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Sarah Halstead

You are here: Home | Family | Our Family Vacation | Florida

January 23, 2014 By Sarah Halstead

Our Family Vacation | Florida

Filed Under: Family, Travel Tagged With: florida, vacation

Last week we went down to Florida for our family vacation. We had so much fun! It was at lot warmer than here, but definitely wasn’t as warm as they were calling for it to be. When I looked at the weather for packing it said high 60s and low 70s. When we got there it was more in the high 50s and low 60s. I didn’t pack a ton of warm clothes but we managed. Hope you enjoy this review from our trip. These are all straight out of camera from my samsung note 2.

Our Family Vacation | Airplane Ride & Sea World

Our Family Vacation

1. Carsyn LOVED riding the airplane. He got so excited taking off and landing. 2. View from the airplane window. 3. As soon as we landed we went to Sea World. This is from the ride Empire of the Penguin. 4. Dustyn’s silhouette in Antarctica. 5. The penguins were so neat to watch but it was freezing in there! 6. We got to feed the Sea Lions. They were so loud and hungry! 7. Baby Sting Rays. 8. I love the shark exhibit because they have one of those arched aquariums that you can walk through. Carsyn really enjoyed that. 9. One of our favorite shows to go to was Clyde & Seymour. 10.  They had an Up-Close encounter with the Killer Whales and talked about how they train them. Of course no one gets in the water with them anymore because of all the accidents that have happened. 11. It was so neat watching the Killer Whales from under water. 12. I think Dustyn wanted to go in there too. 13. & 14. The boys loved meeting the penguin. Carsyn is a big fan of mascots. 15. Carsyn was out about 2 minutes into the drive to get to our condo. 16. The boys first night sleeping in the same bed together.

Our Family Vacation | Condo & Fun Spot

Our Family Vacation

1. The view from our Condo’s screened in porch. 2. Dustyn saw me taking photos so he went and got his table so he could take photos too. 3. Carsyn loved sitting in this corner of the couch playing with his iPad. 4. Dustyn walking up to Big Foot #7 for the first time. Ever since we started planning the trip to Florida all he cared about was seeing that truck at Fun Spot. 5. My boys posing in front of Big Foot. Kenny grew up loving Big Foot so he definitely liked this! 6. Who doesn’t like Cotton Candy? I just thought this was a neat photo. 7. I had to get a picture in the tires with my boys. 8. We also went to the other Fun Spot which had this cool vintage Ferris Wheel. I like my edited picture on instagram better. 9. Made a stop to the biggest McDonald’s in the world. They had a ton of games that the boys liked to play. Basically a chuck-e-cheese inside a McDonald’s. 10.  What is better then a sunset in Florida with palm tree silhouettes? 11. The pool at the condo was gorgeous. It was heated to 80 but it still felt cold! 12. Dustyn passed out soon after we got back to the Condo.

Our Family Vacation | Universal Studios

Our Family Vacation

1. Thursday we went to Universal Studios! 2. Carsyn with the Robot Despicable Me Minion. 3 & 4. The Twister ride and reenactment. This was cool but also a little scary. 5. I loved how Universal was set up like a town and movie scenes. 6. For lunch we ate at Mel’s Diner. Yummy hamburger and fries. 7 & 8. This was Curious George town. Which would be great in the Summer because it was all water stuff, but too chilly when we went in. They did have a ball area that Kenny, Dustyn, and Carsyn had a “ball” playing in. (Pun Intended) 9 – 20. This was all Springfield USA based on The Simpsons! By far my favorite area. It seemed so real. The Simpson’s ride was really awesome. 21.  Carsyn was totally exhausted and just couldn’t hang. 22 & 23. Transformer 3-D ride was pretty neat but definitely scary. Dustyn wasn’t a fan, and neither was I for that matter. 24. Carsyn and I waiting for the Super Stars Parade. 25. Some of the floats and characters from the parade. 26. The Despicable Me house out night looked so neat. 27. Had to take a photo of the Universal globe on the way out.

