Day 5-- Everything Else!

For our last day, we actually let the kids sleep in a bit.  Then we ran around, once again packing lunches, but also packing up everything else since that had been our last night in our VRBO.  We got the van all loaded and then passed around sunscreen to all the kids while Craig drove.  Getting into the park was a zoo-- each step of the way (parking, bag checks, ticketing, plus the walking to and from each of these locations) was a crowded mess and for the first time the kids (and me!) fully appreciated how nice we had it getting there early each day.  Good work getting us moving, Craig!

We'd made a list of everything we either a) still hadn't done or b) wanted to do again before we left and Craig kept us on task.  There were a few rides at Universal that had been shut down on Wednesday because of the rain, so we started with those.  And Kendra and Craig were excited to watch the Street Construction Drummers, so we made sure we caught one of their performances.  Craig had absolutely LOVED the Bourne Stuntacular show, so we saw that again.  That really was super cool-- they used a hyper-realistic movie screen in the background and as the camera angle on that changed, the sets would move to match it-- it was actually hard to tell who were live actors and who were actors on the screen!  My favorite moment was during a car chase (yes-- they'd have cars moving on the stage and, again, the screen behind them would make it look like they were racing all over the place) and Jason Bourne leapt from his motorcycle and pulled himself up onto a street lamp, and as he pulled himself up the whole thing switched into slow motion so the actor was pulling himself up super slow and it looked so cool and must have taken a TON of muscle control!  It was wild!  We also saw the horror makeup show, which was hilarious.

I wanted to take pictures with the giant shark from Jaws , and once we were there, each kid wanted their own picture with it.  I think each of the kids' pictures sort of represent their personalities-- it's kind of amazing:

Bentley's a goofball

Kendra just wants to love on the giant scary monster shark

Ryder has to up the ante on Bentley's goofiness

Colton has to come up with something new, so he goes with nervously thinking about the shark

And Camille is going to fearlessly just poke at the shark

And, of course, one with the whole family

Then we had to ride the Hogwarts Express to Islands of Adventure so I could fully appreciate Platform Nine and Three-Quarters this time!  And it was super cool-- I'm glad I made sure we did that again!

(Please excuse the terrible camera work at the end-- apparently I can't stop filming without nearly dropping my phone...)

I love that Craig took a picture of me taking a selfie-- how meta!

And we got a picture of the Jurassic Park gates in the day time!

Once we were back in Island of Adventure, we rode the Jurassic Park river cruise which was super fun, and also the Hulk rollercoaster, which nearly had some of my kids blacking out (Camille did NOT ride this one-- I think she wouldn't have forgiven me if I'd tried to make her!).  We also rode Hagrid's motorcycles one last time.  That ride was pretty much everyone's favorite, but this was the longest we ever had to wait for it, and by the time we got off, we were all DONE.  Everyone was tired, their feet hurt (my hip was hurting-- what the heck?), and we were finally ready to head home.

While Craig took Ryder and Colton to buy t-shirts, I went and got one last brownie milkshake from the Chocolate Emporium (heaven!) for myself and for Craig.  And the kids got churros.  I'd wanted to get a picture of us with the Universal globe, but we were all too tired to trek all around the lake to get to it, so we settled for this shot:

It's back there!

And then we climbed back in the van, and began driving home!  We didn't have any sort of plan for the return trip-- we didn't know what time we'd end up leaving the parks or how long we'd be able to stay awake as we drove, so we just figured we'd play it by ear.  As it was, we ended up getting "dinner' at Buc-ees a little after 9pm, and then drove all night.  Craig and I alternated driving and sleeping, with Craig insisting that each driving shift get shorter and shorter so we wouldn't push ourselves too hard.  It was a tough call, because I have NEVER been a person who pulls all-nighters.  But I knew we'd get a terrible night's sleep cramming all seven of us into a motel room, so I figured if I wasn't going to get much sleep either way, we may as well go with the cheaper option!  

We pulled into our driveway right around 7:30am, so that's pretty good, if you ask me!  I was excited to get back to my own shower and bed.  And Craig was excited to make cinnamon rolls (it was conference weekend, after all)!  We tried our best to watch Conference (and we were very thankful we didn't have to be up and running things at church the following morning), but I will admit that a lot of the weekend looked like this:

And that's okay!

It was a wonderful vacation.  I'm so happy that everything went so well.  The only problem was that by the time we got home, I felt like I needed a vacation to rest up from our vacation!  Isn't that how it always goes, though?