Florida - Day 7 - Sea World & Orlando Science Center

Friday (Feb 26th) was our last full day in Florida. Our plan was to go to Sea World again because our tickets were good for a free second visit within a week. If we felt like we'd seen everything by midday, we planned to go to the Orlando Science Center.

Carter got up a little later at 6 am. When he got up, the poor kid's face was swollen and red. I really still think it was wind burn though because it was only on his nose and cheeks and his skin felt hard. That's where I did his sunscreen the best too. It didn't seem to bother him at least.

We left the hotel around 8:15 am so Carter could get a short nap again on the way to Sea World. He probably slept about 15 minutes which wasn't a lot, but enough. We were walking up to the gate just as the park was opening again.

On Wednesday, a trainer was killed at Sea World by one of the killer whales. Because of this, the Believe show featuring the killer whales was canceled. Also, the underwater viewing area of the whales was closed. There weren't any signs around explaining anything or anyone that worked there talking about it but it was hard to miss the news vans parked outside the gates of the park.

It was cold again on Friday morning. It was in the mid 40s but the wind was much lighter so it was a lot nicer than Thursday. I'm not sure if Sea World decided to have a different character out this morning because it was cold or because of what happened on Wednesday. Either way, this guy was pretty cute ...


Brian was planning on riding Manta first thing again, but for some reason the ride wasn't open yet (maybe because it was cold?). So we walked around for a little bit and looked at the flamingos and sea turtles. Then we walked through the aquarium for the Manta ride.

Brian and Carter outside of the aquarium ...


The octopus in the aquarium was moving around a lot giving us a good view of his legs ...



Next we headed over to Dolphin Cove to watch people feed the dolphins. It looked like it could be fun, but we didn't want to pay $7 each for a few fish. From the viewing area, we eventually saw Manta running so we headed back over to the ride. Brian got to ride in the front of the ride again. Carter really liked watching the Manta ride still though he wasn't as thrilled as he was earlier in the week. He still did lots of pointing at it.

We headed toward the back of the park and there was no line for Kraken, the other roller coaster, so Brian rode that ride too (in the front again). He liked this ride enough, but Manta was much better.

We then went to the Penguin Encounter and Pacific Point Reserve. Carter looked at everything but wasn't all that excited. He did point out the sea lions though.


Carter still didn't want me to hold him and only wanted Brian.

The park was still pretty empty since it was early so when we got over to the children's area, we got to ride the carousel all alone. The children's area is next to the Shamu Stadium that was closed so that probably helped to keep it empty as well.


We went of to Wild Arctic next. Brian rode the simulator ride while Carter and I headed straight to the animal viewing area. There were beluga whales, a polar bear, and walruses here. There were above and below water viewing areas for all of the animals.

The walruses were really cool. They were HUGE. When we were at the above water viewing area, one of the walruses seemed to try to play with Carter. It was playing with a large half ball that it would pull under the water with it and then let it pop back up to the surface. Once it threw it at the window toward Carter. Then it had to come out of the water some to retrieve it. It seemed like it wanted to play with Carter though.

Isn't this guy cool?

If you turn up the volume, you can hear the walrus making a cool whistling sort of sound ...

Brian caught up with us just as we were finishing up. We hurried over to the Whale and Dolphin Theater to see the Blue Horizons show again. We made it about 5 minutes before the show started so we didn't have as good of seats but they weren't bad. Carter really liked the show again (feeding him grapes through out the show helped some too).

Here's another video of Carter watching the show ...

After the show, we felt like we'd seen everything at Sea World so we headed out. We left around 12:15 pm. Carter fell asleep immediately when we got him in the car. We took our time finding a place for lunch and ended up just going to Moe's.

After lunch we headed over to the Orlando Science Center. Before we left, I got an annual membership to the American Museum of Science and Energy in Oak Ridge. The family membership was only $35 and it has an amazing reciprocal program allowing us to get in to a bunch of other museums for free that cost a lot more than our local museum. The Orlando Science Center is one of the museums that we get into for free with this membership. It costs $17 per adult admission so we essentially paid for the membership with this one visit.

We really liked this museum. Brian and I had a lot of fun in the Science Park section playing with all of the science demonstration stations.

One of my favorite (and Carter's favorite) things was the hurricane wind simulator.

Carter liked watching the cars go down this race track ...



Brian and Carter had fun on this earthquake simulator ...

There was also a neat flight simulator ...




Carter loved running around this area. The demonstrations were really spread out and it wasn't very crowded in the afternoon (probably because all the school groups had already left).

Carter found lots of stuff to play with ...




His favorite things though were stairs. He liked trying to go up them like he was a big kid.


