Well, it’s day 2 of our holiday and it’s been another amazing day! As I type this, I am absolutely exhausted though, yet the children are still going strong.  They are playing games in the hotel arcade with their dad and I am having a coffee at the internet cafe next door! What a good life….

Last night, Ryan and I put the children to bed and then went to Downtown Disney (not before stopping at a few electronics stores to price some cameras – I have my eye on the new Sony Cybershot as well as either the Canon 50D or Canon 5D Mark II camera as well as the Canon 18mm – 200mm lens). Downtown Disney was packed and very, very festive! We walked around the stores and had a cinnamon pretzel and cafe late for dinner. We bought Demi the cutest little Minnie Mouse Cheerleaders outfit and Mickey Mouse earrings she has them on today and she looks too cute! We had a lovely evening and only got to bed quite late!

We were up early this morning again and went to Universal Studio’s “Islands of Adventure” today! This park is new so we weren’t there last time we came to the states (14 years ago) – all I can say about this park is “WOW!!” – we absolutely loved it!

First up, we went to Seus Landing to ride “the cat in the hat” – what an awesome ride – the kids loved it (even Demi went on the ride and loved it) – of course we had to go on it again just for fun! Then we went on  another Seus ride: One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish and got quite wet as we tried to no avail to figure out how to beat the fish shooting water at us! They loved this too and we had to go on it again just to make sure we get really wet. Ryan is convinced that Mikey got it wrong just to get wet!

Then we went on the High In The Sky Seus Trolley Train Ride and got to see all of Seus Landing from high above while listening to some of Dr Seus’ favourite stories…. I really loved Seus Landing – it was fun and clean and colourful and magical and made me feel like a kid again!!!

Then Ryan & I headed of to the “Dueling Dragons” rollercoaster in he Lost Continent, while the children had a snack. It was full of skeletons and dungeons on the way up and really got the adrenalin pumping before we even got to the ride. It was a great roller coaster ride with tons of sharp twists and turns – I loved it and screamed  and screamed (all part of the fun!!)

Next, we got soaking wet on The Jurassic Park River Adventure – a wonderful ride through Jurassic park admiring all the friendly dinosaurs until they get out of control and then things do downhill – a steep downhill that leaves you soaking at the end! This is not for the faint-hearted and my boys did really well to get through it – though the look on their faces as we plummeted was not a pretty sight! My brave little men….

After some discovering and exploring at Camp Jurassic, it was straight onto Popeye’s Barges in Toon Town for an absolute drenching! The boys loved this and Mikey insisted on going again -  this time Florence volunteered and had a blast too!

Then we were up on the ship: “Me Ship, The Olive” for lots of fun and play – Demi especially enjoyed this and the boys couldn’t resist shooting water at the river rafters down below…

Then we had a quick visit to Marvel Super Hero Island just before the Sinbad stunt show. This was a fantastic stunt show filled with explosives, fires, water bombs and all kinds of stunts (and a love story at the end!) It was a wonderful show packed with entertainment. Demi watched the show and I was absolutely amazed at how she enjoyed it and didn’t get scared. There were extremely loud bangs at times, coupled with unexpected bombs of water being blast at us, and she just watched and clapped and loved it… she really thinks she’s 5 or 6 just like her brothers…

To end the day, we got the boys some huge chocolate fudge sundae ice-creams (Ryan & I had a beer instead – Budweiser of course!) and we watched  “Grinchmas – How the Grinch stole Christmas!” It was a lovely end to an awesome day.

We left Universal at 3:30pm and came home for a much needed break… ten minutes later, we took the boys swimming and to the arcade at this wonderful hotel. Then it was back home for bath, dinner and bed for the children and some quiet time for us. what a beautiful day – I loved spending time with each of our children and seeing the absolute delight on their faces at times. They really are special!!!

Who knows what tomorrow brings… what I know for sure is that today is a day that we will all remember for many, many years to come!

Pics to follow….