Later Gator

Where were we? Oh yes. I was just about to catch you up on that time I ran away to Florida for a weekend with my friend...and Jeff...but it started as a girls' trip on a redeye flight of doom. Okay. The only doom was that it was a redeye and neither of us were able to get a wink of shut-eye while in motion, so by the time we were in Florida at 5:30 AM, hunting down a rental car for both of our first times ever renting a car, we were exhausted. In our exhaustion, we may or may not have missed a toll on our way to the hotel, but that's on you, Florida, for overburdening these jailbroke moms with freeway pitstops.

Four hours of sleep without kids does a mom-bod good as that's all it took for us to feel chipper and ready to face a sunny Florida day. Also, the smile on my face was evidence of my enthusiasm upon learning when I only have to get myself ready without 4 people fighting/pestering/peeing their pants/crying/running out of the house into the road, I can get ready *shower and everything* in 45 minutes. FORTY FIVE MINUTES! It takes me two hours to get out the door with all kids in tow, so this was really enlightening.

We met up with the Children's Miracle Network crew to see the end of the last gathering.

Then it was off to Universal Studios for the second half of the day!

"What?!?! NO KIDS?!?!"

We quickly made our way over to all the Harry Potter stuff because that's what we were all dying to see. It was incredible! The coloring, the atmosphere, and even people wandering around waving wands, made you feel like you had walked right into the book. It exceeded every expectation in every way.

Wait...I take that back. There was one expectation that was not exceeded. The only disappointing part of Harry Potter Land was the Butterbeer. In fact, one of my favorite memories in Harry Potter Land was watching people stand in line for 30 minutes to get Butterbeer, and then to watch their disappointed-but-trying-to-act-like-they-like-cream-soda expression upon taking their first sip. It wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't $7.50. Seriously. $7.50 for cream soda with whipped cream on top. And we all forked over the money like a bunch of true muggles.

Day Two!

We went to Disney World on Saturday. Which was even more crowded than you're imagining.

Obligatory proof-we-were-really-at-Disney shot.

For as much fun as Universal Studios is without kids, Disney is the one place that managed to make me miss my kids. A day there without them made it clear that the magic of Disney lies in the excitable eyes of little children. The magic of Disney also lies in choosing to go on a day with minimal crowds. But also the children.

I had never before this moment paid for a treat at a Disney theme park, but since it was just me and Jeff, we decided to treat ourselves to all our mouse-eared whims.

The big joke of the trip was that we had planned to go on an airboat ride, but Jeff and I bailed last minute. The airboat place was 2 hours away and it would have cost us an extra $100, and we had plenty of entertainment already paid for, so we decided to skip it. The only trouble was, I REALLY wanted to go airboating, so it wasn't an easy decision. Burke and Teresa ended up going without us, and we stayed behind at Disney World.

The irony of it is, the lines were so bad at Disney that we waited in line as long as we would have been in the car to and from the airboat ride. And just as I was getting so bummed that we wasted our day waiting in lines at Disney and missed the gator show, these bad boys appeared to cheer me up on Jungle Cruise. I'll keep my $100 thank you very much. And I'll use it to buy a...

Turkey leg. What is with the turkey legs? I've spent the last 10 years of my life hearing all Disney visiting acquaintances telling me about the turkey legs. So I'm like, we GOTTA get a turkey leg. Only to bite into it and find it's actually most certainly not turkey but pig. And I was like, what is this?!? Butterbeer??? Aka - nothing but diappointment.

When all the lines are a 2+ hour wait, you may end up going on It's a Small World to kill the time until your 11:00 PM Space Mountain fast pass. Oh, what's that? Space Mountain will break down at 10:59 forcing us to leave the park without experiencing the one and only ride I was insistent I had to ride all day? Okay. I'll just grab some Magic Water on the way out to cheer up my disappointed heart. Oh, what's that? Magic Water isn't a real thing, but rather an internet hoax created to make believing people like me and Teresa look like freeloading schmoozers? Okay I'm going home now. Minus a real alligator encounter, minus a ride on Space Mountain, and minus a free cup of Sprite hypothetically called "Magic Water."

Disney World was clearly my low of the trip. There were few things I enjoyed about it other than it made Universal Studios all the more enjoyable! The lines at Universal Studios are an experience within an experience, the crowds were less overwhelming, and our matching t-shirts were Universal Studios compatible, so it was a win on all counts.

This was my attempt to make our boys jealous, but with all the cousin fun they were having back home, they weren't the least bit interested in our Bumblebee encounter.

The only problem with my friendship with Teresa is our height difference. I don't notice it too much until it's time to take a picture with her and I'm quickly reminded I'm twice the size of her.

Back to Harry Potter Land but with the smarts not to waste any more money on Butterbeer. Or any park food for that matter.

That dragon blows fire every 10 minutes. It was blowing fire here but Harry must have cast a spell on my camera to keep the magic and excitement of the fire-breathing dragon contained to the park.

Oh wait!! The one park food that did not disappoint was Dippin Dots! A childhood favorite that has only gotten better with age.

Sunday was Burke's birthday -- some would say it's his Burke-Day! (Me. I was the only person who said that and I had a hard time reading whether he thought that was as funny as I did.) We let him choose where we had dinner for his special day. And then we proceeded to take seemingly hysterical selfies without him.

There's the big guy!

Monday morning was the start of our last day. We spent some time in Dr. Seuss Land which inspired me for my upcoming Dr. Seuss themed girls camp.

We rode The Mummy 2-3 more times as it was everyone's favorite ride. That and The Jimmy Fallon ride were my top two.

And then our last ride was one on a plane back home. A plane with a broken air conditioner, but a working engine, so you take what you can get.

Then it was back to the real world where I did not quickly acclimate back into my responsibilities.

I'm already dreaming of our next getaway. It was so fun to escape!