Howard Johnson Hotel Kissimmee

... on the day of departure I actually cancelled my plans to go because of a cold front that was making its way through the Orlando area this weekend and that was bringing allot of mositure with it, and because I did not think it would have ended up being a good thing to be sleeping in a tent with two young kids in the pouring rain and with temperatures dipping down into the 40's.

After ...

... delayed for over three hours. i still kept my hopes high of our trip going good.I have always loved being in the airport observing people and trying to understand the objective of each ones presence there. Not to forget the multiple shops and eat-outs.So we finally din't realize the passing of time until before we were boarding and were on our way to Orlando.

It was mid November for us at Maryland and we were ...

Today we went for a drive and visited a walmart store - we found some good bargains on t-shirts etc. One interesting thing is that Ipods and other electronics now cost about the same as in the UK. bought a card reader for $13 only to find where I'd hidden mine when we got back to the hotel. so I now have two....

we had the great joy of seeing 3 juvenile alligators in a ...

... motor home for camping.

Hunter could not wait to fish but soon found that the pond had a friendly alligator that like to follow him when ever he changed places on the dock. But that did not discourages him he continue to fish but he ask grandpa and grandma to watch the alligator and let him know when he was on the move.

Ryan and Grandma played some ping pong and then Grandma gave her paddle to a girl that was watching Ryan and they ...

... one is little bothered by their constantly trying to sell you something. The rides, unfailingly, exit into stores, but the little figurines are cute. If Disney was Elni's youth elixir, mine was Universal Studios. it was SOOOOOO cool! i mean, there were these awesome spider-man, hulk and x-men thingies everywhere. it was freakin awesome. and the rides were way more hardcore than at disney. i mean, the hulk rollercoaster was super ...

... We got into our first big fight here and I yelled at him pretty good, haha! I just told him that I was running into the bathroom and if he was in that big of a rush to get on the ride than he could go by himself. I was only in the bathroom for two minutes anyway! UGH, moving on. I love New York here at Universal Studios, it always brings us right back home. The theming is amazing; it really does look and feel like Manhattan. It's pretty surreal! While walking through New York I ...

... fun. This time was no exception. It took me FOREVER to get ready and it was such a pain in the you know what. It was so damn hot in the bathroom and my stuff was all over the place and I couldn't find anything and everyone else was screaming at me to hurry up and it sucked! While I was getting ready mom, dad and Mike went to get some stuff from the free continental ...

... characters on the front so we thought they would be like the pack of Disney Princess cards I had bought the year before but we later found out that it was just a regular pack of cards in a Universal-themed box. Oh well. At 9:00 we headed out of Islands of Adventure and it was a quick ride back to the house. It would have been uneventful if the signs along I4 would have been more clear but there was a sign for an exit that didn't exist ...

... park at night. Seeing how late we were sleeping, though, I knew that Mike and I wouldn't be up in time to get to the parks at opening so I redid the plans so we only had one early morning at each park to get in the most popular attractions. At 5:00 we decided to go for dinner and thought we would try the Golden China buffet right up the road. The last time we tried to get in it was closed (it was after lunch, but before dinner), so we thought we'd try again ...

... pictures in Seuss Landing before heading over to the "Cat in the Hat". The Cat in the Hat only had a ten minute wait so we got on line.  I love the line for the ride.  It's very simple but fun.  It's a dark room with a bunch of windows and the kids from the Cat In the Hat story are sitting by the window watching the rain.  There are excerpts from the book periodically flashed onto the walls in light, and there are props from the Cat In the Hat movie ...