Anniversary Celebration Extrodinare

Last year for our anniversary, Jordan and I went on a cruise to Mexico. This year, we spent four days in Orlando, Floriday, enjoying SeaWorld and Universal Studios. I have a feeling that we're setting the bar too high, but it's pretty enjoyable.

We left after Jordan got off work on Wednesday. We dropped Lexi off at the vet to be boarded and drove 5 hours to my cousin Jani's house who lives about 40 miles from central Orlando. This was the beautiful view from her guest bedroom:

It was so nice to see her and her husband Shane and their darling daughter Taylor.

Thursday morning we got up early and headed out to Universal Studios Island of Adventure. We got pretty excited when we started seeing all the billboards.

The minute we got inside, we ran to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, which had opened only a few weeks ago. We knew it would get crowded fast, so we wanted to do those rides first. I'm pretty sure everyone had the same idea. It was incredibly crowded! But here we are in front of Hogsmeade:

You could eat at the Three Broomsticks, see the Hogwarts Express, Honeydukes, Olivander's, and the Owl Post. It was so fun to see, since both Jordan and I are huge Harry Potter fans. But the best thing was the Hogwarts castle. It was enormous.

There was a ride in the castle that was pretty awesome. We both very much enjoyed it, even though we had to wait forever.

We spent the rest of the day just enjoying the rides and each other. Here we are in the kiddie-comic part of Universal.

Waiting for the PopEye River Raft ride.

After the Jurassic Park ride. Scary! Not.

Enjoying being a kid in Dr. Suess land. Love the Tuftala trees.

Jordan says hi to the Lorax.

We were exhausted after all of our fun, but we got up early the next morning to go to the Orlando Temple. Our closest temple is the Atlanta temple, which is three and a half hours away, so we haven't been able to go since we moved. The temple was beautiful, and we had a wonderful time.

After we were spiritual enlightened, it was time to get our SeaWorld on!

SeaWorld gives Georgia residents a season pass for the same price as a one day pass, so we were all set! First we went to see the pet trick show. It was awesome. It gives me something to strive for with Lexi.

Then we went on a few roller coasters. They only have a couple, but two of them were really, really good. We rode the Kracken one about five times.

Here we are after the Killer Whale show. We got to see the new baby whale (only 5 days old!) who was so, so cute. And tiny. Only 7 feet and 400 lbs. See my video for a cute clip of it (they aren't sure if it's a boy or a girl yet) and it's momma.

After we were done at SeaWorld, we had an excellent dinner at Outback and then went to our fancy hotel for the night. We had a free stay at a Hilton Grand Vacation Club. It was very grand.

Here's our building.

Here's the pool. We swam in it Saturday morning. Very relaxing!

It had little fountains squirting into it.

Here's the view from our balcony.

We were sad to leave our wonderful hotel, but we were excited to go back to SeaWorld. We decided to go see the dolphin show first thing. We were impressed by the stadium. Very fancy.

And there were a million dolphins in the water all at the same time! So cool. They all jumped together at the end. It was awesome. A stellar show--I think they had to up the ante on the dolphin show since the trainers can't swim with the orcas any more. Kind of sad. But the dolphins were great.

 

Afterwards, we went down to the dolphin harbor, and I convinced Jordan to let me feed the dolphins instead of getting a stuffed animal (it cost extra). He agreed, and so we got up close with the dolphins!

Here's Jordan with his dolphin friend.

I was a bit scared--they have lots of teeth. And they were very hungry! (Check out my video to see us feeding the dolphins)

We had a great time at SeaWorld, and then we headed back to a fantastic fish dinner at Jani and Shane's. It was so good! We spent a great evening with them and left Sunday morning.

We had such a great time! Thanks Jani, Shane, and Taylor for letting us stay and play with you!

Here's to another wonderful year of marriage!