hey ho orlando

my dad has an annual business meeting that fell in orlando this year, so we tagged along with my parents and sister for a little family time in hot, humid florida. the wizarding world of harry potter has been on my bucket list since it opened. we HAD to go! nate flew in for a few days too to drink butter beer and traipse around diagon alley and fulfill our nerdy wizarding dreams. i'd say it lives up to the hype. poor sage thought it was all pretty scary and covered her eyes often, even on our train ride aboard the hogwarts express.

first things first, the unimaginable happened on our quick flight to florida:

and my heart grew ten sizes as i watched my sleeping girls (and broke out a magazine!). like that diaper pillow? and has life resorted to being captured by a phone these days? yes.

i was giddy to be here. harry potter = my childhood.

 we lunched on british fare at the leaky cauldron and sipped frozen butter beer. if it looks like we are wilting from heat and sweat, we were. it was one of those "90 degrees but feels like 103 degrees" days.

 had to document our little nook on the hogwarts express before the dementors came.

 we popped into suessland at universal studios to ride the carousel and meet the grinch. is it the eyes? the green fur? whatever it is, the grinch doesn't sit well with sage.

just as we were leaving the park, those blue skies turned to sheets of water and rolling thunder.
we got soaked!

while my dad was working, the girls spent the day at disneyworld's magic kingdom. i love that you can get over to the park by ferry boat. 

 
the wait to visit anna and elsa from frozen happened to be much shorter than usual, so we hopped in line to make dreams come true. sage was thrilled! these iphone pictures are pretty bad, but at least the moment was captured?

 

we also spent lots of time chasing geckos on the sidewalks, laying in the sun, and setting a record for pool time--sage stayed in the water for four hours!



when grandma is around, i'm mostly invisible. she LOVES her grandma.

we got caught in an epic lightning storm one afternoon and perfected the jumping photo.

we walked around the grounds of the gorgeous orlando temple

and spent an afternoon at gatorland. 

the red neck watching and humongous gators were equally awesome.

a meal at cracker barrel called for a game of checkers in rocking chairs


sage was wide-eyed at rain forest cafe. i'd never been before either, but sage could hardly eat because she was so enraptured with the animals.

such a fantastic trip! i lucked out with those cool parents of mine.