Author: lilydarais

On Saturday we packed up our bags and drove to Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.

We got a later start than we wanted, but we still got to see a lot of things. The first things that we did upon entering was–use the bathroom! Honestly, excessive bathroom usage was a constant preoccupation for us in Florida. Maybe it was because we were drinking more water because of the heat, but the kids had to go all the time, and every time one kid announced he or she needed to use the bathroom, Abe and I would make the entire family use it. We were sticklers.

After using the bathroom we went to one of the buildings Abe had checked off as a must-see, only to be greeted by a woman who who smilingly stuffing tickets into everyone’s hands and telling us to hurry to the line for the bus. We never made it back to that building and still don’t know if there was anything to see inside or if it was just the place to get bus tour tickets!

At any rate, the bus tour was excellent. We loved learning the history of NASA and some of its impressive, huge buildings. I think one of the statistics was that the base for the rockets weighed over 38 billion TONS, and that the crawlers it was on moved 35 feet per minute or something like that. How can the earth support a structure that weighs so much? Isn’t that the weight of a mountain? And Florida earth is pretty soggy, so I seriously don’t understand how it could support those structures. Apparently Nasa understands, and the buildings appear to be solidly vertical, so I guess that’s all that matters.

We ended at a place where they had reconstructed the room that launched the first rocket that landed on the moon. They had a show where you could actually hear the people talking before and during launch, and you would see the desks light up to represent which person was talking. It was very moving and I had tears in my eyes by the end of it.

We also watched another presentation in a different room about the moon landing itself. I had no idea it was such a close call! There were obstacles to Neil Armstrong’s landing that were very hard to overcome and I think he landed with less than three seconds to go before he ran out of fuel. If he were to have run out of fuel, he would not have had enough in the tank to make it back to earth. That he made it was amazing!

We ate lunch under one of the rockets that had actually made it to space. I forget which one, but it was enormous.

After lunch we took the bus back to the main visitor complex and let the kids play in the space playground. Abe and Lydia watched an iMax movie about astroids.

While Abe and Lydia were at the movie, Clarissa got stuck at the top of the crawly part of the playground, and I ended up climbing up a rope tower and rescued her. The security guards were so nice and gave us water afterward. I was really proud of Ammon and Mary, both of whom helped her a lot. I was hoping she would overcome her fear and keep crawling, so I didn’t interfere until at least twenty minutes had passed. During that time, I watched Ammon cheer Clarissa unceasingly, calling out, “Go Galissa! Go Galissa! You can do it Galissa!” Mary was also encouraging her, sitting right next to her and helping her while other kids got impatient. I was so proud of Ammon and Mary, and I kept hoping Clarissa would trust them enough to inch her way forward, but in the end it was also kind of fun climbing the rope tower to rescue her.

After that we took a bathroom break and then were prevented from re-entering the playground because a mother couldn’t find her child. The space playground is dark the the worker says kids get lost all day long. I drilled Clarissa and Ammon on my full name in case that happened to us, and when we got back in we discovered Abe and Lydia waiting for us. Abe and I watched the kids do the space slide a bunch before I realized I could catch the last iMax and sprinted there. It was about asteroids, and I am now a new convert to the cause of planetary defense. One of the obvious goals of the visitor complex seemed to be to convince the visitor that space exploration is purposeful, beautiful, and necessary, and I left relatively convinced. (Surprisingly, Abe was less so. Space-time is one of his favorite new areas of interest, so I was surprised that he wasn’t more easily converted to the NASA message.)

After the complex closed at 5pm, we drove back to Miami to our airport hotel. En route we ate dinner at the Whole Foods in Palm Beach. I realized we hadn’t drunk any Florida orange juice so found some local juice there and had everyone drink some with dinner. So yummy!

Our hotel was a Homewood Suites near the airport, and it was so yucky that I had trouble sleeping. I kept thinking about the recent condo collapse in Surfside and wondering if the building was up to code. I was super happy when the alarm rang the next morning and it was time to go.

Universal Studios turned out to have, far and away, the best rides of any of the theme parks. We did not know this until after our first ride, the Spiderman ride. It was a 3D/4D ride, and we learned that there is nothing, NOTHING like a 3D/4D ride to make you feel like you’ve entered a different reality. Wow. It was amazing. The littler kids honestly thought they had entered the Marvel Universe. I thought I had entered the Marvel Universe. There was water, fire, and the 3D/4D effects were mind blowing. By the end I could have sworn Spiderman just saved me from half a dozen bad guys. Thank you, Spiderman!

