And Then We Were Warm

Spring Break couldn't come soon enough this year! We decided to go to Universal Studios Orlando, but I don't know if we were more excited to go to Universal, or just to be warm. We ended up having the most perfect weather there, and we would have stayed forever if we could have.

We camped while we were in Florida, and the first night we got there, as we were setting up the tent trailer, our neighbors came over and gave us a plate full of homemade tortillas and BBQ. Oh my goodness, it was good.

Our first day at Universal we spent most of the time doing all things Harry Potter. It was cool, and I was fan-girling, I'm not going to lie. It is a very immersive experience, and if you're a big Harry Potter fan, I'd highly recommend it.

London from across the water

  Kreacher, peaking out the window at 12 Grimmauld Place.

 Entrance to Diagon Alley

 Wands from Olivander's

Casting Spells

   Frozen Butterbeer from The Hopping Pot

 The wrong side of the track

 The Knight Bus  

  King's Cross Station 

 Hogwarts Express

  Hogsmeade

 The Three Broomsticks

  The Family Feast was delicious!

  Hogwarts Castle

 

 

 With what little of the day there was left, we went on the Jurassic Park ride, which is still my favorite ride, and I think that was pretty much it.

 

The second day we took a break from Harry Potter to explore other magical lands....like Springfield.

 We enjoyed the giant pink doughnuts (we shared) as well as the Clogger from Krusty Burger, and the chicken and waffle sandwich from Cletus' Chicken Shack. We're all about the food.

We found ways to amuse ourselves while waiting in long lines. 

 Took a stroll down memory lane - I remember watching Johnny Carson a lot with my grandma.

  Hung out in Bikini Bottom.

 Wondered why The Fast and the Furious is still a thing.

And enjoyed the old school anamatronics of E.T.

The third day we were kind of all over the place. We spent a little more time in the Harry Potter world. 

We had an amazing meal at The Leaky Cauldron

 Fish and Chips, Toad in a Hole, and Bangers and Mash

 

 Back to Platform 9 3/4

 And then we discovered this place

 I swear we instantly turned into little kids - it was so bright, and colorful, and FUN!

 

 We literally laughed until we cried trying to get this jump shot with Cora and Joseph. Seriously, I almost peed my pants. I'm pretty sure people thought we were crazy.

We had so much fun at the the Mardi Gras parade. Beautiful floats, great music, tons of beads. Yep, lots of fun.

 

 

 And we finished off the night with the light show at Hogwarts.

 As we were leaving the park that night we noticed this tree (on the way to the parking garage) completely covered with everyone's Mardi Gras beads. We kept ours though ;)

 Our last day there we kind of took it easy - only about 1/2 a day at the parks. We were exhausted, and we'd done everything we wanted to do. But we re-visited Jurassic Park and Hogwarts, and then we tried a couple of new things that we hadn't done yet....and we got VERY wet :) It was hilarious, but it's a good thing we didn't stay the whole day.

 

I will say this about Universal - It's not my favorite park. The large majority of their rides these days are 3D, and I can only handle so much of that before I get sick. I mean, they're really cool, but I probably closed my eyes for half the time on half the rides. I 

On our way home my feet were SO swollen - compare before and after. Ugh.

 I don't know how lucky it is to have car problems, but we actually had a few hiccups on the way to and from Spring break, and I felt pretty darn lucky. On the way to Florida we had a lug nut break off. We were lucky to catch it when we did (before our tire flew off our van, which it could have), but we were also extremely lucky because halfway to Florida are the Rolfe's, our friends from Germany.

We were already planning to spend the night in the town next to them, and meet up for swimming at our hotel, which we still did, but afterwards we ended up going to their house to fix our car. Then, on the way home, our brakes started misbehaving, and again, we were able to stop at their house (this time for several hours) and fix that. Bonus - we got to spend extra time with good friends, plus that gave me extra time out of the car that I could put my feet up and help the swelling go down some. LUCKY! I should go to Vegas. That was our Spring break, and it was fabulous.

sNOw more

We had record amounts of snow this winter in Nebraska. It wasn't magical. I probably would have died if I had to shovel our sidewalks and driveway one more time. If I had had a near death experience from shoveling snow, I would have thought that the white light was just more snow, and then I would have ran away from it. So I guess I wouldn't have died after all. But still.

Alex came home one day from school and made a snow man. That was at the beginning of winter. At the beginning it was fun.

I tried to make the most of it too. I talked Cora into coming with me to a snow sculpture festival. That was in the middle of winter. Hot chocolate, snow sculptures, cute little town - what's not to love?

But then it really started to get bad.

You start to wonder where you're going to put the snow when you're shoveling that much. After one storm we broke down and borrowed a friend's snow blower. It took an hour and a half to clear the driveway WITH the snow blower. Ugh. And then it snowed even more. In March. Which was just rude.

And sure, it looks pretty now, but it didn't seem so pretty then. Not to me. We talked constantly about moving to Florida, or Nevada, or somewhere warm. We fantasized about it. It was kind of sick.