Our Family Vacation | Busch Gardens

Our Family Vacation

1 – 4. Feeding the Kangaroos and Birds. 5. Flamingos! A favorite of mine. 6 -9. The rides in Elmo’s Safari Land. Carsyn can ride a bunch of these so I will just go and say it was his favorite. He giggled the entire time on the swings. 10. Meeting Safari Elmo & Big Bird. We missed the show. I think Carsyn would have really enjoyed that. 11-14. Riding the train checking out all the animals. We saw Giraffes, Rhinos, Zebras, and many more. 15. This is hard to see but this one tiger in the exhibit kept pacing back and forth. Reminded me so much of regular cats. 16 -20. Elephants, Lions, Hyenas and Hippos! Oh my!! One of the reason I like Busch Gardens in Tampa so much is because of all the animals. 21 & 22.  Dustyn decided he wanted to be a Tiger. He sat so well while she did his face. I was really amazed. 23. Riding the sky ride with “Darth Maul”. When Dustyn saw himself in the camera he said hey I look like Darth Maul from Star Wars. 24. Sunset from the sky ride. I was surprised that Dustyn wanted to ride this because when I would ask before he was like heck no! He is the one that asked me to ride it and if the park wasn’t closing we would have ridden it several more times.  25. That was the train we were riding earlier. Plus the new ride called cheetah run. Which was my favorite!!

Our Family Vacation | Another Day @ Sea World

Our Family Vacation

1. Sea World Lighthouse. 2 & 3. Riding the Sky Tower. Guess my brave boy from the Sky Ride decided he was ready to ride the Sky Tower. Of course Carsyn loved it because he loves anything that moves. 4 – 6. The Clyde & Seymour show again. This time we got front row seats. So we were a lot closer to the animals. Impressed Carsyn for sure! 7. Another hard to see shot but that is two dolphins doing a flip. 8. Meeting some of the Characters from the Dolphin Show. The boys loved this show because there was so much going on and a lot of music. 9. Manatees! They were huge and eating when we saw them. 10 & 11. Feeding the dolphins. Again Carsyn LOVED this. I didn’t get a picture of it because my hands were covered in fish, but afterwards I asked a trainer if she could call a dolphin up on the side. She did and it laid right down on the ledge and Carsyn got to pet it. When he gets to be 6 Years old we can take him to Discovery Cove to swim with the dolphins. A little over 2 years to go! 12 & 13.  The boys on their favorite rides in Shamu’s Harbor.

Our Family Vacation | Going Home

Our Family Vacation

1 – 5. These are just a few of my favorite shots from the airplane windows. Plus of course Carsyn smiling because he loved it. Dustyn was sitting with Kenny’s Mom & Billy on the plane. He did like it as well I just couldn’t grab any photos of him.

WOW! That was a lot to type out. I thought about breaking our trip up into the days but figured I would just put them all together! Hope you enjoyed the photos. You can see some of them bigger over on my instagram account. One thing about vacation that I don’t like is it seems I managed to pick up scabies! YUCK!! So currently I have cream to put on tonight and then wash over tomorrow. Then I have to go through and wash ALL of our linens, towels, clothes, etc!! Not fun. Plus I probably need to rewash the vacation clothes that I already wash since scabies is contagious and could be on the clothes I washed already… Oy! If you don’t hear from me for a few days send help!

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Comments

  1. Sarah@ This Farm Family's Life says

    January 24, 2014 at 4:06 pm

    Looks like such a fun time! Loved looking at all your pictures! 50 degrees sounds wonderful right now! 12 degrees is the high here today. Happy Friday!
    • Sarah says

      January 27, 2014 at 12:14 am

      I know! We are in NC on the east coast it has been so cold!!
  2. Stephanie Clark says

    January 24, 2014 at 12:26 pm

    Looks like you guys had a great time! You did so much. Sorry about the scabies... that stinks!
    • Sarah says

      January 27, 2014 at 12:14 am

      Thank you! They seem to be doing better if that is what it was... I am still not sure.
  3. Heather Julian says

    January 23, 2014 at 9:31 pm

    Gosh I LOVE the layout and way you described each photo!! It looks like you guys had so much fun!!
    • Sarah says

      January 23, 2014 at 9:36 pm

      Thanks so much Heather. It was a lot of fun! Next time we are going to go to Hollywood Studios because of the Star Wars stuff! I can't wait to go back. Wish I was there this week too!

Welcome

I'm Sarah and I am the writer behind this blog. I love sharing recipes, DIY projects, photos and about my everyday life. I married my high school sweetheart Kenny. We have three boys and one baby girl - Dustyn, Carsyn, Prestyn, and Annelyn. Thanks for stopping by, can't wait to get to know you more. Read More…

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