Friday, March 20, 2015

Malcolm at 7 months

Malcolm's biggest accomplishment this month was learning to crawl. He is also super excited to be eating big people food. He has reached the super happy, giggly stage that I absolutely love. He is also very heavy and a total mama's boy so my arms are getting a real work out.
Thumper made it into these pictures somehow

Big grin!

Crawling for the camera

Malcolm with his favorite stuffed animal, Refrito (it's suppose to be a Pinto pony)

Saturday, March 7, 2015

Winter Escape to Disney World

We stayed at the Hilton Bonnet Creek resort, which is still inside Disney World. We got a free night with Sam's points and then decided to stay an extra day because it was suppose to be cold and raining in Pensacola where we had planned to camp. It was a typical resort with great pool deck, golf course, and several restaurants. I would definitely stay here again.

We started our big day at Disney World bright and early with in-room breakfast. Our goal was hit the park early while everyone was still in a good mood.
Catching the early bus to the park
The park opening ceremony
The crew starting our day in Adventureland

Her audience with Rapunzel (she met with Cinderella too)
Cinderella's castle was undergoing a little maintenance


Ergo selfie
Riding Aladdin's magic carpet ride (which is exactly the same as Dumbo)
Playing on Huck Finn's island


Here's a summary of our visit by the numbers:

Number of Rides ridden: 
  1. Aladdin's Magic Carpet Ride
  2. Jungle Cruise
  3. Pirates of the Caribbean
  4. Peter Pan's Magic Flight (2x)
  5. Princess Meet and Greet
  6. Mickey's Philharmonic
  7. Carousel
  8. Huck Finn's island
  9. Big Thunder Mountain
  10. Stitch's Great Escape
  11. Tea Cups
  12. Goofy Barnstormer (3x)
  13. Dumbo
Total meltdown moments: 2 or 3
Number of outfit changes: 1 for Malcolm and 1 for Daddy
Best Moment for Mom: riding Big Thunder Mountain with Inga
Expert Parent Tip: leave the park after lunch for an afternoon nap and have dinner outside the park before returning for the parade and fireworks
Biggest Complaint: the rental strollers suck. The ones at Disneyland are way better. We didn't even need one since Malcolm prefers the carrier at this age and Inga walked almost the whole time except when we made her ride to justify renting the stupid thing.

While at the resort we also enjoyed a dinner at the Artist Point restaurant at the Wilderness Lodge, one of the Disney properties. The lodge is meant to mimmic the great western national park lodges and I would say they did a great job with it. The restaurant only serves food and wine from the Pacific Northwest and was very good. It's one of the best restaurants I've been to in quite some time. Unfortunately the children were absolutely awful at dinner and it wasn't that enjoyable of a meal. They had more fun running around the lobby with some other kids.


Fake spring and creek in the lobby
Amazing fireplace in the lobby
We spent a day relaxing by our resort pool. It had a zero entry pool, lazy river, water slide, two hot tubs, one kiddie pool, and bar. It was pretty great.

Malcolm hanging out in the sunshine
Inga all ready to get in the water

Zero entry pool
We also went to SeaWorld, which turned out to be a total dud. Sam and I had visited about 5 years ago on a college spring break and had a great time. However, on this visit the sea otter and water ski show were both closed along with the dolphin pool. They have also really changed the orca show due to the one incident a few years ago and that documentary so it wasn't as good. They've "upgraded" a bunch of the exhibits to "experiences" that just meant standing in line and watching a bad movie before getting to see the animals. We didn't even bother with the penguins. The food was also terrible. At least the kids liked the dolphin show. We will not be going back to SeaWorld anytime soon.
At the SeaWorld playground running away from Mom

Sunday, March 1, 2015

Winter Escape to Florida Camping

It has been a long winter and even longer since we took a real vacation. The whole family has been itching to go somewhere. We decided to escape the cold and head to Florida for a week. The day before we left for vacation our niece, Lauren, was born. We swung by the hospital to visit the newest member of Wiley clan before we fled south.
Uncle Sam, cousin Inga, and baby Lauren

