The time came to cash in on the big kahuna Christmas coupon…the Florida trip to Harry Potter world.

Another amazing doodle by Kathryn

We flew out of Provo direct to Orlando MCO. Easy peasy compared to getting everyone and everything to the gate in SLC.

All set and ready to go.

Well hello, Mount Nebo.

That’s starting to look a lot like Florida!

Ashley modeling our home-away-from-home condo.

After some consternation, we convinced these two it would be OK to sleep in the same room. A little dose of paw patrol on their own TV may have also helped.

Adventure day 1 was a return to Kennedy Space Center, some beach time, and then watching a Falcon 9 launch the IM-2 lunar lander. It’s always impressive to see the VAB up close.

One of the crawler-transporters

Apollo mission control

Dwarfed by the Saturn 5

Space shuttle Atlantis

Then while on the way to Playalinda beach, Kathryn spotted an armadillo! It was casually looking for grub along the side of the road. But when Kathryn got out to get a closer look, it skedaddled real fast.

Relaxing on Playalinda beach

Beautifully clean sand

We had hoped to watch the rocket launch from the beach, which is about as close as you can get to the launch pad, but the launch was a little too late in the evening and they closed the beach. So we watched the launch from the bridge outside Titusville. It was incredible how much the rocket lit up the night. And it was amazing to see just how quickly it climbed up and away. Very neat experience to see in person.

On to Adventure day 2. Harry Potter World at Universal Studios! Here we are at Diagon Alley.

Inside Gringot’s Bank

And Sugarplum’s Sweet Shop

And Butterbeer

If only!

We also checked out a lot of the other rides throughout the park, and Kathryn found her new secret hideout.

Thanks for the fun day Universal Studios.

Adventure Day 3, Harry Potter World part 2 at the Islands of Adventure Park.

Hogwarts castle!

Hagrid’s hut on the flight of the hippogriff ride

Zoey on the Seuss Landing merry-go-round

Dinner at the Hog’s Head restaurant

Now onto Jurassic Park!

Here we are in line for the best rollercoaster ever, the VelociCoaster! What a terrific shirt for this ride! He earned a cool 10 bucks for waiting happily in the child swap on this one.

The last ride of the night was Spider-Man.

I loved this sign in the newsroom area of the line.

Cool kids racing around the city and taking down the bad guys with Spider-Man.

Last night at the condo, enjoying the big bed and oh-so-cozy blanket.

Adventure Day 4. We went out to Cocoa Beach for some more sand, sun, and wave conquering.

Then we took an airboat tour up the Saint Johns river to see gators in the wild!

Big gators!

Baby gators!

Swamp trees. Very different than what we have at home!

Say “Gator Bait”!

On the way home.

All tuckered out after a fun trip.

Darling.

What a busy and fun trip! Merry Christmas kiddos. We love you.