Vacation Week!

 We kicked off October with an awesome family vacation! Dan's always extra busy at work during the summer months, managing building projects while the teachers and kids aren't at school. So, it's rare for him to take a real summer vacation like the other staff members. Instead, we pull the girls from school for a week in October and take a belated vacation then. 

This year, we started our week at Great Wolf Lodge in Williamsburg. Dan's sister, Robin, and her family gave us a gift certificate for Christmas, and we used it to spend a night there. They allow guests to arrive at the waterpark in the early afternoon the day they're checking in, and you can stay all day to play the following day. Their indoor waterpark is pretty amazing! They've got several large waterslides, a wave pool, a wave rider with kneeboards, a huge playground with smaller slides, a toddler splash pad, a lazy river, and hot tubs. Our visit was even more fun since Dan's parents and his brother's family joined us!

Emma and Josiah

Hallie and Micah

Dawn and Aaron

Nathan on the wave rider

Dan taking a turn on the wave rider

Hallie and I

Benjamin got to join us for a half a day, before he had to go to work. I snapped this right before he left.

The guys taking a nap break. Aaron wasn't sleeping, but he humored me and pretended he was snoozing for the photo. Heh!

After the water park closed the first night, we learned about Great Wolf Lodge's MagiQuest game. There are screens and props throughout the lodge that respond to a magic wand that you can purchase. We bought a couple of wands for the younger kids to share and walked around the lodge a few times so they could wave their wands and make the props light up or speak. If you paid an additional fee, your wand would reveal instructions for the MagiQuest game, but we decided not to purchase the game this time. 

The kids had a blast going on a treasure hunt through the hallways and seeing what happened when they waved their wands.

Before we left, we went trick-or-treating on the lodge property. Aaron's dinosaur costume was amazing!

The cousins (minus Benjamin) posing on the wolf statues. We're so glad we got to enjoy Great Wolf Lodge with the Jester family!

The following day, we flew to Orlando for the rest of our vacation week. We stayed at a townhouse resort, which was a nice change from a regular hotel room. Ours had a full kitchen, living room, and bathroom downstairs and two bedrooms, a bathroom, and washer and dryer upstairs. Everyone slept really well during our stay because of the extra space and layout.

The resort had a nice pool and lazy river to play in.

Our first night there, while we were hanging out by the pool, we unexpectedly got to watch SpaceX launch its satellites into space! 

We visited SeaWorld the next day, and were very impressed by how much better the Orlando park is compared to the San Diego park. 

Our first show of the day was the dolphin show, and both Hallie and Emma got to star in the show! The girls insisted that we sit in the "splash zone" seats, and as soon as we sat down, one of the trainers came over to chat with us. She asked Hallie if she'd like to be in the show! She could choose one parent to bring with her and she chose Dan to come with her. 

Dan and Hallie waited behind the scenes during most of the show, and then Hallie's big moment finally came. The trainer led her through meeting (shaking fins with) the dolphin, petting him, giving him a command to do tricks, and she got to reward him with lots of dead fish treats. I really didn't know if she'd touch the fish since she never will when we go fishing. Maybe the fact that they weren't wiggling helped her to be brave. She was the star of the show, and we were so proud of her! 

Then, right before the show ended, another trainer asked Emma to help her in front of the stands. Emma also got to greet a dolphin (they faced each other and waved at each other), but then the trainer asked Emma to turn towards the crowd and wave, which was an evil prank. That was the dolphin's cue to splash Emma and the crowd (including her mother!) over and over. Then Emma lifted her arms high into the air and the dolphins did a synchronized leap over her head! It was the best SeaWorld show I've ever seen.

We added two animal encounters to our tickets that day. One was the opportunity to go to a behind-the-scenes penguin habitat to meet and pet a penguin!  The penguins there were adorable and their feathers felt smooth and stiff, almost like scales. The zoologist who introduced us to this penguin had to break up fights between him and some of the others after we met him. She said that the other penguins got jealous that he was receiving all the attention. 

Afterwards, we found a cute penguin family statue that the girls could pose with.

Our second animal encounter was to meet and touch a dolphin. Hallie already knew everything about dolphins by the time we got there, of course. 

The dolphin's skin was super smooth and tight. Even the fin was tight and stiff. I think they're 99% muscle.

We got to learn about what it's like to train a dolphin and watch the dolphin interact with and do tricks for her trainer. 

In between shows, we spent our time at the Sesame Street play area. It was such a fun and creatively designed place.  I don't have a ton of photos, but they had recreated the Sesame Street row houses, Big Bird's nest, and some interactive buildings where you could talk to monsters, push buttons to listen to Sesame Street characters' voices, and use a computer screen to create your own monster, which would be displayed in a window. 

They also had Sesame Street themed rides, but the girls only wanted to go on a couple of them because they were having so much fun with the interactive features.

I tried to talk them out of it, but the girls made me walk through the freaky shark tunnel.

We spent lots of time in another indoor aquarium where we saw a variety of rays, sharks, Beluga whales, walruses, and seals. 

There was a play area where kids could climb around in a pretend seal habitat. The girls' imagination ran wild, and they played for at least an hour there.

No complaints from Dan and I, because we found a place to sit and enjoy watching the seals swim in the air-conditioned building while the girls played.

We also laughed through the funny sea lion show and revisited the dolphin show (so Dan and Hallie could actually watch it). We stopped to pet sting rays, and of course, we ended our day at the iconic Orca show.

The next day, we ate lunch at the world's largest McDonald's, which has a huge dining room downstairs and an arcade and 3-story playground upstairs. They also served pizza and a few non-traditional menu items there.

