Florida 2012 (#8-Final)

It has taken a while, but I finally finished my Florida Smash book. I was on a mission to just complete my journaling for the last day of this trip--whoo hoo. Sometimes you just need to force yourself to sit there and complete an "assignment" :)

Our last day was spent at Universal's Islands of Adventure. It is way better than Universal Studios, in my opinion, because of all the awesome rides. I wanted to go because HARRY POTTER!!!

One of the best things we did was upgrade and bought the express pass  they have two versions--one is unlimited "shorter" lines--we got the other which allows you to skip the lines once per ride. Since we got as much done in a short time it was so worth it for us. 

Seuss Landing was fun to look at, but we were too old and tall to ride anything but The Cat in the Hat ride. 

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter did not disappoint--although I was the only one nerding out in my family :)

We rode a few more roller coasters before leaving--I'd totally skip Disney all together and only come here if we ever go back haha

We were so exhausted by the last day. My husband was a trooper, 10 weeks prior to our trip he had broke his ankle--it was so swollen but he did all the walking for us :D

Our travel day was bittersweet...we had to get up way to early, but we were home around noon. 

When we unpacked, we found out TSA had gone through our suitcase...I guess they didn't like the look of all our charger wires together...oops. 

Thank you for reading. I'm hoping to craft more often and blog more. 

*I used the blogger app to post this on the road (the middle of nowhere on highway 5) :) hopefully the formatting isn't too crazy. 

Florida 2012 (#7)

We finished off our 5th day in Florida at the Magic Kingdom.

After a couple of hours at the hotel, we arrived at 5:20 pm.  It was still pretty humid.  That may be why 3 of the lines to awesome rides were so short!

The lines to the Pirates of the Caribbean and to the Haunted Mansion were only 10 minutes each!  Unfortunately, the line to Big Thunder was too long for us to wait and we ended up leaving the park way before our FastPasses would have worked for us.

We then lucked out again with the It's a Small World ride.  Even though my husband gets irritated by this ride, we were ready for some more air conditioning and the line was only 15 minutes!

But that was the end of the short lines.  Space Mountain was a 90 minute wait and we were completely exhausted by 7:50, so we skipped it.  It had been a 12 hour day for our feet!

One of the statements in the Smash Book was "if money wasn't a concern"...I wrote we would have stayed a week longer and took more time to enjoy each park.

My review of Disney World was jaded by the fact that we have been to Disneyland a few times and besides the Cinderella Castle, the Magic Kingdom did not compare.

Thank you for looking!

Florida 2012 (#6)/Silhouette Sunday

Today, I'm combining Silhouette Sunday with my continuing effort to complete our 2012 Florida trip. This is the 2nd post on our 5th day. 

I'm sure plenty of people really enjoy Epcot--I mean they haven't closed it, right?  But we really didn't care for this park. 

Again, I placed the map in the Smash Book. 

Here is where I used my Silhouette. I cut the names of the countries. Pretty simple but glueing each letter is a pain. 

And that was it. Not much journaling was needed. 

Thank you for looking! :)

Florida 2012 (#5)

I think I might have CADD (creative attention deficit disorder--ok, I just made that up) because I can never finish a project. I will start one album, get bored, then start another project.

Yesterday, I want to start to scrapbook a trip to Disneyland, but I am making myself finish a project that has been sitting on my desk for sometime--Our 2012 Florida trip. 

This album is nearly complete but I have to do the journaling for it and add a few more embellishments to the pages. 

I've blogged about Days 1-4 late last year.

Because we did a lot on Day 5 in Florida, I am going to split the day out into 3 separate posts. 

We were told that it isn't recommended to see all the Disney World parks in one day but we only had 1 day to visit them. 

Prior to leaving on our trip, I had printed a list of the rides/attractions at each park and crossed off anything that we have been on at Disneyland/California Adventure. I chose 3 of the 4 parks to visit. Then I seen which park opened the earliest and which one closed the latest. I even had an estimated schedule to try to stick to. One thing that I didn't account for is that Epcot is pretty boring and we had extra time on our hands. We probably could have gone to Animal Kingdom after all, but it was just as well since our feet were hurting pretty bad. We used the time between Epcot and Magic Kingdom to go back to the hotel to soak our feet. 

Our first stop at 8 am (5 am our normal pacific time!!!) was Hollywood Studios which is similar to California Adventures. 

I added the map to each park in the album. To make them a bit sturdier, I taped the folded areas with packing tape. Hopefully they hold up. 

We were there for four hours and we were right on scheduled. 3 of the 4 of us loved the Rock 'N' Roller Coaster. 

One of the rides we wanted to get on was closed--Toy Story Midway Mania, but the area was cute. We skipped Hollywood Tower and Indiana Jones because they are similar to rides we've been on (at this point I still thought we were on a tight schedule). 

The Backlot Tour was pretty neat to see some of the special effects--it is pretty similar to the tour you can take at Universal Studios Hollywood. 

