My conference was only half day on Wednesday so we took the kids to Universal (“Umbabersatal” or “Umbabersal” in Mallorian) Studios in the afternoon – actually Islands of Adventure. We picked Islands instead of Universal because Islands of Adventure has Seussville and we thought that would be better for the children. I was bummed they wouldn’t get to see the Shrek attraction at Universal, but that was the only thing I thought we’d miss.
I have to say that going to other theme parks really make you appreciate the magic of Disney. This park had chipped paint, dead leaves in the gutters, etc – nothing gross or anything, but just mildly unkempt. Compare that to Disney that is spotless 99.9% of the time – it’s incredible. Magic, I say.
Anywho – back to me. And the kids.
We rode some rides – Mallory rode the Flight of the Hippogriff in Harry Potter World three times in a row – twice in the front seat of the coaster (luckily that line was only 5 minutes!) while Carson slept. We also went on a ride in Jurassic Park Land (Mallory & stood in line for 45 minutes for a 35 second ride – not really worth it…) and ate 79-cent refill popcorn all day.
They had Cartoon Land (I’m totally making up the names of the areas of the park, in case you couldn’t tell) and Mallory got in line to see Spiderman. For some reason, he is the only superhero that she talks about (I think it might have something to do with a boy at school…) so she got right up there to see him. Carson was a little unsure, and I thought it might be mildly inappropriate to go up and throw my arm around him and comment on his nice outfit so Mallory was the only one in the picture. I apologize for the super fun looking background – the park takes a picture too and then super-imposes it on a city landscape but $25 for a 5×7 was steep, even if it came with a frame (yes, I understand the hypocrisy since I am a photographer. But I digress).
We weren’t sure if Carson was going to be able to go on any rides. He was 34.02” at his 18-mo checkup in October, so I figured we might not be able to go on the ones that required him to be 36” but the 34” ones should be fine…
…Right until we got up to the ruler that measures how tall you are at the Suessville Train, and he came up way short. Rick went up the back way so we could child swap out with Mallory so he could go on the trainride after I did, and apparently some other worker said that the ruler at the entrance was off a bit, so they tried to measure him again on another one, and he was still a little short. Rick asked how they expected to get a 2-yr old to stand still long enough to really see if he was tall enough, and that he was 34” in October at the doctor’s office, so they dude let him on.
I’d say Carson liked it. HOW FUNNY IS HE????
After we went to the theme park, we ended up at Margaritaville – YUM. Nice that Mallory climbed up on the barstool, which cracked me up. And lovely that the bartender asked her if she wanted a shot of tequila.
And then, because we can – some pictures of a lucky mom & dad with their great kids.
PS – any other pictures you’ll see of us this week will show these same outfits, since I failed to bring anything else for us to wear in case of cold weather.