Spotted in LEGOLAND Florida

When you walk around LEGOLAND Florida, you will spot lots of figures made from LEGO bricks.  The kids love spotting them everywhere they turned.

Stop by Delicious Baby to see other Photo Friday submissions!

Do you dine with the characters?

Before last weekend, we had been to exactly one character dining experience in the past seven years of theme park adventures and frankly it wasn’t a fabulous experience.  We don’t have fond memories of the event for several reasons!  The food was good but my kids were not impressed with the characters.  That is why I was wary when I first found out that we had a voucher for the character breakfast at Nicktoons Café in the Nickelodeon Suites Resort.

Read more about our character dining experience and what we thought about it over at Traveling Mom!

Two Amazing Giveaways at TravelingMom

In addition to writing here, I also write as Southern TravelingMom over at TravelingMom.com.  TravelingMom is a great way to find information for a trip and read funny stories but did you know that TravelingMom hosts some pretty amazing giveaways?  They have two going on right now that you won’t want to miss!

Win a Galapagos Cruise aboard the National Geographic Endeavor where you will visit islands, hike, swim, snorkel and more with your family.  There are several ways to enter and they will up your chances of winning!

You also can enter for a chance to win an iPad2 with TravelingMom and the sponsor Tauck Bridges family travel tours.

Week in My Life – Tuesday

We started our Tuesday off on the wrong foot.  Without daddy around, nobody was sleeping well and we all overslept.  Big S missed the bus and we had to drive him to school.  Luckily, he got to school on time so I just swung through carline.  Little S is not so happy about being in the car at this early of an hour!

After dropping Big S off, we raced back home to get Little S ready for PreK.  While she was at PreK, I stopped by Target for the most important part of our road trip.

Swedish Fish!  We buy the $5 bag of Swedish Fish whenever we go on a road trip.  It is the only time I purchase them so when my kids see a bag of Swedish Fish, they know a trip is soon to follow!  Usually, I bag the Swedish Fish in individual snack ziplocs so I can just toss them into the back seat as needed during the drive.

All of the sudden it was time to pick up Little S.  That three hours sure goes by quickly!  We went to our monthly lunch with some of my pals and then headed home to get Big S off of the bus.

After homework time, the kids played outside together while I got some draft posts ready to go for my other website, Pensacola with Kids.  I try to post things to do, calendar events, and more daily or every other day.  When I go out of town, I try to get as much as I can in draft so that I am not spending the evenings of my trip writing blog posts.  When I am back in the hotel and things have settled down, all I have to do is a quick re-read of the post and hit publish.

Dinner tonight was chicken nuggets and chips (*gasp* Call Food Police!) in front of the television (*double gasp* Call the Parenting Police!).  With daddy out of town, we are not as strict with meal times and after four days of arguing with the kids to sit and eat at the table I just didn’t have it in me.  We leave to pick him up in a few hours and the kids cannot wait to see him!

Quote of the day: (As he is hugging me) “Mommy…you are the bestest mommy I ever have.  Well, you’re the only mommy I have but you can still be the bestest.” Big S

How was your Tuesday? Stop by Adventuroo to see other Week in My Life posts.

A Week in My Life – Monday

Last week, I read that Nicole over at Arrows Sent Forth was going to participate in the Week in My Life project over at Adventuroo.  I like to read both Arrows Sent Forth and Adventuroo, so I clicked over to read about the project.  At first, I didn’t think that a project where I document our everyday life would be a good fit for this site.    Every once in awhile, I share a little extra peek into our personal lives but it usually all comes back to travel.  Then I remembered that we are heading out of town for the weekend!  I plan to share the various stages of preparation as well as the trip itself.  This site is about family travel after all and that is what we do!

*Be aware: If you keep scrolling you will see a picture of my feet, albeit freshly pedicured feet. If you hate feet, skip that part!  

I am also hoping that having a daily assignment will help me get a little bit of my blogging motivation back.  I have been taking a writing class and keeping up with assignments that I promised to other people.  By the time I am done with all of that, I just don’t have any motivation to come back here and get a post up.  I have been doing well if I get a Photo Friday up.  It isn’t that I don’t have anything to share…we have some fantastic adventures from New Orleans, Myrtle Beach, Disney and other places that I still have to share.  I just can’t get motivated to sit down and put together a post.

This morning, I dropped the kids off at their respective schools and headed to my one year round indulgence-my every 6 week pedicure.  Please excuse the flip flop tan.  It is beginning to fade but I love it…it reminds me how wonderful it is to live in Florida when I am complaining about the ridiculous humidity in October.

After my pedicure, I raced home to squeeze in an hour or two of work while Little S was at preschool.  For some reason, I thought that preschool was going to be a wonderful thing for my work.  I certainly get a lot of work done while she is gone for that three hours a day, but the interruption of driving back and forth seems to throw off my productivity!

I wrote a blog post, answered some questions, cleaned out a little bit of email, sent a few tweets and updated my Facebook fan page.  I also caught up on my blog reader…something I have done in awhile!