We drove down to Georgia the first day to break up the long drive. On our way, we stopped for a much needed oil change, which is a first for me on a road trip. My dad's minivan has needed emergency repairs many times on road trips (hint: don't buy a Chrysler), but I've never stopped for a routine oil change before. Anyway, we stopped in Rome, GA for a day to visit some friends. I'd never been to northern Georgia, but it was love it first sight. The mountains and pines and rivers were beautiful. I will definitely be back. 
Inga is a seasoned traveler.
Malcolm was very happy to be out of his prison, I mean car seat.



Malcolm has never been quite as flexible as Inga, but the first night in the hotel room made that very apparent. Not long after the above picture was taken, Malcolm totally lost his cool. He screamed for several hours for no apparent reason other than being in a strange place. He did finally calm down, but it was a long night. Unfortunately, that wasn't the last of the epic screamfests from Malcolm.

We then drove all the way down to Silver Springs State Park near Ocala, FL. We arrived at our campsite around sunset, which is no big deal for my or Sam or Inga, but Malcolm had never been camping before. Sam and I quickly erected the tent and then I started to feed Malcolm his dinner while Sam and Inga went in search of firewood (to purchase). As soon as it was dark, Malcolm totally lost his cool. He was not okay with being outside in the dark in a strange high chair. He screamed for several hours before finally falling asleep. Poor guy had a very rude introduction to camping.

The next morning was much better. We briefly visited the park playground, but since it was February there were no other kids. The campground was full of snow birds who all thought our kids were super adorable.
Very nice playground and picnic area
It was a bit chilly so I had to go German tourist
We took a short hike in the forest to the Silver River. I really love the native Florida forest with the mix of pines and palms. There is such variety along any path. It was about a 2 mile round trip and Inga walked nearly all of it, which I figure is pretty good for a 3 year old.
Standing by a very large palm. Most were just baby palms.
"Stop, Dad. You're embarrassing me."
Malcolm's introduction to hiking went well.
Crystal clear river full of fish and birds.
Daddy had quite the load on the way back.
We drove to the main entrance of the park for lunch and to see the spring head. Silver Springs has been an attraction since the early 20th century and was privately owned until 2013. A bunch of movies and TV shows were filmed here in the 1960s and 1970s like Sea Hunt and a James Bond movie. The state of Florida now owns it so you know it's beyond it's hey day, but it really is a beautiful park.
Malcolm LOVED playing outside.
So did Inga
Silver Springs is home to the first glass bottom boats, apparently. There is no swimming in the spring head or river supposedly because of alligators. I didn't see any while we were there, but I'm sure they were around. We took the 30 minute boat tour and it was well worth it. We got to see several spring heads along the river. I would have preferred snorkeling, but this worked better for the kids.
Main spring head with boat dock
On our glass bottom boat tour

Unfortunately, it started to rain shortly after our boat tour. Rather than all sit in our tent being grumpy with each other, we all took naps in the car and then Sam drove into Ocala National Forest. He did a little off-roading and we found a bunch of great hikes down the dirt forest service roads. Ocala National Forest looked like a great place to do off-road camping.

The next day we took a morning hike to a sink hole along an interpretive trail. Sam and I enjoyed the hike, but Inga whined pretty much the entire time. She was getting really antsy to get to the princess castle at this point, which she'd been talking about for several months prior. So we packed up camp and headed down to Orlando and the land of Mickey and princesses.
The sink hole was very swampy

Inga found a tunnel

Baby long leaf pine
We had a picnic lunch at a park in Orlando. We always get strange looks when having picnics like white people aren't suppose to do such things. We had stopped here so Inga could play at the playground, but she misbehaved so much we just left after eating lunch.
After this we arrived at our resort at Disney World, but that requires a whole separate post.