All About Orlando

As I stated earlier, our trip to Orlando was wonderful. Although, I was worried about us even getting there. To begin with, just two hours before I had planned on leaving, my husband gets called to the hospital (he was oncall until 6AM...our flight was leaving at 6 AM). In addition, I had a 100.7 fever. But I was NOT going to let my illness prevent this trip. We've had a crappy year with this cancer, and this trip was not going to be postponed because of my medical issues. The kids, and I, were too excited about going for anything to stop us. So I took some Motrin, finished packing everything up, got the kids all ready, the suitcases in the van, reluctantly took my steroids my radiation oncologist wanted me to start, and waited for my husband to come home. My husband managed to finish up the repair he had to do for a midwife on time, and we were at the airport about an hour before our flight. All was good.

While in Orlando, the weather was incredible, in the upper 80s. We did Universal Studios, Islands of Adventure and Magic Kingdom. We also spent a day at the resort swimming.

The one thing that's great about having a husband work all the time, is that when he is around, the kids only want to be with him! My poor husband got quite the workout, as Max and Ella were very demanding of his attention. He often walked around the park like this.

Ella just loved being at all the parks. She was NOT happy when she wasn't tall enough for rides that her brothers could go on. Her new word that she learned there is "Cool!" And she also developed a new kind of temper tantrum. Instead of throwing herself on the ground and screaming when she didn't like something, she would just walk a few feet away, hang her head, and just stand there...not talking, not crying, completely ignoring everyone, but looking incredibly pathetic!

Max got to meet his favorite princess of all time. Actually, when we went to line up to get his picture, he became very shy, and wanted to run away! He was very bashful when talking to Fiona, but was all smiles when he walked away. That was definitely the highlight of his trip. However, he did note that Fiona was supposed to be wearing green shoes, not black ones (who the hell knows what color shoes a character wears????).

In years past when we've visited Orlando, Cameron was fascinated by the roller coasters. He loved to stand and watch them. But he NEVER wanted to ride them. Finally, this year, he was all about the coasters. Actually, he was quite angry that he wasn't tall enough for the upside down ones. 54" he has to be. Maybe next year...or the year after! Because Max and Ella didn't want their daddy to leave their side, I got to experience all the coasters with Cameron...and all the long lines...and all the soaking wet splashes, as we rode all the water coasters as well. Despite getting soaked, it was a lot of fun.

Although our days at the parks were exhausting, they were still a lot of fun. I didn't have any issues with my shortness of breath (I wasn't climbing any stairs though), so that was good. And although I had one night where I woke up with a fever and some serious shaking chills, the next morning I was fine.

Looking forward to many more family vacations to come!