On Thursday, April 18 I flew to Orlando to meet up with Kevin! My mom was flying to Philadelphia and I arranged for us to be on the same flight from Colorado Springs to Dallas. While we were at the airport, we bumped into Staci and Alexis who were also flying to Orlando for the same climbing competition I was attending, and it turned out we were all on the same flights! Our flight was scheduled to leave at 1:35pm but didn’t end up leaving until almost 3:00pm. We only had about an hour layover in Dallas and thought we had missed our connection, but our connecting flight was also delayed. Apparently there was some crazy weather in Dallas earlier in the day and it affected a number of flights in the afternoon. We ended up arriving in Orlando around 10:15pm, about an hour and a half later than planned. We met up with one of Kevin’s friends, Tony, and we all drove to Melbourne together. We got to Melbourne around 12:30am and finally settled in around 1:30am. It was a long day!

We woke up around 7:30am on Friday and went to the climbing gym around 11:30am. There were two qualifying rounds that each lasted 4 hours. We were able to watch the last bit of the first session and all of the second session. Alexis climbed in the second session so it was fun to watch her. The second session ended around 6:30pm and then Kevin and the route setters had to strip the routes in preparation to reset the walls on Saturday for finals. Fortunately this process didn’t take too long and we were home around 8:30pm. We went to sleep pretty early because we had to be back at the gym at 9am on Saturday.

We went to the gym at 9am on Saturday morning and the routesetters got to work. Finals did not begin until 6pm so they had plenty of time to get the routes up on the wall and tweak them. While the routesetters were working, I waited patiently for my Aunt, Uncle, and cousins to arrive. They live down in West Palm Beach and they drove about 2 hours to come see us. I thought they were going to arrive earlier in the day, but they ended up getting into town around 3pm. They rented a hotel room on the beach, so I drove out to their hotel to visit for a little while before finals began. My cousins were interested in seeing the competition so I brought them back to the gym with me at 5:30 and my Aunt and Uncle met up with us around 8pm. The awesome part about this competition was that it featured all 3 different categories of climbing: Speed, Bouldering, and Difficulty. It was a great introduction to climbing for my family! Kevin had to stay at the competition until the very end so my family took me out for dinner. We ate at a great steakhouse and then went back to their hotel again and played some games. Unfortunately, I had the keys to Kevin’s vehicle with me, so he was unable to come out to the beach and meet us. Instead, some friends of ours picked me up and brought me back to the house. We had a small get together at the house to celebrate a great competition and went to sleep around 2am. It was a long but wonderful day with great friends and family!

Overlooking the beach with my cousins, Alex and Jake.

Alexis flashed her first finals route! She went into finals in 8th place and ended in 6th. 

My Uncle Dean. It was so wonderful to see him!

Because we went to bed so late, we really took our time getting out of the house on Sunday. We woke up around 9am and didn’t leave the house until 1pm. Our original plan was to go to Universal Studios on Sunday and Monday, but we decided to take it easy on Sunday and then play on Monday. We got to our hotel in Orlando around 3pm and then went out for Sushi. On the way back to the hotel, we stopped at Publix to get some breakfast for the morning and we rented Men in Black 3 from Red Box. We watched the movie and went to bed around 9pm so we were well rested for our day of fun at Universal on Monday!

We woke up around 7:30am on Monday and left the hotel around 8:30am. Unfortunately Molly was not feeling well, so she stayed at the hotel and rested all day. We met Derek and Nicole at the park at 9am and purchased our tickets. Kevin and I bought the Florida resident tickets (he has a Florida Driver’s license) so we were able to get into either park, but everyone else just bought tickets for Islands of Adventure. Our first stop of the day was The Hulk. Nicole and Tony opted out of this ride, so Kevin, Derek, Carl, and I rode together. The line was only about 5 minutes long so we ended up riding twice in about a 15-minute time span. It was amazing! Kevin, Tony and I rode Dr. Doom’s Fear Fall and then we all rode Spiderman. We decided to ride Spiderman by way of the single-riders line and we only had to wait about 10 minutes. We were flying through the park! We walked through Toon Lagoon and Jurassic Park and ended up at Harry Potter Island! This was the second time we had been to Universal since they opened Harry Potter Island, and it was just as impressive this time around. We decided to ride the Forbidden Journey, which is located inside Hogwarts Castle. The best part about this ride is walking through the castle and seeing all the details they have included from the books. The line was only about 30-minutes long, which was so much better than the 120-minutes we had to wait the last time we visited. Tony and Carl were both a little motion sick after the ride so we decided to take a break from rides. We ate lunch at the 3 Broomsticks (turkey legs and butterbeer) and then went to Olivander’s in hopes that we would be selected by a wand. Unfortunately, no one from our group was selected, but I did purchase my very own Olivander’s Wand. I can’t wait to find an awesome way to use it in my classroom next year! By this point our food had settled and Carl, Kevin, and I rode the Dueling Dragons. The lines were so short again that we decided to ride both the Chinese Fireball and the Hungarian Horntail. Right after we finished riding these roller coasters it started to rain, so we all decided to seek cover and watch the Sinbad Stunt show. It was a fun action show and by the time it ended the rain had stopped. We waited about 20 minutes for the walking tour of Poseidon’s Fury and then wandered around Seuss Island for a short while until it started raining again. At this point it was about 3:30 and Derek, Nicole, Tony, and Carl were about done. Kevin and I wanted to go over to the other park so we made plans to meet everyone later in the evening and went out for more fun! We rode the brand new Despicable Me ride and then went over to the Rip Ride Rockit. We rode as singles and the wait was only about 5 minutes so then we went over to the Mummy. This is an indoor roller coaster that is similar to Space Mountain (most of the ride is in darkness) and it is amazing; so amazing that we rode it twice, and there was no wait at all! We walked straight up to the front of the single riders line. Our last stop of the day was E.T. This is a ride I used to love when I was a kid and I was so excited to ride it again! Unfortunately, they were experiencing technical difficulties and we had to leave the park before the ride was fixed. Fortunately, our tickets are good for multiple admissions to both parks for one full calendar year and we will be going back again! We planned to meet everyone back at the hotel at 6pm, so we left the park around 5pm. It started raining heavily just as we were leaving and that made leaving much easier. I am the kind of person who likes to be at parks ALL day, so leaving before the park closes is always hard for me! We got back to the hotel and decided to order-in Italian. There was an Italian restaurant on the property where we stayed so Carl and Tony went to pick up dinner and we ate in our hotel room (2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, full kitchen and dinning room, and living room). It was such a fun day and it was great to spend it with amazing friends! We went to bed around 10pm for an early morning flight.

Paying for parking.

The famous Universal globe!

Kevin, myself, Carl, and Derek on The Hulk! So much fun!

Waiting to ride Spiderman. This ride is a 4-D experience so you get to wear these awesome glasses!

Entering Hogsmeade. Snow in Florida!

All 6 of us: Tony, Derek, Nicole, Carl, Kevin, and I (so sad Molly couldn't join us!).

Hogwarts Castle

The 6 of us again. We had so much fun!

A selfie in front of Hogwarts Castle.

The Sorting Hat inside the castle.

Inside Olivander's Wand Shop! 

My very own Olivander's Wand! 

The Hogwarts Express, and my AWESOME poncho!

Another selfie outside of Poseidon's Fury.

Watch out for those little minion's!

A real minion! So cute!

So sad we didn't get to ride this on this trip. Looking forward to our next visit already!

We woke up around 5:15am on Tuesday morning and Carl took us to the airport. Our flight left at 8am and we were sad to leave great friends, but so excited to be going home for a full month!