Florida!!!

 So I needed a vacation. With everything going on with Eric and I, I needed to get to my favorite place ever... Florida! My parents and sister and her family were all going to be down there and I wanted to go too! So I found some cheap plane tickets and decided to make the plunge. It was so worth it. At first I was nervous about travelling by myself with Eric. I was also struggling with some temporary and unpleasant depression (which makes me understand the people I work with more) right before we left. So when we got to Florida I missed big Eric a lot because the last time we were down there he was with us. I didn't expect that feeling and I called him and told him how I felt and then seemed to feel better once I talked about it. My parents were great because they would do stuff with Eric so I could relax. They had a lounge chair on the porch of the timeshare and that was my favorite spot. There were palm trees to look at and warm weather and it was a perfect rejuvenation to my life. It made me forget how crazy life was at home and I truly enjoyed it. It was also nice because this year Eric was able to go on almost all the rides because he's tall enough. I took him on Thunder Mountain which he did not like but says now, "I was very brave" because that's what I told him haha. I wish we had time for him to go on Splash Mountain, I think he would have liked that better. I especially enjoyed being able to be there with my nephews on their first trip to Florida and seeing things through their eyes. The boys had so much fun and I'm glad they were able to vacation together. Hopefully we can do this again someday... but I swear I'm not going next year, student loans mean no more spontaneous trips to Florida for me.

Here he is with Max and Mr. Grinch, ready to go to Florida

 

Tray table or foot rest. The flight attendant wasn't ttotally pleased that he was doing these but ah, who cares!

 

On the boat over the magic kingdom. I think Eric was a little excited!

 

The boys :)

 

 an old pro at the carousel

 

Still can't get that stinkin sword out of the stone

 

 It's a small world after all...

Shout out to my brother in law Mike for taking Eric on the teacups (and almost making him throw up!) so that I didn't have to go on it!

 

Goofy!

 

 

 Last year we had just missed meeting Buzz Lightyear. This year I was on a personal mission to make sure that Eric got to meet him. He was so excited!

 

Just love this picture

 

His favorite killer whale, Shamu!

 

Just had to get a picture in front of the snowman again this year

 

 A lot of what Eric remembered from his trip last year was from reading the book that I made him about the trip, over and over and over again. So when we got to Sea World he was so excited to pet the sting rays just like we read in the book. He was an old pro at this and taught his cousins how it was done!

 

Eric even fed the sting ray. The boys are being taught how to feed the sting rays (they eat shrimp in case anyone was wondering!)

 

 Love his picture!

 

 

 Over the years the shamu show has changed quite a bit. When I was a kid the trainers would get in the water and fly through the air and do all these tricks. Now it's not quite as exciting for me because the trainers don't get in the water anymore during the show but the boys love it.

 

I am disappointed that this picture didn't come out the way I wanted it to. The light actually looked like a snowman head but you can't see that in the picture.

 

 Backtrack, these are more pictures from Magic Kingdom

 

 

 So Eric was pretty upset that he didn't get to go on the dumbo ride so he wasnt' initially thrilled to go on this goofy roller coaster. However, outside the roller coaster there was this rocket that looked like it crashed into a rock so the whole time we were waiting in line Eric was coming up with a hypothesis of how goofy got the rocket into the rock. It was pretty cute. If you ask him he'll tell you all about his hypothesis.

 

 

 Back to Sea World, this is the video of Eric feeding the sting ray. You put the shrimp between your fingers and the shrimp come sup and eats it right out of your fingers. Eric let them take it right out of his hands.