Love, K: Travel Diary: Florida

Loren and I recently took a little trip to Florida to visit my Grandparents and we included a quick Disney trip at the end of the week.

Our time spent with Grandma & Grandpa was fun and relaxing, the perfect combo. We had good weather while we were there so Loren and I usually spent a few hours at the pool everyday, soaking up the sun. We fit in all our favorite activities playing cards, eating lots of good food, shopping at Bealls, and of course, visiting Plant City for their famous strawberry shortcake. My Aunt & Uncle also drove down for a couple days and it was so nice to get to see them this visit.

We went to Disney for two nights. We always have so much fun at Disney and it was nice to go for more than a day visit this trip. We visited Hollywood Studios, Magic Kingdom, and Animal Kingdom. I think my favorite park is Hollywood Studios because we have so much fun on the rides there. I LOVE the Rockin' Roller Coast and the Tower of Terror is super fun. We realized this trip that the Tower of Terror in Florida is different than the ride in California and it makes it more suspenseful. I don't know why it's so fun to scare yourself silly but it is. I accidentally grabbed the man sitting next to me and then ran into him later on the bus ride back to the resort!

We also went to the Frozen sing-a-long which was the most ridiculous fun ever. It snows, INSIDE!

Magic Kingdom is always fun to me but it's starting to lose some of the appeal. I would definitely consider myself a kid at heart but there's just too many kiddie rides at Magic Kingdom for me to think of it as the "best time ever" anymore. I want a few more thrills and less teacups. The castle will always make me happy though. And the Electrical Parade and nightly fireworks...forget it. I'm in tears everytime.

Disney wasn't all fun and games though. I had registered for the Disney Princess Half Marathon before we knew we were going to move. Since moving across the country is stressful and chaotic, I got behind in my training. Like, really behind. Didn't start until January kind of behind. I tried to switch to the 10k since I felt comfortable running that distance but it was sold out so no go. So I headed into the half determined to try my best and finish. That's all I wanted. The run was going well until about mile 8. I started feeling it then and all the banked roads Disney makes you run were really brutal. Thankfully the last couple miles there were a lot of people there cheering us on and it was motivating. It always makes me emotional when I see total strangers standing there cheering for the runners. I know it's likely that they have a friend or family member running but they cheer for everyone. It makes me well up with tears just thinking about it. I did manage to finish the race. It wasn't my best time but it wasn't the worst so I'm okay with that.

We finished our visit at Animal Kingdom. We had only been to this park one other time (our honeymoon) so it was fun to visit again. I admit, I wasn't too excited about it beforehand but I was pleasantly surprised. The Expedition Everest ride there is SO FUN. And we were able to do the safari ride this visit and that surpassed my expectations. The animals were so close to us and it was neat to just see them roaming around. There were lots of giraffes too which might be my favorite.