Thursday, March 31, 2016

Florida Vacation: Beach Morning and Kayaking Afternoon

Ugh! Getting back to work was wayyyyyy harder then I anticipated. The pile of stuff waiting for me on my desk has made me so stressed the last two days! How is that work days last forever and vacations fly by so quickly???

Well tonight I'm sharing our day one week ago in Vero Beach...so lets travel back to a happier time...

Last Thursday was our first full day in Vero Beach and we decided to first spend some time on the beach. It was a little bit of a cloudy day so we spent our time strolling the beach and collecting shells and didn't spend too much time just sitting around. 

On the way to the beach we spotted this little guy:


Such a tiny little plane! It was zooming around overhead and we kept seeing and hearing it go past us. Someone was having a great time doing some laps back and forth.

Although we have a ton of beaches in Rhode Island, Florida beaches are nice and tranquil. They don't seem to draw the crowds like the ones in Lil Rhody.



The water is a little bit of a different color and the sand is much lighter down here. It's like a whole different experience!



I don't think my mom knew I was taking this picture, I swear she was happy to have us there!


My dad has been playing around with his new go-pro camera. He surfs and paddle boards and uses it on lots of adventures, it will be cool to see all the videos he's taken when he comes home!


We were enjoying watching the sandpipers as well. They would race away from the waves with their little legs moving a mile a minute then they would head back closer to the ocean again. They certainly kept us entertained.




Walking into the beach is almost like crossing through the jungle. There is a small path between twisted vines and pine trees which hides the beach from the road. Very different then Rhode Island!

I did manage to find some treasure....


Yes! More shells!

Next we headed back to the house and got ready to go kayaking!




My dad paddle boarded along with us as we kayaked our way around the Sebastian Inlet River.





There are SO many different birds in Florida. We saw many different types as we kayaked and some of them were pretty fearless! There were also a few spider-lookalike crabs, spinning fish, and oysters that we saw along the way.



The kayaking was pretty easy until we reached the other side of the river and then we were fighting against the current...and I was losing. We headed back to shore after that, making sure to stop and open a few oysters to see if there were pearls inside! It was a great day on the water!

After kayaking we were exhausted by we headed out to Outback for dinner with my parents and unfortunately it went unpictured. If you've never had their cheese fries you should head on over now and eat some!

We headed to bed fairly early because we had another fun day planned for Friday....

Monday, March 28, 2016

Florida Vacation: Disney Springs and Vero Beach

I hope everyone is enjoying their Monday! We are still in Florida on vacation until tomorrow night but are winding down our fun with some rest time and dreading heading back to work! There is still a ton of fun recapping to do, so here we go!

Wednesday started off fairly early when we awoke pretty well rested. My legs were a little sore from the 27,000 steps from the day before but I was feeling pretty good!


We woke up not really knowing exactly what we wanted to do but ultimately decided to head to Downtown Disney which is now known as Disney Springs. (Side note: I HATE when places change their name!) I hadn't been over this way in quite a few years so there were some parts I remembered, but some sections were brand new.

One of our stops was the Lego Store where I loved all the legos sorted by color #OCDprobs





I love that photo of Tim in front of the Hulk! I can't believe how they build all the creations out of legos and make them so large!




We wandered throughout the stores for awhile checking out everything they had to offer.


We watched a glass blowing demonstration which was very cool, but all the items were super expensive.


I really wanted a crown! They were so cute!

Finally we stopped for lunch at the Earl of Sandwich Deli and Cafe. I chose a cheese french bread pizza and it was delicious! I love french bread and anything with a ton of sauce on it, so this was right up my alley!


Yum! Tim chose the Full Montagu sandwich and he enjoyed it but he said he wouldn't call it the best sandwich in the world.

We walked into the T-Rex area of Disney Springs next, which is a restaurant as well as a store. Every so often the dinosaurs all move around (kind of like Rainforest Cafe) which was cool to see. We wandered the store for a bit and looked at the Build A Dinosaur section (part of Build A Bear).



I really like this little guy, he's a Grumpasaurus!

We felt like we had our fill of walking around soon after decided to make the hour drive to my parents house in Florida!




Blue skies and sunshine greeted us, as well as my happy-to-see-us parents! We enjoyed drinks and spinach and artichoke dip with them at the Tiki Bar a local restaurant. It was a really cool restaurant, right on the water, with views that you can see in the above photos.

