University of Louisville Planetarium

Today we finally kicked ourselves into gear and got started on using our Cultural Passes. The city of Louisville started a great program this summer, thanks to the Louisville Ideafest! Every child gets a cultural pass and it gives them free admission to lots of Louisville museums and parks. If you visit 8 places then you get entered into a drawing to win Broadway tickets. Pretty cool!

So today we visited the University of Louisvilles Planetarium...for free. 1 adult is included. It was quite dizzying. Not sure I ever want to go back! However, as a science teacher I enjoyed the presentation on the planets, stars, nebulas, galaxies and constellations.  We saw the video that was geared toward younger kids which was perfect for our crew. Although there was a bit too much zooming around for me! I felt a bit sick afterwards!  The kids had lots of fun though and asked great questions. We will try to knock out a few more museums this week!

Beyond Disney

The next day, after an IHOP breakfast, we checked out Downtown Disney. Stores opened at 10 and we stopped by two of the kids favorites...the Lego store and the Disney store. There were lots of fun things for the kids to see and some cute photo ops for mom!

The Lego store had an awesome display of life sized Lego characters! Here are some of our favorites...

The Hulk!!!!

Lego friends

Made of Legos!!!

7 dwarf mine

My favorite part of the Disney store was the magic mirror!! It was so cool!!! When the girls stood in front of the mirror, if magically puts a princess dress and crown on you! Even sometimes a magic wand and little birds fly by!  It was so cute! I had to take lots of pictures!!

Standing in front of the mirror

Olivia wasn't sure what was happening!

Next stop was Sarasota and Longboat Key. Check in was at 4 so it was just enought time to grab our groceries before we got the keys....keys to relaxation! (Or as much as you can expect!)

Uma hanging up the turtle lights on the balcony! Loved the ocean view!!

Easy spaghetti dinner for the first night! Lots of grilling out after that..thanks to master chef Kyle!

Some pool time!

Girls checking out the beach view

Best of Disney - family favorites

For only one day at disney we got to see more than we imagined. Thanks to arriving early or right at opening, we were able to rush to tomorrow land to get two quick rides on buzz lightyear, Zachary's favorite

Kyle and Isabella ride space mountain while my mom and I took the other kids to Monsters inc laugh floor. We also got 1st in line to see buzz lightyear!

From there we went to the tea cups and saw Alice. The wait for Alice was pretty long (20 minutes maybe) so I took 3 kids on the tea cups while Kyle and zach waited. 

After meeting Alice we rode it's a small world. I will never forget the look on Vincent's face as we rode through the boat.  He was in total amazement! Thankfully it was nice and cool in there and then headed for lunch at cosmic rays cafe. Cosmic rays had a beautiful view of the castle and as we were finishing lunch we noticed the character parade on Main Street, so we had to rush down to the parade to join in a dance party with Minnie!

Next we headed to get a few fast passes and at the end of the day we were able to check out the Swiss family Robinson tree house, ride pirates of the carribean, the magic carpet ride, mickeys haunted mansion, the tiki room, mickeys philharmonic, a pirate show with jack sparrow, the hall of presidents, the carousel (twice) and the jungle cruise. Not too bad!

We ate dinner somewhere in there and got an ice cream treat. Then headed to the electric parade and wishes fireworks show...possibly my favorite part. The kids were exhausted by the time of the parade but perked up for the fireworks! Then we headed over to finish out the night with one more run on buzz lightyear as most of the crowds were heading for the gate. 

It was a long day but the kids will hopefully never forget it..at least zach and Isabella! 

On the way home from Florida I asked each kid about their favorite parts of the disney experience...

Our favorite parts of disney world:

Kyles Favorites 

1) Meeting Buzz lightyear and Olivia giving him a hug

2) space mountain with Isabella

3) meeting Alice and the rabbit

4) the tiki room

My favorite parts

1) Vincent's face on the small world ride

2) the carousel with everyone

3) the daytime parade & characters

4) the magic wishes fireworks show

Uma

1) buzz light year space ride

2) the daytime parade 

3) the electric parade

4) the characters

5) pirate show

Isabella

1) space mountain

2) buzz lightyear ride

3) meeting the characters

4) the wishes fireworks show

Vincent

1) buzz lightyear ride - #2 favorite

2) the pirate show

3) small world ride

4) the wishes fireworks show - #1 favorite toy story on the castle wall

5) haunted mansion

Zachary

1) buzz lightyear space ranger spin

2) cosmic rays lunch view

3) pirates of the carribean ride

4) monsters inc laugh floor