Halloween at School

I volunteered at the school Halloween party, so went early to see the costume parade before we went to the room for games, craft and snack.   The rule was no masks so William didn't wear his dinosaur costume since we assumed that mask = head covering.  Apparently not because a 3rd grader had one on!  He grabbed a G.I. Joe costume from his closet and it was fine.   The little kids were adorable; the big kids were an eclectic mix of costumes; and the junior high kids were mostly Greek gods and goddesses since their costumes had to be based on literature they had read so far this year.   The junior high teachers were mostly Harry Potter characters!

We also had snow on Halloween.  The snow was coming down and a crazy wind was blowing as I drove to school and there was a lot more snow accumulated by the time I got home two hours later!

The little kids - including a 3rd grader as a dinosaur.   The younger grades each did two laps through the gym but the 5th graders were in/out so fast I almost missed them!  We got more photos back in the room.

 

I brought a witch hat ring toss game and it was ridiculously hard!   

 

 

Our neighbor across the street brushing snow off his skeletons before the trick-or-treating starts.   I had to look out my bathroom window every morning and night at that clown.  Not to mention catching it in my rear view mirror as I pulled out of the drive each morning! 

5B Mass

Each Wednesday one of the classes is in charge of leading the school mass.   William's class will have the chance to do it once each semester.   Here they are on their first one.   John and I are looking forward to attending in April when they do it again.

Universal Experiment Concludes

Our fourth day of vacation/third day of Universal was a combined day.   We checked out a few more rides and re-rode our favorites.  We had more flavors of Butterbeer, a few more snacks, another giant donut....all the good stuff!  And it was perfect weather!   That's a big bonus for a family from Chicago that in October fears any moment could be a snowstorm and that we won't see above freezing for 6 months!

 

 

William was so excited to spent some souvenir money on a "concoction!"  It was a Fire Potion that was watermelon flavored.   He loved it.    What he didn't care much about was the wand selection and use.   Again, frugal accountant mom was just fine with buying a $4 potion instead of a $40 wand!

 

 

 

 

 

The talking fountain in Universal Studios was one of my very favorites!   Highly recommend for anyone visiting to stop by and interact with it - or watch it talk to other people!    Very clever commentary.

I will say that we enjoyed our time at Universal (especially the sunshine), but it didn't have the "magic" of Disney.  Nor was the food as good.   Happy we experimented with Universal to put our minds at ease, but our hearts belong to Disney!

Not sure how this last picture made it into the mix, but I'm going to keep it in to remind me that my kiddo loves creating Lego Star Wars battle scenes (and army men battle scenes) which I don't showcase often enough.   Love his creativity.

Discovery Cove

About 12 years ago, John and I went to Orlando to Discovery Cove on a couples weekend.   We were excited to finally have a kiddo old enough to experience it with us!   The park had a familiar but different feel to it and we learned they had swapped some of the exhibit spaces around, so it eventually all made sense!

I made us Uber over really early to check in to make sure we would have a morning dolphin swim (because adults can't drink the all-inclusive beer package until after the dolphin swim....and it's first come, first assigned).   Apparently we were about the fourth family in line because not only were we an 8-something a.m. swim, we were done and on the beach and had to wait for the drinks to start at 10!   We got to watch the sunrise as we wandered around the resort and along the beach!   So many birds!  Then we donned our short wet suits and got ready for the dolphin swim!

 

My frugality won out and I did not buy the dolphin swim photo package.  There just weren't any great digital picture options for the couple of ok photos that they got of us.  And there wasn't that one that was just amazing.  But, hey, we have memories right?!  And I took some pictures of strangers doing their dolpin swim so I could remember the set up.   We interacted with two different dolphins.  One that did some demo of the skills and glided past us to touch and this kiss.   And then a larger dolphin that "swam" each of us from the middle of the pool back to the group. 

 

 

After our swim, we enjoyed the Great Reef for snorkeling and the lazy river areas for warmer, relaxing swims.   Admittedly I was pretty distracted outside our of dolphin swim time due to a work fire drill.  I usually blog about the joys of flexible work, which means I get to vacation almost anytime.   But the downside of flexible work means that I never travel without my laptop and I have my iPhone in hand while at the parks - in this case dealing with issues from the beach while my family snorkels. 

 

 

The day ended up being perfectly sunny and warm.   I can't remember why William chose to bury himself here....just killing time before lunch perhaps.  This kid just needs a pure beach vacation!   However, he needs a little more supervision with the sunscreen!   We wore special "dolphin friendly" sunscreen so that may have been part of it.  Luckily it didn't peel or bother him.