This year, the entire Christoff, Williams, and Rellum crew took a week long vacation down to Orlando for the week of Thanksgiving. The trip definately had it’s ups and downs and plenty of learning experiences but it was so wonderful to have a proper vacation again.
Day One: Sunday
Our first few days were spent relaxing around the resort: Hilton Grand Vacations at Tuscany Village. On Sunday, Ramon and I, and Kayla and Ted, all attended the Hilton Grand Vacations time share presentation. Ramon loved looking over the numbers and debating the value of the vacation club. Unfortunately, it wasn’t worth our money at the moment.
Then for Hunter’s Birthday dinner we went to Medieval Times. For some of us it was the first time experiencing the dinner theater and for others of us it was old hat. In any case, everyone enjoyed it for it’s gimmicky fun: except for Adrian. As soon as we walked in he was not having the loud lute music playing over the speakers. He immediately started crying and crying hard! So we took him out to the entrance so he could relax and traded off with Uncle Ted sitting with him outside the show.
After the show we went back to the resort and celebrated Hunter’s birthday with some cupcakes and presents.
Day Two: Monday
Day two started on Granna and Papa’s patio again where Adrian discovered his deep love for water bottles.
After we dropped off Uncle Cams car at the shop we played some rainy day video games and when it cleared up we hit the pool. Ramon entered the ping pong tournament and came in 2nd place! We ordered some Peruvian food and ate dinner outside.
We called it an early night because the next day we were headed to the parks!
Day Three: Universal Studios
Adrian’s first ever theme park was Universal Studios. Unfortunately, it was super crowded and stinking cold the whole day. We, of course, still managed to have a blast! I didn’t take as many pictures as I would have liked.
On this day, we also discovered that Adrian absolutely despised the sound of the hand driers in an echoey bathroom. He cried like I have never seen him cry before, screaming at the top of his lungs and red faced, and there were many little “hicc, sniff, hic”s even after we left the bathroom.
We ended the night trapped on the inner ring of park because everything was blocked off by the parade. By the time we decided to give it up the parade was finished and we were caught in a flood of people leaving. This day was a little rough.
Day Four: Wednesday
On Wednesday Uncle Cam and Dani had to leave for home, which we understood but still made us sad. We spent the day lounging around the resort. The ladies went to get pedicures while the boys went to the outlet mall. Granna spent the day with Adrian, and Papa had some work to do as well as guiding a stranded Uncle Cam through the car rental process.
For dinner we went to Icon Park which was a neat little shopping area with a ferris wheel and all kinds of shops and booths. We ate at this fantastic Mexican restaurant “Uncle Julio’s“. The food was delicious and they brought Hunter some birthday churros.
Day Five: Legoland
Hunter’s birthday fell on Thanksgiving this year and his pick of park was Legoland. The park was not crowded at all and we walked onto multiple rides. It was a dream day for any theme park lovers like ourselves.
Day Six: Animal Kingdom
Friday we spent our last park day at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. It was crowded but not nearly as crowded as Universal. The weather was perfect and the Avatar was the best ride of the trip.
Our trip ended with Adrian picking out a very friendly looking Ewok plushie that has quickly become his very favorite toy. We had such a great time with the family and are looking forward to our next trip to the Netherlands in a few weeks.
Every time I look at this, a tear comes to my eye because of the wonderful time we had and because I feel so fortunate to have had us all together. We are truly blessed to have such an awesome family.