Then it was time to find breakfast. There was only one place that had a descent looking breakfast buffet. It was a Disney Jr. Place which had characters walking around for the younger kids. My kids were 15 & 17, so we just went for the food. 

At one point, either Handy Manny or Jake the Pirate came over and hugged my daughter. I thought it was funny but my husband wasn't laughing--he told the guy in is I-am-her-father-and-carry-a-shotgun voice, "that is enough". I truly hope it was either just a girl or a teenage boy--that is what I choose to believe. 

After breakfast we walked around some more and I took a lot of photos of the cute props--there were a lot! 

Sometimes it seems like a chore to journal, but if I don't do it, future generations won't know about our family life :D

Thank you for looking!

Florida 2012 (#4)

We left Miami at 9am on the 4th day and headed up to Orlando where we were going to spend the rest of our vacation (because you can't go to Florida and NOT go to Disney World, right?).  I highlighted our route, but it is a bit hard to see with all the other lines on the map.

We made one stop to eat breakfast and go to Target to pick up snacks and laundry detergent for the Disney World Resort (Saratoga Springs) condo.  My husband's co-worker graciously let us use 3 nights of her time share!!

We got to the Resort at 2:15 pm. After cleaning up, my daughter and I jumped on the Ferry to Downtown Disney to walk around and have dinner.  In true Floridian weather, it poured on us, but I love the rain and don't mind walking in it :)

While we were browsing around, the boys drove about an hour west (in some scary rain...what is crappier than driving in the rain?  driving in the rain on a road you don't know!).  They caught a Tampa Bay Ray's game (in St. Petersburg). {I guess it is now like watching a San Francisco 49er game in Santa Clara.}

There was a "hall of fame" type area that they enjoyed.  They actually liked this stadium better than the brand new Marlins' stadium we were at a few days before!

This was our AMAZING home away from home

Unfortunately, we were not able to enjoy it to it's fullest extent since we had planned a jam packed vacation.  It would have been perfect to set up my scrapbooking since there was a large kitchen table (and kitchen that I would not have used even if we had more time there! ahahaha)  The kids had one "wing" with their own bathroom and we had our own master sweet with tub...it came in handy the 5th day when we had to soak our feet after walking and walking and walking the whole day.

Thank you for looking.  I have been reminded of our vacation as I am finishing up on the journaling...it is like we just came back all over again :)

Florida 2012 (#3)

The Day 3 section of my Florida SMASH Book is out of order...I am normally a chronological scrapbooker and it was so hard for me to place photos out of order, but it made more sense to do so for Day 3.

Day 3 in Florida was Memorial Day.  Our plan was to spend the day in South Beach/Miami Beach so we left our hotel at 7am thinking we would hit traffic (we did not).

We first found a breakfast spot and after fueling our tummy's walked around the area--it was 8am, so the stores were mostly closed.

My daughter loves the Jersey Shore...so we had to find some of the places Snooki and her friends caused havoc when they spent Season 2 down there.

The place they lived...the place they worked...and one of the places they clubbed at (which was shut down when we were there).  After lunch, we went back to the gelato place and she had to have  a scoop and bought a shirt. (I HAD to use the Bottled pages of the SMASH book for Jersey Shore...how could I not? ha ha ha)

Our choices for breakfast were limited...but the eggs were fine...(here is where it goes all wonky!)  We ate lunch at 1:30 pm--6 hours later...not right after we ate breakfast ha ha ha :D

We also seen the Dash boutique...it hadn't opened for the day yet.  We seen a tow truck from Tremont Towing...South Beach Tow which my husband and kids watch.

Back to our lunch...we ate at Ocean's Ten which apparently the Jersey Shore cast also visited on the show.  OMG--worst service.  The Yelp reviews are either way bad or good.  I guess if you to there to club then it is fine.  We were there at 1:30 pm and the waitress had to hold our credit card before we got our food--their policy...um, we have 2 children with us...we aren't clubbing...we aren't going to stiff you!  Then they charged for a glass of water...not bottled...just plain "filtered" tap water!  Then they automatically charged 18% service fee...fine, but did I mention our waitress sucked?  Well she did!  And the food...not very good at all and overpriced.  Oh well...

Some of our beach photos...Remember I said we wanted to beat the crowds?  We were there from 8:30am-1:00pm and it never got very crowded...I think South Beach is on and popping in the evening when all the young adults are partying :)

We got back to the hotel before 3pm and decided to check out Hollywood, Fl because the guide book said it was "a virtual carnival of young hipsters, big families, and sunburned French Canadian..."  It was NOT...unless by young hipsters they meant young hoodlums and by French Canadian they meant Freaky Characters!  Normally, my husband can hang in the shadiest parts of town (he went into New Orlean's 9th ward with a couple of friends and a stranger they met at a bar!) but even he was not comfortable with us being in Hollywood, FL.  We left as soon as possible and I only took one photo of a sign...actually I think I sent my husband over to take the picture.  (Ok, I just looked at all the trip advisor reviews, etc. and they are all positive...maybe it was because we got there late in the day...I don't know, but it did not look very friendly.)

