Friday, February 11th, 2022

 Today we are all a little worn out, as we flew back from our family vacation to Orlando this morning.  We spent a week down in Orlando (from Friday the 4th until today), where we spent the whole time exploring Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure.  I'm not sure where to start in describing all of the fun.  So I'll sum up:

Last Friday we were able to pick up an interactive wand for Maxwell (of course he wanted a Harry Potter wand, the same as Nolan's).  After a brief trip to the parks that day, we enjoyed dinner reservations at Cowfish.  This was probably my favorite restraunt that we dined at for the entire trip.  I ordered the calamari for an appetizer, a spicy tuna roll for my entree, and a "Buffalos and bacon" drink (an old fashioned made with Buffalo Trace bourbon and garnished with a piece of candied bacon).  It was all delicious.

During our trip we stayed at the Loews Royal Pacific resort.  One of the perks about staying there is that it gave us an express pass that we could use for shorter lines for all of the rides.  There is no way that I would go down there without the express pass.  It saved us a ton of time waiting in lines (which we still did plenty of anyways).  I can't remember which rides we did each day, but over the course of the week we ended up riding pretty much everything (usually multiple times).  Maxwell loved the Spiderman ride.  Of course he was too small to go on some of the bigger rides.  Nolan was very brave and actually went on the Velocicoaster (which was almost too scary for me to be honest).  I would say that my favorite ride was Hagrid's.  The first time that I rode Hagrid's motorbike ride, I sat with Nolan in the very front row.  It was amazing.

In general, we enjoyed the Harry Potter areas the most.  It was so much fun being immersed in the Harry Potter wizarding world.  Drinking butter beer, doing "magic" with interactive wands, riding the Hogwarts Express, walking around Diagon Alley (and seeing the dragon breathe fire).  It was so much fun.  

One funny moment that I wanted to mention came at the Cat in the Hat ride.  Now, this ride was pretty lame, but we thought that maybe the kids would enjoy it.  Not the case.  While we were still seated in the ride towards the end of it, Maxwell commented that the ride "was not even exciting", and then he started to loudly boo the ride!  Lol.  He was just saying BOO, BOO!!  It was so funny.

Anyways, we are back in Iowa now, and it is back to reality for us.  

Elizabeth and the boys at the Universal Studios globe.

Nolan and Maxwell in front of the Spiderman ride.

Cool kids don't look at explosions.  Lol.  This was my favorite picture that I took of the trip.

I was impressed at how well Nolan did on the Velocicoaster ride!