For dinner we had a quiet night of pizza at home and rested up for more fun the next day!


Sunday, March 27, 2016

Florida Vacation: Universal Studios

Time has been flying here in Florida and I am wayyyyyy behind sharing our adventures with you. So we need to go back a few days....

On Tuesday we woke up early and got ready to head to Universal Studios.


Even though it was chilly in the morning we made sure to dress for hot weather. I have on a new tank top from Marshalls and coral shorts from Lauren Conrad via Kohls. My blue crossbody bag is from Nine West. I also wore my Nike sneakers for lots of walking!


Tim was super excited to get going! He hadn't to Universal since he was younger, so there was a lot of new stuff for him to see!


Here we are in front of the Hulk rollercoaster which was under construction. See how nicely my hair is curled? Yeah, it wouldn't stay that way for long!

We had purchased tickets for both parks in one day so we needed to get moving in order to see everything. We started our day early and worked our way through Islands of Adventure. We managed to get on quite a few rides early; Dr. Doom's Fearfall, The Amazing Adventures of Spiderman, and rode Dragon Challenge twice! Then we wandered through Hogsmeade and then stood in line for Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey.





It's a bummer that you need to keep your belongings in lockers because there are so many things to take pictures of inside. They really did an incredible job making the park look just like the movies.

I highly recommend once the line at Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey turns to single rider hopping in that line. We cut the wait time in more then half and basically walked on the ride once we got to that point.

Next we headed back where we came from to do some water rides. We took a ride on the Jurassic Park River Adventure which was awesome. I love the concept of the Jurassic Park section of the park.  We didn't get too wet but then we went down Dudley Do-Rights Ripsaw Falls and we got soaked!!


Goodbye curls! You can kind of see the hill we went down behind us. So much fun, but we were soaked (I swear my shorts didn't dry until dinner!)

As we walked around we saw some super heroes.



Then we made our way back to the Harry Potter section to eat lunch in the Three Broomsticks restaurant.




We both chose the chicken meal complete with corn on the cob and potatoes which were absolutely delicious! It was a great choice for lunch and felt slightly healthy in a theme park with tons of junk food.


We also both purchased frozen Butterbeers which were just as good as I remembered them being!



Yum!

Our next plan was to get on the Hogwarts Express and ride over to the other half of the Harry Potter section which is located in Universal Studios.



This part was all new to me so I was super excited!





The train ride itself was very cool. You could hear Ron, Hermoine, and Harry in the corridor of the train and see all sorts of sights out the fake window. It was a cool experience and fun to travel from one park to the other in that way.

We hopped off at King's Cross Station in London.





The coolest part of this section of the park was the entrance to Diagon Alley. It was completely unmarked. We saw some people walking through an archway and wondered where they were going and voila! Diagon Alley!












This side was definitely packed! We waited for some time to get on Harry Potter and the Escape From Gringotts. We ended up getting in the single rider line and missed a section inside but it was well worth it to get on the ride faster. The ride itself was fun and definitely worth the wait! There were a ton of cool sections inside and I loved the storyline!




We wandered around the Harry Potter sections for awhile and then went to explore the rest of the park.

We found Shrek and Donkey


And, the Transformers..


And Spongebob was having a parade...




We managed to get on a ton of rides: Transformers, Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit,  E.T, Men In Black, The Revenge of the Mummy, and Minion Mayhem.

They were all great but the Hollywood rollercoaster was fantastic it took a video of you as you rode to make a music video and it was so cool to see your reaction as you rode! I also loved the Revenge of the Mummy and had a blast seeing the cute minions.






We both agreed becoming minions sounded like fun!

After finishing up at the park we walked into City Walk to grab some dinner.







We decided on NBC Sports where we sat at the bar and had a delicious dinner and enjoyed sitting and relaxing after a hectic day!



Just a tip: If you order the nachos you won't be able to eat your meal!!! They were massive!


Tim's entree was Bang Bang Chicken which he loved, I did try a taste and it's not what I would choose...



I picked some delicious mac and cheese! Yum!

After dinner we headed back to our hotel to shower and get some sleep. I did wear my fitbit that day and am proud to say that we took over 27,000 steps!!! It was a tiring day but an AMAZING one and I enjoyed every second hanging out with my best friend!