Carter was not a fan of the dinosaur exhibit area so we didn't really get to look at them. I did manage to get one good picture of him with Brian though. There was a man on a ladder in the area and I think Carter really wanted to play on it so he was trying to get away from us the whole time.


Carter really liked the tree house play area, probably because of the stairs though ...




We got to the museum around 2 pm and left around 4:15 pm. Carter fell asleep again right away in the car. We headed back to the hotel to take a break and get food for Carter for dinner. We went to Fuddrucker's for dinner so we didn't have to worry about Carter being loud. When we got back to the hotel we got some packing done and got Carter to bed around 7:45 pm.

We had another fun day. We were sad our vacation was over but were also worn out so we felt good about heading home (even though we knew we weren't going to catch up on any sleep since we were headed out for San Francisco right away!).

Florida - Day 6 - Epcot

On Thursday, Carter was up early at 5:45 am so we had lots of time to get ready. It was a chilly morning (for Orlando) - only around 40F with really strong winds, but it was very sunny.

We left our hotel around 8 am and took a round about way to Epcot so that Carter could get a short morning nap in the car. We eventually woke him up in the parking lot because we really liked getting into the parks right when they opened. We bought our tickets and waited about 5 minutes in line for the park to open.


Our first stop was Spaceship Earth (which is the ride in the big dome). The wind was so strong that we thought the stroller might blow away from where we parked it! Here's a picture of Carter all bundled up before we got on the ride ...


Carter was really happy on the ride. He really liked the parts that were dark with little lights that looked like stars.


Our next stop was the Epcot Character Spot which is where you can get your picture taken with the characters. For some reason, starting today, Carter no longer liked the characters. He wasn't really scared of them, but he didn't trust them and got really shy with them. There were no high 5's given anymore.

All of us with Mickey ...


Dad, don't let that guy get any closer to me!


Don't touch me!!!


Dad, he's touching me!


Um, Mom, what's he doing???


I'm not taking my eye off you!


Brian took a short video of Carter and me when we were meeting Minnie Mouse. You can see that Carter didn't really care about her too much ...

I was a little disappointed that we didn't get any good pictures, but you can't force it.

We went over to The Seas with Nemo & Friends next. There was no line for the ride (so nice!) and Carter paid attention during it, but didn't seem to think it was anything special (he may have still be "traumatized" from his experience with the characters). After the ride, we did the interactive show Turtle Talk with Crush (it was like the Monster's Inc Laugh Floor at Magic Kingdom). Though it didn't fully keep Carter's attention, he did a good job behaving during it.

Afterward, we walked through the aquarium associated with the ride and show. The coolest part were some dolphins that were playing with one another. They were really active and fun to watch.

Carter checking out some fish ...


Another picture of Shaceship Earth ...


Our next stops were Journey into Imagination with Figment (no line) and Honey, I Shrunk the Audience (we got there right before the show started). Carter did fine during the ride and pretty good during the show (he played with a pair of the 3-D glasses most of the time).

Carter liked the jumping water fountains outside of the Imagination! building. He loves moving water - fountains, waterfalls, anything like that.


We took a break from the rides and shows then and headed to the World Showcase. We started on the right side of the loop at Canada. We were hungry so we stopped at the second country (United Kingdom) and had lunch (we had fish and chips, of course). We ate outside because it was starting to warm up. There were tons of birds though where we were at. Carter loved it though. There were a pair of ducks that hung out at his feet and kept walking under his stroller even though he never dropped a thing.

After lunch we continued our walk through the World Showcase. We got a few pictures with Carter and then he fell asleep.

There were a ton of cool topiaries in the shape of Disney characters.

Beauty and the Beast characters ...



Goofy and Donald ...


Pluto ...


Mickey and Minnie ...


Lady and the Tramp ...


Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs ...



Since Carter was still sleeping, Brian went on a couple of rides. He did Test Track (he used the single rider queue and had no wait) and Mission: Space (I think this wait was about 20 minutes). Brian did the "intense journey" and it made him a little nauseous so it wasn't his favorite ride of the week.

The outside of Mission: Space ...


Carter woke up during the second ride that Brian was on so we relaxed and ate snacks while we waited. It had warmed up to about 60F and was sunny (though windy still) so I enjoyed just hanging out for a little bit.

The next ride we all did was Ellen's Energy Adventure.

Brian and Carter before the ride / show started ...


Carter did amazing on this ride even though it was 45 minutes and only moved occasionally. He SCREAMED during the big bang portion of the movie when it got REALLY loud - it was happy screaming though and really funny. Carter jumped when the first "real" (animatronic) dinosaur roared, but then he thought they were funny and laughed and pointed at them.

