Part 3 Shuttle Launch

We were in Florida when the Shuttle Discovery was set to launch. Dave has a great contact with a friend in the police department who knew the best place to watch the launch. He came and set us up with binoculars and everything! We were about 4 miles away and saw the shuttle go and it was so cool!! But the best part was about 3 or 4 minutes after the launch we were able to feel and hear the rumble! It was amazing to think that people were actually on there way into space. This was one of highlights of our whole trip! John(Dave's friend)showed us a shortcut back to our house so we didn't have to sit in too much traffic. The 11 o'clock news reported that the freeways were still bumper to bumper traffic at the time of the newscast!! We had already been home for 3 hours. Thank you SOOO much John!

Part 2 Sea World

We went to Sea World on Monday. (Presidents Day) I was a little worried that the parks would be so crowded but it wasn't bad. We were some of the first ones in the park and ran to the best ride!! Kraken!! There was still no one in line so we ran around and went on it a second time. We had a great time walking around and seeing all the shows and the kids favorites were the Sea Lion show, and of course Shamu! I think my favorite was the dolphin show. Zach is pictured here with a pearl diver. They were in the water all day!! They could stay under for such a long time. It was pretty neat.

Florida Vacation 2011 Part 1

Florida in February...Heaven!! We left the cold,dreary weather of Spokane to head to Florida with the family. This is the first vacation where all of us flew on an airplane together. Actually this was all of the kids second time ever on an airplane. We left Spokane around 7:30am on Feb.18th and flew into Minneapolis. We had a 3 hour layover there and then flew into Orlando. We landed around 8:00 p.m. It was a long day but we were all excited so it didn't seem so bad. The first thing my kids talked about were how big the Orlando airport was and they saw palm trees for the first time (in the middle of the airport). We got our rental and headed to the house that would be our home for the week.

This house was great!! 5 minutes from all the parks. 4 bedrooms 3 baths and a heated pool!

Saturday, Feb. 19th Animal Kingdom
This was a great park to start our adventure. It was a lot of fun. Highlights from this park were the Mt. Everest ride and the Kilimanjaro safari.(pictures to come later)
Sunday, Feb.20th Church, Swamp boats and Coco Beach
We found a meeting to go to here and I can't even imagine how many visitors this ward gets each week but it is so nice that we can find the church on vacation. This building was so much bigger than ours. I still can't get over the stadium seating in the chapel!!
After church we wanted to have a low key day so we headed over to Coco beach. We stopped for an airboat ride and we actually saw a crocodile! We also saw a turtle which our guide told us "was good eatin'" Yuck!!!

The beach was so crowded and it seemed like it was spring break for all the college kids!! The groups were awful and the girls barely covered so we tried to make our way through (with the boys eyes covered) and found a quieter spot to enjoy the sand,sun and waves. The water was so much warmer than the west coast! We found a blue jellyfish and had fun taking beach pics.