Hallie was a little bit hungry

After lunch, we spent 3 hours exploring and taking pictures at the Museum of Illusions. Emma and Hallie had learned about it from a TV show and asked if we could visit it someday. It was a fun and family-friendly way to spend our afternoon.  The museum is full of optical illusions using mirrors, spacing, and photo effects. In some cases, you'd pose in a strange-looking scene, which made sense after you rotated your picture to the correct angle.

We experienced an afternoon of adventure, such as ...

Hanging precariously from a rock-climbing wall

Being served on a dinner plate

Rainbow shadow dancing

Levitation 

Walking (and almost falling) on a bridge inside a revolving tunnel. You weren't actually moving, but the visual effect that made you feel like you were spinning was incredible. I had to be led through with my eyes closed after the first time, because it made me so dizzy! So, of course the girls wanted to go through it at least 4 times.

I think the girls were bullying tiny Dan here.

I went right in there and put a stop to that!

Emma and Hallie traded facial features

Hallie had to put Dan in time out.

The anti-gravity room

The room of mirrors was a tiny bit overwhelming

We decided to clone Hallie while we were there.

Hallie gracefully flying through a portal

And there goes Emma.

Thankfully, that mysterious portal took us to Disney World the next morning! We tried to get tickets for Magic Kingdom, but it was sold out all week. Our second choice was Epcot, which was a fun and full day.

We did tons of walking and rode so many rides that day. We took the stroller for Hallie since she can't keep up with us all day long, and neither Dan nor I is willing to carry her when she's too tired. Epcot was packed that day and the lines were long, so we added Disney's Genie Plus Pass, which allowed us to reserve times to skip the lines at certain rides. It cost $15 per person, but saved us well over 3 hours of time waiting in lines, which was worth it. 

 

I don't have many photos from our day at Epcot, but I did catch Emma calling *someone* from a telephone booth in England. She never did tell us who it was.

When we went to "Turtle Talk with Crush" (the turtle from the moving Finding Nemo), the girls visited the shark exhibit, and they both got eaten by Bruce the shark. Again.

You'd think they'd learn their lesson from the last time we were here. Sigh.

We all love "Soarin' Around the World". We think it's one of the best rides at Disney.

We rode rides until the moment the park closed, and got to see the Epcot ball lit up on our way out.

Dan had the fantastic idea to visit a Disney resort on one of our free mornings, and after doing some research, we chose the Animal Kingdom Lodge. You can drive to the property and ask to visit or dine at one of their restaurants, even if you're not a guest there. As long as their parking lot isn't too full, they'll let you come on property to explore. 

The lodge lobby was huge and beautiful! It was artfully decorated with an African theme.

Since the lodge is next to the Animal Kingdom park, there were safari animals to see on the lodge property.

But the best reason to visit the Disney properties is to eat their delicious Mickey Mouse waffles!

We discovered them last year during our vacation, and now we have to have them when we're in town.

After exploring the Animal Kingdom Lodge, we spent our afternoon at Disney Springs. We shopped and ate dinner at the T-Rex restaurant, then saw Cirque du Soleil's "Drawn to Life" show. 

We'd planned to see the 5:30 pm show so we wouldn't be out too late, but we got to our seats and waited and waited for the show to start. They finally announced that it was cancelled, so we purchased tickets for the 8:00 pm show that night instead. It ended up being a late night out for our family, but we all really enjoyed the show and we're thankful we didn't miss it.

We checked out of the townhouse resort the following morning to move on to our next adventure.

These are the faces of two girls who just learned that we were staying a night at the Legoland Hotel! They'd been asking to stay there ever since they learned that the hotel existed, and we managed to keep it a secret until almost the moment we arrived!

Instead of the original Legoland Hotel, we opted to stay in the newer Pirate Island Hotel (which was just a new wing that's connected to the original hotel). The theme inside both hotels is adorable, and there are lots of indoor and outdoor play areas.

This castle play areas is inside the Legoland Hotel lobby.

Even if you're not staying at the hotel, it's fun to take your kids to play in their lobby for a while.

They also have Lego walls and building stations

Their swimming pool is even full of Legos!

When we checked into our room, there was a treasure hunt for the girls to do, so they could discover the combination to unlock our treasure chest. The chest had Lego figures, eye patches, and juice boxes for them inside. It was a fun idea, and I hid things in the treasure chest a couple more times during our stay so they could do the treasure hunt again. The treasure hunt was narrated by a program on an Amazon Echo Dot in our hotel room. The girls quickly learned that they could ask "Alexa" to do other things like play dance music, tell us jokes, etc.

The beds were so awesome, and there was a Lego table in their room, and a TV that played Lego movies and other kid shows. 

Before we went to sleep that night, we took a walk around the grounds.

The following day, we visited the Legoland Park.

Lego Washington DC 

Lego New York City

The girls got to drive and get their licenses. They're growing up too fast.

We won a firefighting challenge where Emma and Hallie had to put out the flames in a burning building. (The water was real. The flames were not.)

There were amazing Lego statues all around the park.

Emma put me in the stocks even though I swore I was innocent!

Hallie set things right, though.

These were the cutest Lego characters at the park.

While they enjoy the rides, the girls love the hands-on nature of Legoland. It has features like playgrounds, climbing walls, and Lego building areas that are a welcome break to kids who don't want to wait in lines for rides all day long.

We saw this guy, and instantly felt connected to him for some reason. Haha!

Our vacation week was a huge highlight of our year!