Next we went back to the World Showcase to do the rides that were in a couple of the countries. We did Gran Fiesta Tour in Mexico (no wait) and Maelstrom in Norway (which had a 10-15 minute wait). I liked the second ride the best. There were a few fun drops. The one forward facing drop is relatively long (for being an open boat with no seat belts) and Carter screamed a few seconds AFTER the drop finished. It was really funny.

We finished walked about the World Showcase, taking our time, and enjoying the beautiful weather.


Our last ride of the day was Living with the Land. This is just another boat ride that goes through some interesting gardens and a farm. I thought it was going to be pretty lame, but Carter really liked it. He was really happy and chatty during the ride and pointed out lots of things to us.

On our way out, we stopped at a couple of spots to get our picture taken. Disney has lots of their photographers out at good photo locations to take your picture for you. They give you a reusable card that gets scanned everywhere you get your picture taken and then you can look at the photos online and order anything you want. Most of the photographers are nice enough to take a picture with your personal camera too so we took advantage of this a lot.



We left the park around 5:15 pm and Carter fell asleep almost immediately once he was in his carseat. We drove to a Panera that was a little bit away from our hotel so that Carter could sleep a little longer before dinner (naps in his stroller just aren't as refreshing). Carter was much better at dinner than the night before which was so nice after a long day.

After dinner we headed to the hotel, gave Carter a bath, and had him in bed around 8 pm. Carter's cheeks were looking really pink as we were getting him ready for bed, but since I'd put sunscreen on him a few times, we figured it was windburn (he's gotten it before). I'm still not sure which it was, but I got plenty of dirty looks the next morning at breakfast.

We had another fun day. It was a long day again, but we took it pretty slow so it was still relaxing.

Ripley's Aquarium

Today Carter and I went to Ripley's Aquarium of the Smokies with Sarah and Mary Grace. We both have annual passes and this is only the second time I've used mine so far.

On the drive to Gatlinburg, Carter and Mary Grace held hands for about a third of the drive. Carter even fell asleep holding Mary Grace's hand. It was very sweet!

We spent about an hour and a half in the aquarium even though I felt like Carter was running through some parts of it so quick. It seemed like everyone had fun!

Carter checking out the fish in the lobby area ...


Standing on a ledge to see some fish ...


Carter liked this little tank that the was able to stand underneath ...


Mary Grace pointing out a "Dory" fish to Carter ...


The moving walkway was moving super slow today (maybe because it wasn't very crowded so they weren't trying to push people through very quickly). Carter got tired of being held and liked standing on the walkway by himself ...


There is a treasure chest in the children's play area. Carter pushed the button on the front of it and it shoots a stream of air up from the front below. It startled Carter (he jumped), but then he just laughed. He went back and did it again later.


I don't think Carter was supposed to be playing in the shark jaw, but he loved it. I never got a good picture of him because I was looking around too much for an employee who might yell at us ...


So cute!


Looking at all the rays ...


We went to lunch at McAlister's after the aquarium. When Sarah carries Mary Grace on her back (like a piggy-back ride), Mary Grace says she's Sarah's backpack. Mary Grace decided she wanted to be Carter's backpack and this is what she did - it was so cute and Carter loved it. He was grinning big the whole time ...


We had a lot of fun and hope to go to the aquarium again soon before Sarah's annual pass expires.

Current Events

I wanted to take a break from posting about our trips and post about current stuff that's going on!

Yesterday I had a doctor's appointment. Nothing too exciting at this appointment. My BP was 110/62 and I'm up to about 140 lbs (that's 21 lbs so far!). The baby's heartrate was 138-140 bpm. My doctor recently added another woman to her solo practice and my appointment was with the new doctor yesterday. My doctor did not deliver Carter and she had someone I'd never met on call over the weekend that Carter was born. I've been told that there is a 99% chance that either my doctor or her partner will deliver this next baby. We'll see.

The new doctor is okay. I didn't love her and I didn't hate her. She likes her nurse to measure your belly and listen to the baby's heartbeat. I'm used to my doctor doing these. The nurse was not good at finding the heartbeat either. She was searching for a bit and then stopped for awhile listening. I had to tell her that she was actually listening to my heartbeat. She eventually found the baby's heartbeat.

I've decided that I'm finding a new doctor after this next baby is born. The wait time has gotten ridiculous. My appointment was the first one after lunch at 1 pm. I was finally called back around 1:40 pm. The doctor finally saw me around 2:20 pm. I usually bring Carter with me to appointments so it's a challenge to keep him entertained that long. Every appointment no matter what time of day I schedule it has me waiting this long (if not longer).

We've had really warm weather (50s and 60s) this week. I love it! On Tuesday I took Carter to the park for a little bit. He's getting big enough to play on the playground. I still climbed around on all the equipment with him because there were lots of open spaces where he could have fallen 4-5 feet to the ground. Carter still trips over his own feet a lot and doesn't have a great appreciation yet for heights.