After lunch Little S and I complete our pre-travel ritual of cleaning out my minivan.  It was a mess.  It was so messy that I couldn’t even bring myself to document it with a photo.  This is what came out of my car.  And this isn’t even the pile of things we saved!  This is just the trash!

Since the mess is just as much theirs as it is mine, everyone helps clean out the car!

Then it was time to tackle the laundry. All day I washed and dried and washed and dried and washed some more.  Then I folded, folded, and folded!

I have one more load of laundry left to do and then I am going to put this all away and pack for our trip!

This is Big S and Little S being goofy for the camera!

This is Little S and Big S finding out that now they have to put half of that laundry away!

It was a pretty quiet day around here for us and this always makes me happy.  I do have one more thing to note.  Every time my husband goes out of town someone breaks something.  We have had two broken feet (at different times), one broken collar bone, one forehead split open and in need of stitches, and a few other emergency room incidents.  All of these accidents occurred while my husband was out of town.  He is out of town now and gets back Tuesday evening.  So far, I only have a camera lens that I broke this morning. Luckily it is just a kit lens, I have an identical one, and – knock on wood – nobody has broken a bone yet!  This lens is permanently stuck in this position. Sad.

*Quote of the day: “Don’t drink the bathtub water because our bottoms have been in it.” Little S

Thanks so much for stopping by!  Head over to Adventuroo to see other project participants!

Sand Sculpting by the Sand Masters

Have you seen Sand Masters on the Travel Channel?  This past weekend, I had the opportunity to meet the sculptors at Navarre’s Sand Sculpting Festival.  They sculpted a beautiful sculpture representing Santa Rosa County.  There was also a competition and some other activities which I will post about later.  For Photo Friday, I wanted to share pictures of the amazing sculpture!

Stop by Delicious Baby to see other Photo Friday submissions!

Disney’s Aulani – Oahu, Hawaii

When my husband and I went to Hawaii on our tenth anniversary last year, we saw the shell of the Aulani, a Disney resort and spa.  It was still under construction so we just saw it from the road but it looked amazing even then.  Recently they held their grand opening and lots of reviews and posts are popping up all over the Internet.  Going to visit Hawaii with our kids is something we are thinking about doing next year but we will probably visit another island this time.  We might not be seeing the Aulani anytime soon but that doesn’t mean we can’t dream about a trip!  I compiled posts from some of my favorite travel bloggers and writers about their visits for today’s Travel Blogger Tuesday!  Look no further for information…just follow these links!

Pitstops for Kids

• A Stay at Aulani, a Disney Resort and Spa

The Vacation Gals

• Affordable Aulani: How to Vacation at Disney’s Resort on a Budget
• Hawaiian Fire Surf School, an Adventures by Disney Excursion at Aulani Resort on Oahu

Family Vacation Critic

• Disney’s Aulani Resort (includes video)
• 5 Things I Didn’t Love About Aulani

Confessions of a Traveling Book-o-holic

Today I am over at TravelingMom sharing a little truth about myself:  I am a total book snob.  But I am also making a little confession about a little piece of digital reading heaven…the e-Reader.  Do you have an e-Reader?  Do you love it or hate?  Did you have a hard time making the transition from paper books to an e-Reader?  Read about my thoughts in Confessions of a Traveling Book-o-holic at TravelingMom.com!

Audubon Nature Institute – New Orleans, Louisiana

Today, I am over at Traveling Mom singing the praises of one our favorite attractions in the New Orleans.  The Audubon Nature Institute includes an aquarium, zoo and insectarium in its attractions.  We just can’t get enough and visit them every time we are in New Orleans (which is at least once a year!).  Hop on over and see what we love about it!

Travel Blogger Tuesday

Because of Tropical Storm Lee, we spent a lot of time in the house this long Labor Day weekend!  We bought a beautiful new daybed for my daughter’s room but we had to gut it first to make room for it!  We were forced to spend the past few days trapped in our house watching the tornado warnings so we utilized our time indoors to clean out her room.  In the evenings, I was finally able to catch up on my blog reading.  I opened up my Google Reader and the number was at 1000+.  Apparently, it stops counting past 1000?!?!  While I was clearing it out, I found lots of great posts so I thought I would share a few with you!

TwinCitiesGal from The Vacation Gals shares her Tips for Visiting South Dakota Badlands National Park.  There are some great tips if you are planning a trip and if you are just dreaming about a trip you will love the pictures!

Debbie at Delicious Baby shares her experience at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium.  Clearwater, Florida is an area that we haven’t spent a lot of time in even though we have lived in Florida for fifteen years!  It is definitely time to make a trip!

I love these jump shots from Amy at The Q Family Adventures!  Don’t know what a jump shot is? Be sure to click through the link!

It is no secret that I love to purchase Christmas ornaments on our family travels, so I love Anne’s post about her ornament souvenirs!

Trekaroo shares tips for taking a family road trip without looking like the Griswold’s!  I think these tips are great and we use several of them whenever we road trip!

What are you reading this week?  Share with us in the comments!