After the Spiderman ride we did the King Kong ride. Universal makes their lines as entertaining as possible, and the line for the King Kong ride almost topped the ride itself. There was one part where you entered a large room, and a figure at the front was chanting in an unknown language and the holes in the room started to light up with fire until it built to a big, scary climax. Very spooky.

After the King Kong ride, Ammon and Clarissa cooled off in a splash pad before we headed over to Harry Potter world to buy insanely overpriced wands that have decreased radically in quality since the last time we were in Harry Potter World two years ago–now they are $60 pieces of plastic! But they do perform spells, so we shelled out so the kids could do spells.

Then we had lunch at the Three Broomsticks, and after we did the Hogwarts Castle ride. There was a lot of logistical movement at the end because Mary was desperate for a bathroom and we spent a lot of time running kids back and forth between the bathroom and child swap, but in the end the older girls, Abe and I all managed to ride the ride. It was the best in Universal.

Afterward there was a downpour, so Lydia and I went and got treats for everyone. We brought back treats which the kids ate on a picnic table before playing for an hour in the rain with their wands.

After playing magic in the rain, we headed to Dr. Seuss land where we rode a lot of rides because there were hardly any lines. We rode The Cat in the Hat twice in a row because there was literally no one in line. After three days of waiting in line, that felt amazing.

After Dr. Seuss, Abe was unable to convince Lydia to ride the Hulk roller coaster with him so he went by himself. One of the highlights of the day was being with the kids watching the roller coaster and hearing them scream “HI DAD!!! DADDY!!!! WOO-HOO!!! DADDY!!!” to every single group of riders until we finally got a hold of Abe and confirmed he had completed the ride.

It turns out you need to book dinner in advance because at 10:30pm the Universal restaurants are bustling. We could not find a seat anywhere but at Red Oven the host kindly let us in even though it seemed like it was against protocol. I was so grateful for his kindness/pity, and oh my goodness I am still thinking about that pizza. I didn’t expect it to be anything special but it was outstanding.

Well, the Magic Kingdom was a marathon day. So to make this post as efficient as possible, I am just going to list 1. the rides we went on 2. the places we ate and 3. the pictures we took.

1. The rides: the carousel, Peter Pan, It’s a Small World, Haunted Mansion, Teacups, The Snow White and Seven Dwarves ride, the Magic Carpet, the Jungle Cruise, and Pirates of the Caribbean.
2. We ate at Pecos Bill Tall Tale Inn and Cafe for lunch, Pinocchio’s for a snack, Liberty Tree Tavern for dinner (at 9:30pm), and had a lot of popcorn in between. Ammon accidentally plunged his hand into someone else’s popcorn bucket as they were refilling it. (He was confused because the buckets all looked the same.) The vendor kindly gave them a replacement bucket. (And if they hadn’t we would have.)
3. As follows!

We passed the time waiting for dinner by making videos about our adventures so far.

At Epcot, my favorite Disney Park EVER, we did the following:

1. Met Elsa and Anna. 2. Rode the Frozen ride! (It was amazing.) 3. Gran Fiest Tour 4. Listened to the Chef drummers 5. Watched some Princesses drive by 6. Spaceship Earth (my most favorite of all the theme park rides, and the whole reason I took my family to Epcot!) 7. Test Track 8. Soarin’ 9. Mission: Space 10. Watched the fireworks 11. Ate lunch at Chefs de France 12. ate dessert at Les-Halles Boulangerie-Patisserie 13. ate fish and chips and Japanese shave ice for dinner 14. Watched the China show 15. ate Norwegian school break and other snacks 16. bought the kids bubbles and fans to amuse themselves with in line. I am sad we did not do Living with the Land but I only found out about that right now while googling the names of the rides I forgot. Next time I am going to do a better job planning because Disney is waaaaaay to expensive to leave with regrets about things undone. Lesson learned.
2. Pictures as follows!

On Tuesday Abe and I got up early (very early–around 5am!) for an early morning swim, which was magical. Afterward, we packed, cleaned up the house, fed people breakfast and did a bunch of laundry. I like imagining the relief Airbnb hosts might feel when they see that their house is still intact and clean after our family of six departs. So I laundered a bunch of their towels, wiped down surfaces, swept, etc.

We pulled out at 10 am, and originally we were going to head to the Fairchild Botanical Gardens, but we thought we would miss the Kennedy Space Center entirely if we did, so we started driving to Orlando. (In retrospect we should have done the Gardens because the Kennedy Space Center is an all-day event, but we did not realize that.)

On the way we stopped by at a state park by the beach to picnic on our leftover salads and cookies from dinner.

After our picnic we arrived (after some wrong turns) at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, but it was already almost 4pm and the center closes at 5. We quickly realized that was not nearly enough time to cover everything and decided to return on Saturday.

