Universal Islands of Adventure

We all went to bed early last night.  We were wiped out from our trip and the excitement of the first day.  It felt great to start our day well rested.  Cam, Meg and I headed to Hogsmeade along with everyone else.  One of the perks of staying at our hotel was getting into Harry Potter World an hour earlier.  They first went to The Forbidden Journey which took them on an adventure through Hogwart's Castle.  While they were riding it I had a chance to walk through the shops at Hogsmeade and even listened to Moaning Myrtle in the girls' bathroom.  Cam and Meg loved the ride.  I had opted out of it as the reviews said that it caused severe motion sickness.  Meg said that it didn't bother her at all, so I might try it another time. We had already ridden The Flight of the Hippogriff, so we left Harry Potter and went straight to the Hulk ride.

The wait for the roller coaster was short.  I sat this one out as well as it had several loops and turns.  They liked it, but it bothered Meg's eyes just like the one they tried yesterday at Universal Studios.  Cam went on a couple of rides on his own.  We found that the single rider lines had the shortest wait times, so Cam was able to go on several rides without us in less than a half hour.  Before heading back to the hotel we wanted to try a couple of the water rides.  The first was in Jurassic World.  We rode on boats through Jurassic Park searching for Velociraptors. The signs said that we would get soaked, but it wasn't too bad.  Since we were already wet we decided to next try the ride that Brett made us promise to do - Rip Saw Falls starring Dudley Do Right.  It was a log flume that I thought looked pretty tame.  I was wrong and we walked off of it completely drenched, but happy that we tried it.

We headed straight to our hotel and changed to go to Volcano Bay - Universal's new water park.  We spent the rest of the afternoon there soaking up sun, riding tube slides, coasting along the lazy river and hanging out at the wave pool.  It was crowded much like the parks, but fun nonetheless.  The bus ride back to the hotel was short.  We rested in our room before going back to the parks watching one of Doug's favorites - The Andy Griffith Show.

We spent the evening at Universal.  Cam and Meg had a lot of fun hanging out in Krustyland playing the Sideshow games.  Cam completely botched the balloon game, but scored big in the basketball one.  They were both proud of their prizes.  We ended the evening waiting in line for the Despicable Me ride.  It was cute, but we were glad that we caught it when it was less than an hour wait as most of the day it was well over two.  We were hungry when we got back to the room so we grabbed ice cream at the bakery.  It made for a great treat while we watched Impractical Jokers before heading to bed.

Day 5 - On to Orlando

Doug dropped Meg, Cam and I off at the Indianapolis airport this morning well before sunrise.  It had started storming last night and I was extremely worried that our plane would not make it out.  It was delayed for about fifteen minutes because of lightening strikes.  The plane was fine, but they couldn't safely get our luggage stored underneath.  Fortunately, the lightening stopped in time for us to leave.  I noticed later in the day that many of the planes after us were well over an hour delayed.  Although we had to get up early to catch the first flight of the day it was well worth it as we were in Orlando before 8:30 a.m.  There was a lot of turbulence at the beginning, but once we made it south of Kentucky it was a smooth flight.

We checked into the Loew's Sapphire Falls resort and were impressed with the hotel from the start.  It wasn't quite the Boardwalk, but it was very nice.  We spent an hour or so getting acquainted with all of it's amenities.  We bought our endless refill mugs and breakfast at the bakery.  After we ate we caught the boat to Universal Studios.  I had not been to the park in almost 25 years and Cam and Meg had never been there.  We knew that they had a Simpson's ride and thought we would check that out first since the line for the Krusty ride was only forty minutes.  

We absolutely loved Krustyland.  The virtual roller coaster was based on The Simpson's show, and although it made Meg and I nauseous, we still enjoyed it very much.  They had a second ride that featured the aliens from the show that reminded me of the magic carpet ride at Disney World.  Besides the two rides we enjoyed the Quik-E-Mart store, Moe's Bar, the Krusty Burger and Lard Lad Donuts.  Cam and Meg even had their picture taken with the Jedidiah Springfield statue.  

