Florida trip- 2013

Sometimes I feel when I want to make a post extra special, there is a possibility it will forever remain in the drafts. Remember the birthday post which took forever to appear? This Florida trip which had happened in May was in the back burner for all these days and I decided it’s about time I write about this trip before the memory fades and all that remains are a bunch of digital pictures to speak of…that and I want to log this down before our upcoming Cancun trip!

Selecting 20 odd pictures from 1000 odd pictures is such a mammoth task!

This trip was actually planned last year but we couldn’t make it because Megha fell sick exactly the day before.

Maybe it was just as well because we were able to get her to enjoy a few things in Disney as she is a bit older now! We left to the airport early in the morning and we made it to the 5 hour flight. Megha slept for a short period of time and was up and playing. When lunch time came, she had maybe about couple of tsp of her lunch. We tried to force, which we obviously should not have, and she threw up everything she ate since morning! Lucky for me, I brought a few change of clothes for Megha in our cabin baggage. What I didn’t foresee was that she would throw up everything on ME! 18 months of parenthood should have taught me better but I guess it didnt! lol
I was wet, stinking and was feeling awful in general. Luckily, a kind flight attendant offered me one of his T-shirts J isn’t that nice of him?

Anyway…we reached Orlando after 1:00 and my good friend Appu and her husband Ramana were waiting to pick us up :)
Taken in front of their home: 

That evening we went to Epcot. We couldn’t stay for a long time though as all of us were very tired. We did a few things like fireworks, watching things like Megha run around like she would never be allowed to run around from the next day!

 Here is Megha with dad…who needs a stroller when dad is here?

Have I mentioned, this happened on Mother’s Day weekend? They all I believe have arranged with Appu to get the cake. Isnt that nice of ALL of them? Here’s me and Megha with the thoughtful cake! I loved the strawberry cake.

The next day we went to the Magic Kingdom….it was truly magical!

And our Disney memories began!

As you know, Disney boasts of having the most magical castle of all time. I always thought they were just saying it, it cannot be that magical. But it was! It truly was! We bought a few things like balloons and Minnie caps to get into that “Disney-spirit”. 

I must say, when it comes to buying stuff from Disney, they quite literally loot you by charging $20 for a $2 dollar balloon. But I guess it’s a part and parcel of going to a tourist spot.

Then came the Theatre where the most famous character of all times, Mickey Mouse, meets and greets you! When we were waiting in the lineup, Megha had surprised me by picking up a few things like learning the art of twisting and bending her body to run away from anyone any everyone trying to stop her from running (that would be me and Anand…lol).

The moment we laid our eyes on him, Megha and I couldn’t help but smile so so much that someone seeing us would instantly know we are super exited by whatever it is in front of us….which in this case happens to be Mickey Mouse! I thought Megha might fidget/cry/go quite when she sees a life size Mickey but no! She was happily clapping and pulled Mickeys nose :)

Here is Ramana trying to entertain Megha with Special Agent Oso while I was feeding her lunch. Appu and Anand went out to get on some roller coaster. 

And then came the “It’s a Small World After All”…where we went round and round in a little boat. It was very good! Megha loved watching all the beautiful “toys” (for the lack of better word) from various countries/cultures around!

Picture taken there:Another: The tune being played was soo good that I still humm the tune: here it is, if you want to listen/see how beautiful it was: 

it's a world of laughter, a world or tears
its a world of hopes, its a world of fear
theres so much that we share
that its time we're aware
its a small world after all

CHORUS:
its a small world after all
its a small world after all
its a small world after all
its a small, small world

By then we were very tired and returned home…maybe at 4 PM. I know! NO one leaves Disney that early and we probably broke a record by leaving that early! But with a toddler with us and a family in Orlando, we didn’t have to exactly rush to see everything on the same trip :)

Appu made THE BEST dinner! I soooo loved the chaaru! I tried it several times like you made but it doesnt taste as good :(

The next day was Sea World day…Megha had a fantastic day! 

She absolutely LOVED the ray-fish pond! She was touching the water, squealing and being all silly.
Here is a picture which displays her enthusiasm.

We went to the world famous Shamu and oh how good it was! We all loved the beautiful show displayed by the wild whales!

During the dolphin show, we decided to sit in the soak zone which was a big bummer. The moment the sea water feel on megha, the poor baby got so scared, she was just refusing to even look at the dolphins any more.

We also did a few other little joy rides :) Oh ya...I also had my first taste of ...I already forgot what that ice cream is called!

The day before we were leaving, we went to Kennedy Space Center, more popularly known as NASA. 

Megha was a little bored here but Anand and I had a good time knowing about various space ships. We had fun looking at the various spaceships, knowing how the older models were, how Kalpana Chawla was killed in a space ship along with her colleagues while re-entering earth’s orbit and so many other things. It’s very very humbling to look at all those achievers. Make us wonder how insignificant we all are when we compare ourselves to the whole universe.

We got to take pictures with an astronaut.

We also got to book a tour which took us to the rocket p launch pad. It was AWESOME! I mean, how awesome can HUGE pillars/platform be be but the concept of the launch pad was so good. We went to the whole tour of how exactly and where exactly the rockets take off from and we also had a chance to talk to one of the NASA engineers. It really was awesome.

The icing on the cake for the whole trip was the actual launch of a rocket! I cannot believe I got to witness NASA’s rocket launch LIVE!

Here are a few pictures :)

Thanks Appu and Ramana for your great hospitality, thank you for letting us stay with you; thank you for the wonderful memories in your back yard! We miss you and we all love you.
Cant wait for another vacation in Florida!! he he he...