Florida 2012

We just returned from 11 days in Florida.   What a trip to remember.  We visited Gatorland, Legoland, Clearwater Marine Aquarium (home of "Winter" the dolphin), Sea World,  Kennedy Space Centre, Animal Kingdom, Magic Kingdom, Blizzard Beach and Universal Studios.  The kids were fantastic and the 'grumpies' managed to stay away for the most part. The only not-so-great part was that Liam got an ear infection on day 2 (his first one ever) so Todd took him to emergency at 3:00 a.m.   He was given a strong painkiller and antibiotics which he had an allergic reaction to (also a first).  Back to the hospital once the allergic rash appeared and onto a new type of medication to treat the infection.  He's not one to suffer in silence and the 2nd medicine tasted awful to him so we created a concoction of Dr. Pepper and a slice of lime as a chaser.  He didn't even taste the medicine and didn't complain after that discovery.  He's all better now and I must say that the care he received and quickness of the hospital was fantastic.  Twenty minutes (in emerg!) and he was out.

I took close to 800 pictures; below is just a few of the highlights.

Lounging in the pool at the house we stayed in

Gatorland

Brave bird

Brave boy

Equally brave girl

Both kids loved being in this bird sanctuary

Legoland

This took over 2500 hours to build by 22 people

New York in lego

 Clearwater Marine Aquarium

Winter's prosthetic

Winter

A stingray; the kids felt one too

A beach in Clearwater

Sea World

The dolphin show was very well done

Pirate Show was good too

This was a huge turkey leg that Liam devoured

Amazingly trained sea lion

This thing was pretty disgusting actually

Very cool tunnel

In the mouth of a great white shark

Shamu the killer whale show

Liam was pretty impressed when he was soaked by the whales

Kennedy Space Centre; brought back memories of when the Challenger exploded

Animal Kingdom safari

Lion King show at Animal Kingdom

Magic Kingdom

Waiting for the parade to begin

This was a late night, but worth it

Blizzard Beach 

Liam aka 'thrill seeker' went down a 12 storey waterslide and loved how his tummy tickled

Universal Studios

Harry Potter world was packed with people

Some funny snails that appeared after a rain downpour

Leaving Universal Studios; the last stop on our adventure