Then we drove to our Disney hotel, called the Art of Imagination Resort. When we pulled in the kids’ excitement level was through the roof. Ammon and Clarissa were not physically capable of walking anymore–they ran and jumped and skipped everywhere, and the older girls were equally excited (though seemed somewhat capable of regularly-paced locomotion).

After dinner we got settled into our room, and then Abe took the kids to the hotel arcade for two hours because it was pouring rain outside. I spent that time showering and then trying to book dining for our park days. I did not realize I should have done that months ago because finding an open restaurant for dinner in Epcot and the Magic Kingdom was impossible, and all the other meals were nearly impossible. If we ever come back I hope I remember to book meals at the time I book the tickets!

Everyone came back from the arcade smiling and/or jumping for joy. Lydia was thrilled with the pictures from the picture booth she took and the other kids were so, so happy. Abe was happy because he loves arcades and somehow didn’t seem stressed at all from having managed four kids at an arcade for two hours. I was happy because I didn’t have to do that!

Abe had to work Tuesday, so I had planned to spend the morning at the botanical gardens with the kids. When I googled directions, my phone accidentally pulled up the Miami Botanical Gardens, which were closed on Tuesday, and I didn’t realize they were the wrong gardens (we wanted to go the Fairchild Gardens–which were actually open), so I came up with plan B.

We went to Vizcaya, the mansion John Deering built for himself. I am so glad we did! The kids loved seeing and learning about it (we did the audio tour on my phone), and as a bonus we got to see so many girls doing their quincenera photos on the grounds. Clarissa and Ammon thought they were princesses, and I made zero effort to disabuse them of this assumption. It was too cute to see Clarissa stare at them open-mouthed, and Ammon would call to each one, “You are so, so, So beautiful! You are a beautiful princess!” I also enjoyed watching the girls react to his compliments.

On the way home the older girls and I discussed the morality (or lack thereof) involved in building a mansion like that, and we also discussed the Gilded Age, the pros and cons of American capitalism, and the exploitation of workers under the ultra-rich Gilded Age business owners. I asked the girls to explain whether they thought the system was fair and moral, and both Lydia and Mary made excellent points.

Lydia said that people have played by the rules of their time throughout history, and the rules have sometimes been good and sometimes been bad. Mary pointed out that there is no need for one person to own a home like the one we’d just seen. I said that from clues throughout the house I assumed John Deering might have had narcissistic tendencies. That his bedroom was styled after Napoleon’s uniform was a leading clue–but the house itself was another.

After all of this serious discussion, we decided to spend the rest of the day playing in the Airbnb pool. Mary and Lydia took breaks for math and the little kids took a television break in the middle. I get worried that they are swallowing too much water–especially Clarissa, who often swallows instead of blowing bubbles while swimming. But her swimming is so amazing in spite of that! She can swim the width of the pool without help, and if she got her way she would never have taken a break from the pool at all. She has always been obsessed with water, and seeing her swim brings me so much joy. This summer I resolved that the kids would all learn to swim to the point where I felt very comfortable alone with them in pools, and my dream came true. It felt so good to spend a day enjoying the fruit of everyone’s swim-lesson labor and just have fun together in the water.

I also enjoyed a wonderful float/nap on the inflatable raft while the little kids took their break. It was a magical afternoon.

After we were done swimming, everyone got in their pajamas and we ordered salads from some local salad place and cookies from Milk Bar for dessert. We ate together on the couch while watching National Geographic specials on shark attacks, most of which seemed to happen in Florida. Abe raised some mild objections when some images were gory, but I countered that this was local culture content and had educational value. (Mostly I am interested in deterring Ammon from marching into the ocean behind my back at a beach.)

To this end, the videos were exceptionally useful. Afterward someone jokingly suggested we go to a beach and Ammon actually started crying at the thought. I’m sure purposefully planting fears in one’s children is the definition of bad parenting, but at the same time I have a vested interest in keeping Ammon–who seems programmed for self-destruction–alive. And I found National Geographic shark videos an excellent aid in that endeavor.

On Sunday I got up before 5am so that we could be on the road early for a full day in Key West. I am taking my phentermine again and one side effect is that I don’t sleep much the first week before my body adjusts, so those early morning wake times are much easier. We piled the kids in the car before the sun came up and then I drove to Key West, during which drive we listened to an Ernest Hemingway short story and also started The Old Man and the Sea. Then we arrived and had breakfast around 9:30am at a cute Key West restaurant called the Banana Cafe.

