Florida Trip #1: Part 1

Ryan occasionally has to travel for training for work. Usually it's to Charlotte, NC, but this time it was to Florida. My Aunt lives in Oviedo (outside of Orlando), and the office Ryan had to go to was just 15 miles away from her house!! So in a very last minute decision (maybe 2 weeks in advance), me and the kiddos decided to tag along!

I was TERRIFIED to say the least of driving so far in the car with these 2 youngins. So I adapted an idea I got out of Family Fun magazine. I cut out these pictures I found online and put them in a jar that we pulled out randomly along the way to switch things up a bit:

All in all, the kids did great. We drove to Chattanooga Saturday night and stayed with my parents to shave off an hour and a half. Then woke up Sunday morning at 4:30 am, hit the road by 5, the kids were awake and happy until Atlanta, then slept 'til 9:30!

I took the following few pictures to text our mommas as we were traveling to give them updates of how things were going:

Watching movies was definitely the most relaxing option! :)

New coloring books + new boxes of crayons = feels like Christmas morning! :)

(By the way--another idea from the magazine. Gavin's lap desk is a baking sheet! Genius!)

Please look at the madness of the van! I promise it was organized when we started our journey!

When in doubt, music usually works in this family! "International Harvester" is the kiddos' favorite song. (Technically this is from the ride home, but it's too cute to wait 'til the end to share :) )

After lunch, we practically drove through a hurricane, got a bunch of tickets for tolls that we didn't have cash for, and finally arrived safe and sound 10 hours later!

My Aunt Joanna's husband John travels for work, so I was so thankful we arrived Sunday to see him before he flew out on Monday. Henley loved reading with him:

Joanna lives about an hour from Disney. I think the kids are still too young for it to make it worth the money, so we opted for a free-admission evening at Downtown Disney instead!

I was so excited to bring the kids to Rainforest Cafe!
(Henley was not as excited as this picture would show, however!)

These bar stools cracked me up:

We got to sit pretty close to an aquarium which of course the kiddos loved:

My cousin Madison and her boyfriend Jonny:

My new favorite family picture!

Gavin's 1st mozzerella stick. Apparently it was life changing. :)

I got a video of the super coolness of Rainforest Cafe:

After dinner we got to hit up the Disney shops around. Gavin's favorite was the Lego store!

He got a new Lego Mater that shoots missiles like from Cars 2. It is definitely his new favorite toy!

Outside the store, they had Lego car races. Any kiddo that wanted to participate got to build a car and race against each other. No prize for winning, just a fun game! (Please check out what Ryan had to do to Henley ever few minutes to keep her happy!)

                          

It was so official. The guy had a checkered flag to start them off and everything!

Gavin did not win the first time, so Ryan decided to step in and help. They made a Dragon Racer:

I am SO BUMMED that I took a picture instead of a video because they WON!

Here's a video of the race (sadly, not the one he won)

There were some crazy things built out of Legos. This is what inspired the shape for their racecar that won:

I wish I had gotten more of this in the picture. This is the end scene from Toy Story where they fly off the race car. So the car is at the bottom out of Legos, too!

This was one of the neatest things to me. A wall of Legos!

To be continued...