After exploring the park, we started back to our hotel.  They had texted us at 2:30 to let us know that our room was ready.  On our walk we saw that Hard Rock Cafe was open for lunch, so we stopped there first.  Cam shared all of the knowledge that he gained during his History of Rock N Roll class while we waited for our sandwiches.  The food was delicious as always.  Our room was very nice with a beautiful view of the lagoon.  Cam and Meg spent the afternoon at the pool.  It was the perfect weather day to swim.  The pool was large and had a slide for them to use.  Beachballs were flying everywhere and Meg and Cam had fun batting one back and forth.  

Our last stop of the evening was The Wizarding World of Harry Potter.  Walking through Diagon Alley was just like stepping into one of J.K. Rowling's books.  We visited all of the stores including Fred and George's joke shop.  Cam tried his first Butter Beer.  It was very good.  I thought about buying some Gilly Water, but shared Cam's drink instead.  We rode the Hogwart's Express to the Island of Adventure before heading back to the hotel.  It was absolutely amazing, just like we were first years.   It was the perfect end to our first day at Universal.

Spring Break Day 4 - A College Visit

I was up early this morning to secure our boarding passes for our 5:35 a.m. flight tomorrow.  I felt extremely fortunate to get A 30-32.  That should ensure that not only will Meg, Cam and I sit together, but  we should also be able to get seats close to the front.  That will save us quite a bit of time when we unload.

Shortly after I got up, Doug woke up Cam and Meg.  We had a 9:30 tour of Purdue and Doug wanted to make sure that we arrived early.  We thanked Brett for letting us stay for the weekend and headed out the door at 6:30.  From that time on we gave Doug a hard time about his early morning wake up call.  We arrived 45 minutes ahead of schedule which for Meg and I meant we could have enjoyed 30 more minutes of sleep!!

Our tour was extremely informative and although it snowed last night it wasn’t quite as cold on our walking portion as I thought it would be.  We remembered quite a bit from Cal’s tour three years ago, but learned some new information as well.  Cam said that he paid a lot more attention this time as he realized that a lot of the majors that he was interested in were found at Purdue.  Meg enjoyed her day and felt that Purdue would be a great second choice if for some reason IU did not work out.

After the tour we ate lunch at an Irish pub.  It was well worth trying.  From there we drove through the Butler campus.   It was not on Meg’s list of colleges to visit, but we were glad to see it.  There were some beautiful buildings.  We next went to Circle Center Mall.  Meg and I each found something that we needed.  We walked to the Soldiers’ Monument afterward hoping to come back another time when the Civil War museum was open.  We ate dinner at Giordano’s just like our preflight trips to Midway.  We checked into the Homewood Suites outside the airport.  Cam spent the evening watching the Michigan and Villanova game.  Meg read and went to bed early, but not quite as early as Doug.  I packed and rearranged our luggage while continually checking the weather forecast.  It was supposed to storm tomorrow and I was afraid that our flight would be cancelled.  I finally gave up worrying about it around ten or so and headed to bed.

Happy Easter and April Fool's Day!

For the first time that I could remember Easter fell on April Fool's Day.  There were a lot of memes on Facebook about it.  My favorite was that Jesus played the best April Fool's joke ever when he fooled his persecutors by rising from the dead.  We had a wonderful Easter spending it together as a family.  We started with Easter baskets at Brett's.  They were filled with candy, a movie, headphones and cash.    We next had brunch at the Tudor room.  It had been four years since we had done so and it was just as  delicious as we remembered.  Parce joined us for brunch.  He had worked the last two days, so we hadn't been able to catch up with him until today.

We decided after brunch to try a miniature golf place in Elletsville.  It was chilly out, but they were still open.  The course was a challenging one, but made for an afternoon of fun.  After a lot of trash talking and multiple sixes by all of us, Cal and Cam came out on top.  Meg and I were just five back and Doug and Brett finished a stroke behind us.  Cal had to go to work after our afternoon together.  The rest of us hung out at Brett's apartment playing games, watching television and reading.  Brett was in charge of the last mass of the day, 9 p.m.  We decided to join him.  It was a nice service and we all enjoyed going very much.  It was the perfect way to end a fantastic Easter day.

