Oh, I had to get that last post down. Not that my heart isn’t still hurting but at some point I do want to document the rest of our vacation, too.

I didn’t (as I know some of you noticed!) blog at all while we were on vacation. I did a sort of facebook photo blog of sorts and I finally got all the rest of my photos up on flickr. And now after a recovery week from our vacation, it is already kind of hard to remember some parts of our few weeks. I did have a flashback tonight – when J. made us pina coladas -back to the pool of the Polynesian. Mmmm…but for the most part, I am just happy to be home and cranking on our next adventure.

So a few favorite pics and memories from part one of our vacation – Orlando.

Our view from our hotel room in the morning…

And in the evening…

The Polynesian ended up being a great resort for us. When J. had to do stuff for work (oh, yeah! Daddy actually was there to work for some of our “vacation!”), the girls and I could easily take the ferry to the Magic Kingdom, or the monorail straight to Epcot. Plus the atmosphere put us right back in Hawaii, so it was like two vacations in one.

Surprisingly Epcot seemed to be the favorite park in our family. The girls really loved Test Track, Nemo and visiting all of the countries.

Although the safari at Animal Kingdom was pretty eye-opening as well.

And the girls were mesmerized by Magic Kingdom…it is so similar to Disneyland but so much bigger! Here Em was giving Ad a little boost to check out the differences in the Pirates ride.

And this may be the first photo of Addie with a character, ever. Usually she is terrified of going up to them, but for Pooh she made a definite exception.

We had a great time and the weather cooperated most of the time, too. And when it got too hot, we just popped back to the pool. Another perk of the Polynesian – the volcano waterslide!

But we also visited that “other” park in Orlando. Why? When we have all that Disney could offer at our fingertips? Because Disney doesn’t have Harry Potter World.

Oh. My. Magic Wand. It is most awesome. We were reading Harry Potter (the first book) as a family and finished it right before we left on vacation. So we made the pilgrimage to the motherland.

The Hogwarts ride is by far the best ride/rollercoaster I have ever been on in my life. It is that good. Emma disagreed, however, and didn’t want to go on it a second time with me.

We did share a butterbeer, though, which was equally as awesome in her eyes.

The whole Diagon Alley is pretty amazing with lots of good stuff to see and do.

It was a packed and fun vacation as the tired expressions on Thing 2 can tell you…

While Thing 1 rested up for the second half of the trip…

Stay tuned for the second half of the trip coming up – Michigan.