Let's get this done already!
Wednesday morning we woke up early, hopped in the van and drove to Port Canaveral for a day of charter boat fishing on the Atlantic.
I'm not exactly sure what I expected. I was a bit nervous because I got a great deal through groupon, and I really didn't know what we were in store for. It was cheaper for our family to charter boat on the Atlantic, than on Lake Michigan, so I had my reservations.
But my nervousness was for naught! We had a great time! Tim's favorite day of the week.
It was amusing, most of the people that boarded the boat were couples, a few families with one child, and a lot of older men fishing alone.
And then there was us.
We turned alot of heads, got a lot of smiles and nods, and caused a lot of people to stop and chat with us as we sat there with our 5 kids lined up in a row.
Upon departure, it was a 2 hour boat ride out to a reef somewhere in the Atlantic. All was going well. The kids were enjoying the boats unlimited pop supply, we spotted a few dolphins swimming about, and were enjoying the open air without so many people.
We got to our destination, the boat anchored, and the nausea from the constant rolling of the waves kicked in....and the fact that most people around us were wretching over the side didn't help.
Poor Austin was down for the count.
Never picked up a pole.
Poor kid had just sat down with his highly anticipated hamburger, and he couldn't do it. It caught up with Sydney later on too. Tim and I both fought off sea-sickness, but we faired ok. It was a mental game. The excitement really helped to distract. Funny, I was so excited about my 2 compliementary beers before we left, but was so nauseated I couldn't even think about eating or drinking once we were there.
Within 5 minutes of dropping our poles, Dylan had something big.
Really big.
A member of the crew came to help him reel and hold onto the pole.
It turns out he hooked a giant sea turtle. It was SO cool. It would surface and then go back under.
Unfortunately it got away in the end, so this is the only picture I was able to get. Really hard to tell it's size...
We caught a lot of red snappers.
I caught this ramora.
Apparantly it sticks to your arm.
And before I knew what was happening, it was on me.
Ask Tim to do his impersination of my shrieking sometime.
There's a reason everyone in this picture is looking at me.
I was fisherwoman legend by the end of the day :)
Later on in the adventure, Tim and I both caught a shark!
So.much.fun.
This one was in his glory....
All in all, it was a great day, and we will definately try to do this again!
And next time we will take the dramamine out of our suitcase.
Thursday we were up bright and early, trying to beat the rain at Animal Kingdom.
I didn't really take a lot of pictures, because rain was looming all morning.
We hopped around and rode eveything we had hoped to, and the rain held off.
We rode Mt. Everest until we were all on the verge of ill. 1x for Tim and Dylan, 2 for Sydney and me and 3 for Austin was all it took :)
And at about 2 in the afternoon it began to downpour.
We left fulfilled, and spent some down time at our condo for the afternoon.
In the evening the sun came out, we went out for dinner, and then headed to Downtown Disney.
It was crazy busy.
On Friday we were once again up at the crack and headed to MGM Hollywood Studios.
We never visited this park on our last trip, so everthing was new.
The kids really enjoyed the stunt shows the best!
Autograph from Toy Story soldier...
A pic of Tim doing what he did best all week...
On Saturday we packed up and enjoyed the pool for a while before we hit the road for home in the afternoon...
It was a nerveracking drive trying to get out of the state.
We fought traffic through Atlanta, and after that it was smooth sailing.
We pulled over for a couple of hours in Kentucky to sleep, had breakfast in Ohio, and kept trucking north until we were home. That drive is so much harder on the way home!
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