Bloomington

We started our second day of Spring Break walking the streets of Nashville.  We have liked the stores there on our past visits and it was a nice day to be out and about.  There were a lot of novelty items to look at as well clothes.   Brett and Doug were able to do some beer tasting at a local brewery while Meg, Cam and I checked out the fudge shoppe.  Cam and Meg also made an awesome purchase - a giant size Pass the Pigs game.

We decided upon the winery for lunch.  Cam and Meg picked up Noodles & Company to take along and Doug bought breadsticks for the rest of us.  It was windy today, but nice enough to enjoy a picnic lunch on the back porch of Oliver's.  Once we got back to Brett's apartment Doug changed to go jogging.  Meg had homework to do and Cal needed to study as well.  Brett, Cam and I started the new season of "A Series of Unfortunate Events."  I made it about five minutes into the episode before I fell asleep.  Brett said it was a good one, so I'll have to catch up on it later.

We had talked about watching the new "IT" movie the last time we were here and thought this would be the perfect afternoon to do so.  It was scary, but a lot better than the made for TV one from the 1980's that we watched the last time we were here.  As soon as the movie was over we were able to turn it to the Final Four to watch Michigan and Loyola play.  It was a good game to watch and the majority in the apartment were happy to see Michigan come out on top.  After the game we headed to Upland Brewery for dinner.  We were surprised that we got in right away as traditionally there has been a long wait.  Dinner was very good and we were able to watch the second game of the evening - Villanova and Kansas.  That game ended up being a blow out and we gave up in the second half once Villanova got up by more than twenty.  Cal went home after the game and we all headed to bed, tired from a fun day of activity.

Spring Break Day One

Today we started our first day of Spring Break by traveling to Terre Haute.  Meg had wanted to go to The Candles Holocaust Museum ever since we saw Eva Kor speak four years ago.  We thoroughly enjoyed our visit.  Doug and Cameron knew very little about Eva's life as a twin in Auschwitz and the torture she suffered under the "care" of Dr. Mengele.   There was also a 97 year old docent that gave a talk about his life in Germany after World War I and before World War II.  As an added bonus to the museum tour we also found a fantastic place for lunch called Fifi's Lunchbox.  The outside was sketchy, but the food was delicious.  Cam talked about trying their famous donut burger, but instead ordered the Mother Clucker.

We arrived in Bloomington around 4 p.m. catching traffic in Spencer on the way down.  Brett met us at the Union and we spent the next hour walking around campus and down Kirkwood.  We decided to eat an early dinner at Mother Bear's and were thankful for that choice as it wasn't crowded when we arrived.  Cal had a test tonight and then played basketball.  He met up with us later at Brett's where we watched Apollo 13.  Everyone was wiped out from a busy week and no one made it up past eleven with Brett going to bed the earliest at 8:40!!

Last Day Before Break

I was so excited to pull into my driveway this afternoon.  Today was the last day of school before Spring Break.  It had been a crazy one complete with dreary, cold weather.  The majority of my students had earned a strategic game day.  It was a lot of work to keep everyone in control while helping those who had missing work to catch up.  It felt fantastic to not only make it through the day, but to also make it to Spring Break.  For me it has always been a milestone of the teaching year.  The last eight weeks of the school year are busy and fly by quickly.  When we return after our ten day break Cam and Meg will only have thirty-five days left and I will have thirty-nine.  

Tonight was spent getting ready for vacation.  Meg was supposed to have a tennis match, but the weather forced a postponement.  Due to the cancellation she had time to meet up with some of her friends including Preston who was home for Easter weekend.  Cam had practice after school and then filled his time getting everything he needed ready.  The rest of his evening was spent playing Fortnight.  Doug and I even had time to go to dinner before we called it a night.  It had been a long day especially since we got home so late last night from the Morris Civic, but it was a good one.