The Knutson Family Adventure

So Eric and I had wanted to take the kids to Disney while we were in Florida and we told them it was going to be part of their Christmas present this year.  The kids are all really into Harry Potter though, so instead of Disney we decided to go to Universal Studios where they have very elaborate Harry Potter themed areas of the park.

Ada has some issues with motion sickness, so I was a little concerned that she might not do very well on the rides.  Our very first ride was a Transformers 3D ride which she felt sick on almost immediately 🙁  Luckily the rest of the rides she loved and didn’t feel sick on at all.  Haydn tried out a few roller coasters, but decided that he does not really care for them and did not want to go on any more.  The Harry Potter town and shops were so amazing and definitely our favourite part of the parks.  We tried butterbeer (Amazing!!), and the kids each picked out a wand from the wand shop.

  

  

We ended up spending four days all together at the two Universal Studios theme parks.  We had park hopper passes so we were able to go from park to park on the same day.  We walked so much that all of our feet were killing us, and by the fourth day we were pretty much all ready to head back to the trailer early and just chill out and watch a movie.

 

  

Our first ride on our second day at the park was a water raft ride that in hindsight we should not have gotten on…we were sopping wet when we got off and had to walk around the park for a couple of  hours dripping wet.  Eric had very wisely had decided not to join us on the ride!

 

 

Here is what we were welcomed by as we arrived at our trailer:

Luckily we have CAA, so we called them up and they came out and pumped up a couple of our tires and we were ready to hit the road again!

Our first stop of the new year was at Manatee Hammock Campground in Titusville Florida.  This campground was located really close to Cape Canaveral where a rocket launch was scheduled to happen while we were there.  Eric has been wanting to see a rocket launch for a very long time, so we were really hoping it actually happened and didn’t get pushed to a new date.  The launch was scheduled for Thursday night, but due to some complications it wasn’t able to launch.  They tried again on Friday though, and this time it was launched.  It was a really amazing and beautiful sight to see.

The campground itself was beautiful.  It was right on the water and had a dock that you could fish from and we also saw bio-luminescent jellyfish swimming by.  A couple of mornings, Eric and i saw some dolphins swim past as we were walking past the water.

                

   

Eric decided to shave his beard once we got back to the hot Florida weather, but he decided to be a gnome for a little while first!  Weirdo!

 

 

We spent a day at cocoa beach while we were here and also spent a day at Canaveral National Seashore.  The water was a little bit cool, but the kids didn’t mind.

 

   

Here’s another quick video of snippets from our arrival in Key Largo, poking around Florida, home to Canada for Christmas and back to Florida in January. Enjoy more shaky cam as we explore the everglades, look for key-limes, eat alligator, play with frog legs in shorts and tee-shirts… and then return to sledding and shovelling for Christmas!