The best part of the trip to Hollywood was the drive there when we were stuck in traffic (how is that the best part?)...Not only did we laugh as we witnessed a ton of people illegally exiting the freeway, but we seen these two young adults in front of us lip-syncing and doing some hand/arm gestures.  My son knew what they were doing and showed us the Harvard Baseball Team YouTube video lip syncing and "dancing" to Carly Rae Jepsen's Call Me Maybe.  We then joined the couple in front of us...and they laughed and gave us air high fives.  That song then became our anthem the rest of the trip :)

Even now when we hear that song it makes us smile thinking of our vacation.

If you got through this post--thank you! 

Thank you for looking!

Florida 2012 (#2)

Day 2 in Miami was the day we went to check out the new Marlin's stadium and watch our Giants beat them.

Before we headed over to the stadium, we found The Original Pancake House which we all liked.  We really try to find places to eat that we can't find around where we live...sometimes we succeed at doing that and other times we have to settle for places we can eat any ol' time. (Later, we found out there are a couple of the same chain in our area, but when we tried them at home, they were not as good. :/ )

I was happy that the page in the Smashbook (above) actually matched what I was scrapbooking.  The curved building in the Smashbook had similar features to the actual stadium.

The photo on the top left is one of my favorites because of this...

Five years earlier, we were in Scottsdale, Az watching the Giants at Spring Training and I captured this photo above...I had them recreate the bottom photo...Yes, my husband is wearing the same jersey (but new same colored shorts! ha ha ha)--it is awesome to see how my kids have grown in 5 years!

Another element that I love on this page is that I used paper from an actually baseball score book to write my journaling on.

The next page is just photos of the inside of the stadium--the colors on the Smashbook matched the Marlin colors (kinda!).

That day, Melky Cabrera scored all 3 runs which I was able to take photos of...it looks like the same run scored, but it wasn't :)

After the game, we went back to the hotel then took the free Metromover to the Bayside outdoor mall.  We walked around, but didn't buy anything other than flimsy towels for the beach the next day.

Dinner was at Bubba Gump which we've eaten at before, but we don't eat it too often.

For the smaller photos (like above), I used my PoGo--I am not sure how they will stand the test of time though.

Thank you for looking!

Florida 2012 (#1)

In 2012, we surprised the kids (and ourselves) with a trip to Florida.  I planned this trip 3 weeks before we left for a week.  Who does that?  I do that...I do that more often than you would think is possible. :)  *just a note...we live in California--so a last minute trip across the country is a tad bit crazy.

Prior to leaving, I packed a bag with a SMASH book, pens, scraps of paper, my Polaroid PoGo, and adhesive.  I totally thought I was going to scrapbook while vacationing...I was so wrong ha ha ha...it only added to the weight of my carry-on. :/

I actually "finished" the book in March 2013, but I never journaled inside...so that is the part I am currently working on.

Here is the cover...I tried to capture the things we did...caught a Marlin's game (against our beloved Giants), went to DisneyWorld and Universal Orlando...We also went to the beach and the boys went to a Tampa Bay Ray's game. (I just realized I forgot to add those last two elements to my cover!  I may go back now...we will see.)

This was my first SMASH book and the concept is great, but I didn't really care for it...it doesn't really allow too much extras to be placed inside.  (I suppose it is more for thoughts and doodlings than to use instead of a Scrapbook like I used it for.)

Luckily, most of the pages just worked out right for each of my layouts...but when it didn't, I would just add paper over it...adding to the bulkiness of the book.

Here is the inside of the front cover...I like keeping and adding our plane tickets...I don't know why.

The first layout is our itinerary for the week.  I actually completed this before we left...I'll pat myself on the back--hahaha. 

The printable cards are from Cathy Zielske.  Unfortunately, I cannot find the post that she shared these with the world.

A funny (but not so funny) story...our plane from San Jose to Los Angeles was on the tiniest plane I have ever been on...and since I booked the flight so late, we were in the back of the plane and not seated next to each other.  There were 2 seats on one side of the plane and 1 seat on the other side of the plane...so tiny!!  Anyway, we were right above the landing gear.  As we were descending, the landing gear (of course) was opening up, but the noise scared me...I almost jumped out of my seat!  I thought we were going down!!!  I might have let out a little "Ah!"--hahaha...I'm sure my seat mate wasn't thrilled to be seated next to me. :D

Our first stop in Florida was in Miami...we got in early enough to drive to our hotel downtown, check out the pool, and walk to grab a bite to eat.

It was the first time we had all eaten Columbian food--it was ok, but it was no Mexican food.  

I usually opt for the cheapest (but clean) hotels.  The Hampton Inn did not disappoint.  My daughter was the only one to get into the pool, but she wasn't thrilled...it was so hot outside and in the pool that it just felt like a hot tub...she said it wasn't refreshing at all.  

Well that was day 1 of our trip.  Thank you for looking!