Sydney, Chris and I headed down to Orlando for a 1 day visit to Disney before heading farther south to my grandparents condo near Ft. Myers Beach. This was Sydney's first visit, just like the button says. Chris and I had been once before, when we had first started dating.
Each building of our hotel was themed after different Disney movies. Ours was Mighty Ducks, but we sought out the Toy Story one and it was sooo cool! Especially since I love those movies and we were going to see #3 while on vacation!
Such a classic picture. Syd on Main St, USA in front of the castle. She loved it! When we got there, they were doing a show so all the princesses were up there singing and dancing.
She loved the magical teacup ride. And I love this picture. Chris had the thing spinning so fast I had to close my eyes to keep from puking, so I didn't get to see much after this.
She wanted this hat so bad and it was $18, which I refused to pay for something I knew would end up forgotten on the play room floor in a couple days. So she had to settle for just a picture.
While we were there, a storm started brewing, as it did all but 1 day we were in Florida. You had to plan all your outdoor activities for the mornings and any indoor activities for the afternoons. It did postpone the parade, which I was bummed about, but it made for a neat picture. By the time we went to load the bus, it was pouring and we were soaked!
We saw a real life armadillo outside our hotel! We were super excited, never having seen one in the wild.
Sydney, dancing in front of the fountain in Downtown Disney, waiting for Chris so we could eat. Shortly after, she fell in. No kidding. Fortunately it was just her feet and we were already kind of wet from the rain anyway.
Then, we headed on down to stay at my grandparent's. They weren't there, so we had the place to ourselves, which was really nice. Sydney went to the pool several times while we were there. She made friends from Chicago the first day and played with them.
Mid-air Sydney!
These pics are from Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, which I go to every time I'm down there. It's soooo neat! It's a little over 2 miles (I think) of boardwalk through the swamp and people (not me) have seen bears, panthers and other stuff. I have seen gators, but we didn't see any this time. We did see butterflies, a nasty spider, lots of lizards, and 3 woodpeckers.
And of course, the standard afternoon storm. Chris and I thought it really made for a neat experience, to hear the rolling thunder and know there was an impending storm. We had to take the short .7 mile route through due to the weather, but I think it was just enough for Sydney, who was a little afraid of being that close to the ground where bears or gators could be.
She stood as far from the railing as she could for this picture.
We hit up 3 beaches while we were there. Sanibel and Captiva (islands) and Ft. Myers Beach. Captiva was beautiful and Ft. Myers was so dirty and nasty! Here we are on Sanibel. Sydney was so excited to collect shells!
Wednesday, after we hit up the free kids movie at the local theater (Alvin and the Chipmunks the Squeakquel), we played putt putt. It cost an unbelievable amount of money and it was unbelievably HOT! So we kind of hurried through, which to me felt like a waste of our money, but we were melting! Sydney got two holes in one!
I think this was on Ft. Myers Beach. We decided to hit that one up after putt putt. I love this picture!
We went back to Sanibel and Captiva on Thursday and did a driving tour of a wildlife sanctuary. We saw this cool horseshoe crab and some other little crabs, some birds and fish jumping out of the water, but that was about it.
Sydney, watching the fish and birds.
On our way to the beach, we saw this turtle on the side of the road and if you know Chris, he loves turtles. He rescues them from our road all the time, so we had to stop and get a look. He was a big fella!
Captiva Beach, where starfish and sand dollars abound. Some people were digging up 5 and 6 sand dollars and taking them home, but they were still alive and I couldn't do that. Besides, it's illegal. So, we just held them and put them back. We got lots of cool shells from there too.
On Friday, we drove about an hour to the Everglades and took an airboat ride and a swamp buggy ride. We also held some gators, but those pics are on Chris's camera, so if I ever get to see those, I'll post them later. We headed home about midnight Friday and I was pooped! But we had such a great time and I love that Sydney got to experience all that.
