Big Willies Do Orlando Day 6-Universal

Aaron is a lot of wonderful things. Before anything else, I would describe him as a really really fun dad. So fun, that he chooses every morning to forget the craziness of the day before and start fresh. It’s a beautiful gift. And this gift is also how we ended up going to another theme park just 2 days after our 12 hour “Disney Death March”. The Willy Universal Studios Death March was a straight up crazy idea from the start. Last time we did universal, he took the little guys home after 3 hours and swore “never. Again.” I stayed in the park until closing with just the older kids and we had park hopper tickets so we did the whole hogwarts express thing and it was pretty amazing. 

But here we are 3 years later, when he announced  we were going back. And we were all going to both parks. All days until closing. 

Did I just get old? I thought maybe so, because I legit did not want to go. 

But something magical happened yesterday and it actually was an incredible day! I braced myself for disaster, but everyone kept it together. It wasn’t perfect, but it was kind of a miracle and we had so much fun. We kept offering to split off into two groups, and a couple of times we were separated for a ride/attraction, but for the most part. everyone opted to stay together and just use the rider swap/family waiting room option. 

We ordered the feast from Three Broomsticks and added a few plates of fish n chips. Everything was 10/10. We also hammered 6 or 7 frozen butterbeer, several churros and (sub par) soft pretzels. 

CeeCee found a bottle of love potion at Honeydukes candy shop. No love potion for you, Q! You’re easily adored! 

We convinced Sloane to get on a ride, and she bravely did, only for the ride to break down with us on it lol. They gave us some single use express passes for other rides and that kept spirits up. We also bribed Sloane with candy to get on the next ride, and everyone benefitted from her giant bag of sour rainbows. 















I have a lot of photos of Sloane bc she was my buddy for the day, but everyone had a great day. 

I couldn’t convince anyone to ride the rip rocket coaster with me or the doom drop. They were not about that vertical drop. But once it was dark we walked back to Islands of Adventure and we went to

hulk. Bear was 1 inch too short and SO sad he couldn’t ride hulk. He probably would’ve gone on rip

Rocket with me if he’d been given a chance. That kid loves roller coasters and I love it so much. Esme likes them now too, but she is a little shorter than Bear so she’s a bit limited based on height rules. She is RIGHT above the cutoff for a few and they double checked her everywhere but she made it and felt like a winner every time haha. 

Corbin, Quincy and I rode Hulk and it was INSANE. So fast and intense. Loved it! Quincy decided to be brave and went for it. She was on an adrenaline rush for an hour after that. So proud of her for doing tough things. We had so much fun! There was no wait for the ride so the kids just watched us and then we all went to the Jurassic river ride together next.

We had two single use express passes left and I was the only one willing to ride the Velociraptor coaster with Corbin so we raced over there 9 minutes before they closed the park only to discover the fine print stating that this particular ride was the only ride excluded from the express offer. Corbin was super bummed out, but since we had made it onto Hulk he had a good attitude. He joined Aaron and the twins on the dusky do right riptide rush log ride. The ride broke down a few times with them on it and they just laughed. It was a great ending to a great day, they were soaked! 

Lemon Curd

I made lemon curd last week and took it with me to a luncheon at Megan house with my SBO ladies. Megan taught us how to make spring rolls and peanut sauce and I’m kind of obsessed. I also sent some lemon curd over to Saumi’s with Quincy in a jar I returned to Mary. She sent us this photo (she promises there’s a pancake in there somewhere haha!) and Megan asked for the recipe and I realized I don’t have the lemon curd recipe on my blog. Here it is! OG recipe is from Kasey (because of course all the good things come from K! She’s the best!) 

 

Lemon Curd

1 1/2 cups white sugar

3 eggs + 2 egg yolks

zest of 3 lemons (I prefer to grate this very fine, but you do you!) 

1 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

1/2 cup butter, melted

Wisk together and microwave in 1 minute intervals, then 30 second intervals, stirring each time. It will get really thin and runny, and then it will thicken to coat the back of a spoon. It’s about three 1 minute sessions and then two to three 30 second sessions for perfection. Don’t over cook it! 

Store in adorable jars up to 3 weeks, or give adorable jars away to win over adorable girlfriends.  

And here are my Orchestra Booster board ladies from last year (Jerushia, Marcie, Amy, and Megan). So thankful for these women in my life, I cherish their friendships. 

Big Willie’s Do Orlando Day 5

We were originally going to hit universal studios today but opted to hang around the villa instead. We swam for hours, and ate ice cream and chips and salsa poolside. The little kids and I did a sand art craft at the clubhouse, and aaron took them to the arcade for a bit for ping pong and other dad shenanigans. We also did some puzzling and played hook and ring. 

Q had kind of a bummer day knowing she was missing out on an exciting road  trip to Dallas with friends and asked to go shopping for a pick me up and retail therapy. She scouted out an outlet mall nearby and we went as a family. It was crazy! We found some nice deals on back to school shoes and jeans and ate dinner at Shake Shack. A double bacon cheeseburger makes all the things better. We watched a great movie as a family tonight called a Woman and the Sea with Daisy Ridley about Gertrude “Trudy” Ederly, the first woman to swim the English Channel. 

Again I hardly took any photos, but here are a few! 

Funny Quotes/Memories of the day: 

Corbin name 3 things that live in the dirt

Corbin: uhhh grandmas, grandpas, great grandmas….

Aaron: (quoting the concert lady) mom went to get us dessert. That bee does not disappoint! 

