Roughing It

One thing that we enjoy doing with our children is traveling. They all three travel well, they love to see new sights and it is just fun for us all to be together on our own little adventures. Ryan and I gave them a choice of going up north to DC or going to Florida to travel the coast....they chose Florida. Last Thursday morning, with breakfast being our first stop, we all set out on our trek to Florida. We breezed through Daytona so the boys could see the race track.

Following our stop for dinner, MK began asking where our house was. When I told her we were staying in a tent, there was a gasp and then she said, "What? Oh no, the monsters will get us!" It was at this moment that I thought our trip could be really good OR it could be really bad depending on MK's liking of the tent. Thankfully, once we got settled in she was more than excited about the tent. We chose to camp at Disney's Fort Wilderness Campground. The beauty of this was that there was so much to do at the campground itself that our children never once asked to actually go into a theme park. They played tether ball, rode scooters, caught little baby frogs, dug in this nasty black sand, roasted marshmallows, sang songs at the sing-a-longs, watched the lakeside fireworks, watched the outdoor Disney movies, went swimming, and the list goes on.

They loved looking out of our "window" every morning to see who was waking up as early as they were! And of course they loved their breakfast choices....while others were cooking up eggs and bacon with the likes, our crew was devouring powdered sugar donuts, a delicacy that is not often found in our home!

One part about camping that always has me more than concerned is the bathing facilities. Well, not at Disney. At Disney, EVERYTHING is magical, including the showers that are adorned with tile!

On Friday we ventured over to Kennedy Space Center. The boys specifically enjoyed this adventure when testing out the shuttle launch experience. They were both quite nervous entering the room but they both came out with smiles on their faces, requesting to go back and ride it again! That evening we ate at one of our favorite traveling spots, Rainforest Cafe, and for the first time, MK didn't cry! She was unbelievable and so brave. We all cheered her on!

Saturday we took a monorail ride/boatride/busride over to Epcot's boardwalk area to have lunch at the ESPN Zone. We arrived just in time to watch the Clemson game which made all of my boys happy. This place was amazing, it even had tvs in the restrooms - as someone commented, "It was definitely designed by a man!"

Sunday we intended to spend the day in St. Augustine touring the "Ancient City." However, we awoke, visited with some new friends we had met while camping, stopped by Downtown Disney for lunch and then finally headed north towards home. We did stop to tour "the fort" and though we were all tired, it was an enjoyable time. We are currently studying the explorers so being in St. Augustine for even this short period of time, was interesting. The boys each recognized names on display cases and of course they recognized the different types of weapons used for defense.

Meanwhile, MK was busy being our girl. She was in a mood to be photographed and while the boys were not so tolerant of my lens, MK was shouting, "Hey, take my picture like this!"