was a "ride" at lego land.  Ily and I couldn't get any of the boys to do it so we decided to do it.  You pull yourself up to the top and then you float down, and then you pull yourself back to the top and repeat until the time is up.  We counted how many times we did it, but I can't remember now, we totally won though.

At the T-Rex Restaurant at Downtown Disney

Yes, that is a Lego man riding a jet ski

riding the bus to one of the Disney Parks

Eating dinner at the T-Rex Restaurant at Down Town Disney

Brayden exploring the gardens at Lego land

Murdock Family picture in the Cypress Gardens at Lego Land

cute bums

By the end of the week the boys were a bit tired and needed a little extra coaxing to get out of bed in the morning, but they were troopers and once we got to the park all thoughts of being tired were forgotten.  I was able to take the little ones back to the resort in the middle of the day for afternoon naps, so we didn't have to deal with tired and grumpy little ones.  All in all it was a blasty blast of a visit and I told them that we have to do it again in 5 years.