Hello Everyone!
We've finally returned from our recent trip to Orlando and Siesta Key Beach in Florida, so I thought I'd take a few minutes to fill everyone in about how it went and what all we did!
The first two days we spent in Orlando at Universal Studios amusement parks with a couple of my friends who are stationed close by in Norfolk, VA in the Navy. The first day we attended Universal's Islands of Adventure theme park which featured a Jurassic Park river ride and a really cool spider-man ride which seemed to be everybody's favorite. It also was host of my personal favorite attraction, the Wizarding World of Harry Potter which makes you feel like you've stepped right into the Harry Potter books and even had a candy store that sold chocolate frogs and a magic store (all you Harry Potter fans will know what i'm talking about), it was very cool! The next day we spent at the actual Universal Studios theme park and watched their Superstar Parade which included popular cartoon characters from the Despicable Me movie and Spongebob along with many others, and also got to see a couple fun shows the park had; like Animal Actors which featured different animals that had been in popular movies showing off their special tricks and skills and also the Disaster show which was a "movie" starring you and we got to see how they use green screens and different special effects in movies and then edit it all together to make one big production... both were quite humorous and really neat to see!!
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| Jurassic Park Ride |
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| The Universal Studios Globe |
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| Sitting on a bench outside Islands of Adventure |
The third day Preston and I took a short drive over to Siesta Key Beach in Sarasota, FL which is supposed to be one of the top beaches in the US. I had been to Florida only one time previously so I wanted Preston to get a glimpse of the sugar white sandy beaches and super clear ocean water Florida is known for. There we grabbed some lunch and just laid out on the beach for a while enjoying the ocean view before heading back to our hotel for the remainder of the day. Once we reached our resort we went for a quick swim and had fun playing at one of their pool tables which was under a cool grass hut and next to that we also enjoyed a game of life sized checkers, as to which Preston sadly won.... cause he cheats... (hehe) just kidding!
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| Us in front of the Siesta Key sign |
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| Siesta Key Beach |
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| The hotel swimming pool |
Our fourth day in Florida we met up with one of Preston's friends who used to be in the Army with Preston and his girlfriend at SeaWorld (which we had to go to cause we didn't get to go there on our honeymoon in San Diego and Preston never let's me forget it haha). We had a wonderful time watching the big Orca show, a really cool dolphin show with acrobatics, and a hilarious seal and otter show. We also walked around and visited all of the neat animal attractions and rode a couple of the rides the park had. It was a blast!
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| Us with Shamu and his little buddy |
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| The One Ocean Orca show |
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| A view of SeaWorld |
Our final day in Orlando we spent at Discovery Cove where it was our turn to play with dolphins and other fun ocean creatures! We started off our day there with an amazing dolphin interaction where we got to not only pet and swim with a Bottlenose Dolphin, but we also got to give it a little smooch! After our dolphin interaction we went snorkeling in the grand reef with a bunch of tropical fish, gigantic stingrays, and even giant lobsters, eels and sharks (all of which were behind glass of course!). We then relaxed in a couple of the lazy rivers, one of which featured a really neat Aviary where you could get out and feed, and if you were lucky enough, pet and hold one of the many tropical birds they featured. The other lazy river let you float close to a bunch of sea otters and some cute little monkeys (marmosets). It was a very adventurous, yet relaxing, day and one of the most incredible experiences of my life!
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| Snack Huts |
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| A pretty view of the cove I took |
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| Me giving Amara (dolphin) a smooch! |
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| Us in front of one of the waterfalls along the lazy river |
Sunday we ended our trip with a bang (literally, when we were involved in car accident on the interstate where I was rear ended during stop and go traffic. Thankfully, everyone was ok and walked away without any injuries, although my poor little car was not so lucky haha. But it's being taken care of and we were able to get a ride home with a very sweet and generous family who were also in the Army and happened to be on their way back to Fayetteville as well. So it all worked out in the end and we could not be more grateful that God was watching out for us on our journey home and for the amazing experiences we were able to have on our vacation. Our next journey is set to begin soon, as we head back to our home in Idaho at the end of this month! We are so beyond excited to be back home and close to our family and friends again and we just can't wait!!! Looking forward to seeing everybody again real soon!!
Much much love,
