Shhh, it's a surprise!

Once again I can thank some gynecologists for a great family vacation! Every spring, the SGO (Society of Gynecologic Oncologists) has a great meeting that Scott loves to attend. This year the location just happened to be Orlando, Florida. Sunny Orlando over rainy Vancouver? I think so! We decided we would just take the three youngest kids with us because, well, we love them more...okay, it probably had more to do with the fact that Kennedy and Cassidy were committed to Dance Team practices every day until State! The hard part was keeping it a secret. Turns out though I probably didn't have to try that hard. Even after waking up the boys at 4:30 a.m., dressing them, packing up their backpacks with treats, books and DS games all just to "come see us off at the airport" they never caught on. Karsyn however caught on pretty quick (must be the fact that she is home-schooled).

Last time we took the kids to Orlando I remember being amazed at how many things there are to do there. So I decided to visit something other than Disney this time around. On our list of places to go was: Titanic the Experience, Busch Gardens, Sea World and Aquatica water park.

Scott was free of meetings our first day there so that was the day we headed to Tampa to visit Busch Gardens. It was fun to discover that the entire park was an African Theme. All the

sections of the park and the rides were named and designed after places in Africa - perfect

preparation for our next big trip! But no matter how cool the park or amazing the rides, nothing could distract my boys (all 3 of them) from the basketball hoops game! All my boys wanted to do was shoot for prizes and it took a whole 3 seconds to convince Scott to pony up the money. I guess it was easier to justify playing himself after the boys had a turn. The boys each won a free mini-basketball (both of which were lost by the time we came home) and Scott was one basket away from getting a full-size ball! And just because that wasn't enough to get their basketball fix (Layton asked me daily why the hotel didn't have a basketball court), Scott took the boys to see the Orlando Magic play the Blazers one night while we were there! That left Karsyn and I alone to have a girl's night. We stayed in to watch an in-room movie but should had known better and gone straight to the spa. "Tron" was in no way a good alternative to a good pedicure.

There were a couple rides at each park that Will could not go on. No matter how tall he stood, he was still a few inches too short. It was a heartbreaker to see his disappointment because for every inch he lacked on the outside, he had a foot of courage for on the inside.

(Showing Will how unsafe he would be in this seat if he snuck onto the Mantra ride at Sea World)

So Will and I had some quality time while the other kids went on the biggest rides. We tried to make the best of it by:

Eating all the snacks I packed,

Chillaxin a little in the sunshine,

Beating his dad in the water balloon race for a stuffed Walrus,

and he was the only kid to get his own caricature!

But this is my favorite moment of the whole trip....

Just before closing the park, they stopped monitoring the rides and Will got to go on Shrieka, the ride he wanted to go on most! This was him running off the ride in pure delight!

The following day was Sunday. A much-needed day of rest! We slept in until 12:00 p.m.! Then headed off in search of a church. Mapquest led us to the church of all churches....the temple! We stopped just long enough to take some photos in front of the temple and meet another lost traveler. We met another man looking for the church as well. We eventually found the church building and ended up visiting with our new friend for quite awhile after the meetings. Turns out this man is a big CEO astronautical physicist and he and Layton talked about Layton's ideas and theories forever! It was wonderful watching Layton talk about his ideas and have someone be able to respond intelligently to him! He has been talking over our heads for quite some time now. He seemed very impressed with Layton. They exchanged emails and have had some good discussions since.

That evening, we went for a quick sail on the Titanic. Luckily for us, it was smooth sailing that night! Titanic the Experience is a museum of actual Titanic finds as well as things used in the motion picture "Titanic". They have recreated several rooms and parts of the titanic, including the grand staircase. The tour is interactive and led by someone in period costume and character. We were each given a ticket with the name of an actual passenger and found out at the end of the tour if we were one of the lucky ones and survived. I am happy to say, we all came out alive - I can't say the same for everyone that was in our tour group.

My favorite moment from the Titanic tour was when our tour guide was talking about the boat tenders. He asked the kids if any of them knew what a tender was. It was a proud mommy moment when Layton's hand shot straight up. We were all a little confused however when he answered, "the things you get at lunch time". When he could tell we were confused by his answer he clearified by saying, "you know, like the chicken tenders you get for school lunch"!

Monday we were off to Sea World. It was time to introduce the kids to Shamu!

Watch the kids feet in the next few pictures...

Will is starting to loose a shoe...

By the end of the ride, the boys had lost a total of 4 shoes!

Last time I came to see Sea World, Kennedy was two years old and ended up riding Shamu as part of the show. This made me a little bit sad realizing how fast this time goes by but grateful we were taking the time to make these memories again with the younger kids.

If you can't tell by seeing everyone in coats, the weather had turned quite cold this particular day. The kids were not going to let that stop them from sitting in the SOAK ZONE!

I stayed up higher because of all my camera equipment, and I just knew better.

The kids sat in exactly the right, or wrong spot, depending on how you look at it. They got so drenched that they even showed them on the jumbo-tron! Layton came up by me the last few seconds of the show just shivering and turning purple he was so cold! He said he hated the soak zone and regretted not using the rain coat I sent down with him!

For some reason, Sea World likes having Rushings in their shows! This time Scott was chosen to be in the Clyde and Seamore show. He not only got a few laughs from the audience but he had the girl in the show laughing so hard she couldn't say her lines! Like Layton, Scott ended up getting soaked at the end of the show, but fortunately this was a different day when it was too hot outside!

I think the kid's favorite activity was eating Dippin' Dots. We did it at least once daily.

Since dad was the only one that got wet on our one and only really hot day, the rest of us spent the remaining hours of the day at the water park. We went to Aquatica Park which is a sister park to Sea World. They even have a waterslide tube that goes under water inside a tank full of dolfins and other fish!

We went to downtown Disney the last night for dinner at T-Rex Restaurant. We had to wait over an hour to get in but we decided it was worth the wait!

And what vacation is complete without ice cream - especially Ghirardelli ice cream?

We decided to go back to Sea World for a few hours our last day before we had to head to the airport. Scott went with the older kids to the rides Will couldn't go on, and I went with Will to the one ride he could go on....the very wet ride! I was wet enough after the first time but Will insisted on going again. He found this nice man in yellow to sit with but unfortunately, the big man in yellow didn't block much of the water from Will. He might as well have jumped in and swam for how wet he was. I had to take him to the restroom, strip him down and wring out his clothes. Then because he was so wet and uncomfortable, he walked slower than the turtles we just saw! So needless to say, we missed meeting up with the others to see our last show.

So once again, Will and I had to find something to do to make up for missing out on the fun...

We found that fun in some more ice cream of course!