Carter really liked one of the slides. I was able to lift him up to the top while still standing on the ground and let him go down by himself.


Today Carter and I went to some huge consignment sales that started today. Amy invited us to go with her and Caitlyn so we met her at them. The first one that we went to was Jack and Jules and it was in an old Goody's store. This was the smaller of the two. A lot of the stuff was really beat up, and they didn't really have much of the particular stuff I was interested in (double strollers and outdoor play equipment like plastic slides). I bought a Fisher Price toy that was still in the box for $10.


The second sale was Duck-Duck-Goose and it was huge. It was set up in an old Kmart. When we got there, everyone was making their own parking spots in the lot already (including behind the store). I eventually found a place to make a space and met Amy at the door. I think they had already sold their really good big tickets items because they didn't have much of what I was looking for either. Their toys though were in better shape - and they had a lot more of them. I found a Little People Barn set for $10 and a Little People book similar to one Carter already has and loves for $4. It took us over 30 minutes to check out and we were in the express "5 items or less" line.



After the consignment sales, Carter and I met Brian for lunch. Carter ate a huge lunch compared to what he's been eating lately and was in such a good mood. I decided to stop by Old Navy in Maryville on my way home because we hadn't been there in a while and I was hoping they'd put some of the winter stuff on sale. And they had. We cleaned up! I bought stuff for both Carter and the new baby for next year and only spent $48. I got Carter a short sleeve polo, a long sleeve polo, and 5 long sleeve shirts. I got the new baby 5 long sleeve shirts, a long sleeve polo, 2 sweaters, a fleece jacket, and a hat. That's a total of 17 items for $48. I could have bought so much more but I didn't want to get all of the boys winter clothes for the next 3 years!

Carter's been changing a lot lately and doing some new things. I need to write them down before I forget about them!

• Carter started loving books, finally. I few days before we left for Florida he started to bring me a book, sit on my lap, and actually stay there while I read the entire book. He often wants me to read a book again and again. He loves "Goodnight, Gorilla" and several of the other books we have gotten free in the mail as part of Dolly Parton's Imagination Library.
• Carter has gotten ticklish, especially around his neck. He has the cutest belly laugh. Hopefully I can get this on video soon.
• Carter has also just learned to give us kisses this week. They are often wet and icky, but I love them. He comes up to our faces with pursed lips and kisses our lips. He's an equal opportunity kisser and if both of us are around, he has to give us both a kiss. I've been warned though not to let him get too into giving kisses or he'll start kissing everyone where ever we go! We are going to start reserving kisses for bedtime and such.
• Carter is getting another tooth - his bottom left eye tooth. I'm not sure if the right one is coming in yet too, but these are the last teeth before his 2-year old molars.
• Carter is getting better at taking bites of food rather than having everything cut up for him. He now likes to take bites from a banana and be given whole crackers or pretzels. He wants to do everything himself so he sometimes won't eat things if you give them to him in small pieces rather than whole things.
• Carter's appetite has gotten a lot smaller the last few weeks. I think he has just finished a growth spurt because several people have told me that he looks so much bigger recently. I'm not used to his small appetite though and it's weird when he doesn't eat much for lunch or dinner.
  
• Carter is very much in a tantrum phase right now. He wants to be independent and do what he wants to do so badly. It can be a huge fight to get him in his stroller or carseat. I have to use my arm and elbow to sort of hold him down while I do the buckles. I hate it but I often can't wait forever for him to decide he wants to be in his stroller or carseat. He also has the most awful scream/cry now when he doesn't get what he wants (like when he needs to go in his stroller and carseat). It's a bit embarrassing when we're in public. He still does the fall to the ground thing and scream when he's mad. I just try to make sure he doesn't hit his head on the way down and then ignore him (though I can't always do this in public). Not that you can always reason with a 2-year old, but it'll be nice when Carter can at least get what I'm trying to tell him and maybe we can work through some of these situations with less screaming and me ignoring it.
• Carter needs a haircut, I think. It's getting very unruly in the back. He sometimes looks like he has a rat tail! Some of his hair is also over his eyes in the front. Yet his hair is still pretty thin so it seems weird to be cutting it. Some of it is just really long. I'm not sure what to do but I'm scared to cut it myself and make it worse!
• Carter is still working on liking milk. I'm still mixing it with water (it's sort of like skim milk?). We are down to 2 nursings a day (when Carter wakes up and before bed). He's barely interested though so I don't see those lasting much longer. I didn't want to have to nurse Carter during the day while we were on vacation so that's why we have dropped to the 2 feedings a day. Hopefully Carter will start drinking straight milk soon!

I think that's most of what I wanted to include in this post. I'll try to resume posting about Florida tomorrow!