Quincy name 3 things that are hairy: 

Q: Isaac, Bear, actual bears

Bear: Someone help! Trump is taking over! 

Aaron: this is ridiculous. I can’t get us home. I have ZERO cell service! 

Siri GPS: make a southwest turn in .25 miles.

Sloane: oh HAIL. And Lightning?! Well this is just great! 

Aaron: I thought you were gonna go doggie on the sidewalk! 

Big Willies Do Orlando Day 4

Today was beach day! 

We slept in, this morning. Then a few kids went to the pool for a hour with Aaron and a few stayed home to puzzle and do some clean up with me. 

We ate lunch at home and watched Bride Wars, then drove to Cape Canaveral/Cocoa Beach, where we found a 7-11 for Slurpees and a few hours of PERFECT warm ocean water, shells, and a wonderful afternoon/evening at the beach. Is there anywhere better in the world than the beach? It is forever my happy place, and Aaron’s happy place, and Quincy’s, and Sloane’s happy place, for sure. Sloane grabbed a boogie board and made a beeline for the water. I’ve never seen her move so fast. Ever. She likes pools and lakes but she dove right into the waves without so much as a glance back. 

One of our favorite shells to find when we go to Destin/Navarre are the auger “unicorn” shells. Today we found several that were still alive-a first for us! We loved watching them burrow into the tide pools Bear built after every wave. We stopped for dinner at Portillos (soooooo good!!!) and after the littles went to bed the big kids ate ice cream and watched a movie. The 3 little guys are working shifts waking up during the night, so this little moment to watch a show with just the big kids while all 3 were asleep was great! Sloane was up within 30 minutes after and the graveyard shift began haha! 

We tried two new things today to try to curb some behavior/attitude concerns. The first is Aaron and I each chose a child to show extra love snd patience to for the entire day. At the end of the day we report back to each other with 3 positive experiences, interactions, or qualities about that child. There was no difference in behavior, but this exercise did help with our feelings about them. We will each choose another child to focus positive thoughts and energy on today.  

The other new thing I came up with is to play some behavior mod/connection games. The goal of the one we played yesterday was to encourage more listening and less talking over one another. It’s called 5 Seconds. We played this on the hour+ drive over to the beach and it was so fun!

It started with me as prompt giver, but eventually the kids came up with prompts. You take turns being asked a prompt. You have 5 seconds to “name 3”. It just gets your mind thinking, but the answers were pretty funny under the pressure of only having 5-4-3-2-1 seconds to answer. Examples of prompts were: name 3 foods, 3 things you wear, 3 things you do when you wake up, 3 colors, 3 cold foods, 3 reasons to be late to church, 3 reasons to miss school, 3 countries, 3 months of the year, 3 things that fit under your bed, 3 bands, 3 foods you don’t like etc. 

We laughed a LOT. It was a good day. 

Every day at the beach with my family is a good day. 

They could have stayed for hours more.

Quotes from the day: 

Esme name 3 things that fit under your bed. “Underwear!” 

Bear: what happens when you win this hook game? What do you get?

Aaron: you get to be obedient all day.

Bear: it looks like you’re supposed to drink that cup.

Aaron: the cup is obedience. 

Big Willies Do Orlando Day 3 Disney

Oh Disney. There was good bad and ugly. 

Favorite parts:

Aaron: Tron

Meg: pineapple whip and Tron

Quincy: definitely Tron

Corbin: my bucket hat and Tron and 7 dwarves ride

Soren: space mountain 

Sloane: the ducklings and pirates.

Bear: Tron and the ducks

Esme: Alladin carpet ride with the fireworks 

Big Willies Do Orlando Day 2

Travel with a big family isn’t easy. This trip in particular has had a lot of great moments but definitely more difficult moments than enjoyable ones and I regret choosing Orlando over just sitting on a beach somewhere.  We really were hoping to avoid tv rot and have this magical time together, but reality is that I have a couple kids with debilitating anxiety, and a couple children that struggle with flexibility in schedule. All 6 children have intense personalities due to the combination of said anxieties, living with each other, and hormones. Just keeping it real here, it’s been kinda rough with our people this year. This trip has been full of back talk, endless arguing, complaining, sibling fighting, and so many tears. Orlando is also hotter than the surface of the sun, which is probably why flights were so affordable. I said this 3 years ago, and I’m saying it again so that I hopefully listen to myself next time. I will not do Orlando in July again. I have hope that the kids will get along better by the end of the week though! 

A few positives about this trip are the fact that no one is in a car seat or a stroller. We’ve turned a corner of independence there that has been awesome! 

Another great thing is the hotel aaron found us. It’s a villa with an incredible pool, really fun decor, space for everyone, and amazing location! Great job aaron! 

Day 2 was off because we didn’t do a great job making it feel like the sabbath. We tried though and watched metfield ward sacrament meeting on zoom. We went to the pool (which closed after an hour ish due to lightening threat) so we came back inside, showered, and taught the kids how to play phase 10. I set up a playdough and coloring table and the littles have enjoyed that as well. We went to dinner at Buca di Beppo, a kitschy family style Italian restaurant we thought the kids would love. We ended up spending a while looking for 2 kids who went for a walk to see the decor and went for a walk outdoors but didn’t take a phone. I was frustrated that our “family together time” was spoiled, but the food was really good! 

We finished the night with popcorn and a movie and we were all together and peaceful then, which was wonderful. I didn’t take any pics this day, but here are a couple!