After breakfast we headed to Hemingway’s house to take the tour, but it is cash only and our debit card expired two weeks ago without us realizing. So there was no way for us to take a tour. That was disappointing, but the kids loved petting all of the cats in his garden. (They are descendants of Hemingway’s pet cat, Snowball.) I also peeked at his pool when various children had potty needs.

After this outing, I was sweating from the heat and Clarissa was melting down. Just as we were about to get into our car and drive to a different part of the keys to find a beach, a woman started talking to us and convinced us to take a snorkeling tour. Abe jumped out of the car and arranged for an afternoon on a boat, which turned out to be wonderfully fun.

We saw so many dolphins! They swam right up to the boat and we could see mother-baby (or auntie baby–after the first year the baby dolphins graduate from their mom to an auntie) pairs swimming together. It was mating season so the dolphins were in very affectionate moods. I asked if we could swim with them and the captain said that would be a terrible idea because dolphins don’t distinguish between species and you don’t want it mistaking you for a fellow dolphin during mating season.

Snorkeling was a little tricky because none of the kids had done it before. Abe took charge of Clarissa and I took charge of Ammon, and I kept positioning the mouthpiece incorrectly in his mouth in the water. Finally he said he was tired of the water and wanted to be done, right around the time both Mary and Clarissa also wanted to be done. So the four of us snorkeled for maybe…five minutes? Lydia lasted much longer, and Abe was the second to last person on the boat. So we learned that now that the kids can swim, they need to practice with snorkeling masks so that the next time we do this everyone can snorkel!

After the boat tour it was time for dinner. We drove to Mallory Square. It was very hot and humid, so we ate at the first restaurant we saw. I forget its name, but Abe said the fish sandwich was the best he had ever had.

Then we headed over to Kermit’s key lime pie shop for the best key lime pie we have ever tasted. I thought that all key lime pie was basically the same, but I got a coconut key lime pie with such a light and airy curd, and the crust was not too buttery or too hard–it was a Goldilocks kind of “just right.” Soooooo yummy. Ammon and Clarissa got chocolate coated key lime pie on a stick, Mary got key lime jelly beans, Lydia got key lime fudge, and Abe got plain key lime pie. Everyone was thrilled.

After dessert we headed over to Fort Zachery Taylor State Park to swim, play in the sand, and watch the sunset.

Then everyone watched a magical sunset over the Atlantic while listening to Taps from the nearby army base.

After we finished Old Man and the Sea on our drive back to Miami. It felt like an epic finish to an incredible day.

I am back blogging and we are about to go to Disney, so I am just going to throw these pictures up and blog later. This was a monster day.

While I walked Basil in the morning Abe went on a long bike ride to decompress. Our trip last weekend helped a lot, but work just sucks him and the bike ride helped him at least grasp at the notion of well-being!

Thursday was also Lydia’s last day of school! It was a short day and she collected a lot of phone numbers in her year book for future play dates with her friends. I am so, so sad that her year with Mrs. Lammichhane is coming to an end. But I am proud of all the ways Lydia has grown in that class and will always be grateful to Mrs. Lammichhane for helping facilitate that growth.

I spent a lot of the day practicing instruments with the kids, tidying the house, assembling meals and cleaning after, and also adjusting to having more freedom in the day because of Lexy’s daily help. Lexy came over in the evening while Abe was at the old house, so I used the time to finally get my google calendar to match my physical calendar and double check that I have the summer scheduled correctly. Then I went and did hot yoga for the first time in over a year! It felt amazing (and really hard).

In June the kids have regular swimming lessons with Aubrey and then twenty-one lessons scheduled with Utah Swim Academy. I am determined that this is the year they will all become proficient in this life saving skill! The three younger kids also all have soccer and Lydia has volleyball, and all of the kids have an hour of dance (or, in Clarissa’s case, Mommy and me!) weekly. The three oldest have their regular music lessons and at the end of the summer they have acting camp. And my friend Jean is coming that last week for a visit too. I am taking a girls trip to Vegas with my Thrive friends the first weekend in June, and I am trying to see if we can work in a trip to the Shakespeare festival while Jean is here.

I found out Wednesday morning that Lydia had her school dance performance at the same time as my therapy appointment. I almost had Lexy take the kids and attend while I went to therapy, but then I realized that I am going to therapy because I feel like I fail so often at good motherhood. The irony in the situation of having a nanny go to Lydia’s performance so I could talk to a therapist about how to be a better mom was too absurd, and I also genuinely wanted to see Lydia dance! So I cancelled therapy, ate the fee, and attended the performance. It was so fun, and Lydia did a fantastic job!

In the evening Abe broke off of work at 6:30 so we could all go swim until bedtime. The kids are all improving every time we go, and it is very encouraging to see their progress!