August 22, 2018
Celebration: Disney Springs
We love to explore free parks and things to do. Like playing tourist in downtown Saint Augustine, visiting the beach, playing kickball or tennis at Treaty Park, or when Louis wants to “get out of Dodge,” exploring a bit farther away: Daytona Beach boardwalk, Jacksonville Landing, or Disney Springs.
This time he decided Disney Springs. If you don’t go hungry or bring some snacks and water bottles, you can spend hours listening to live music, exploring cool sights, taking boat or bus rides, and spend nothing. (Just the gas getting there, which for us is about $20.) We dream of being able to “do Disney” at the actual parks, which will happen someday, but for now, Disney Springs is what my kids mean when they say “Disneyworld.”
Once we touch the edge of Orlando and see all the tall buildings, the entertainment has begun! The girls and Lucas shout about seeing the tops of rides, “castles,” houses on top of big buildings, and roads going over us and under us!
They are building what appears to be a 5-level overpass system on I4! The kids were trying to count how high it would be – they thought four, then realized we were already over two other lanes! (Yes, we get excited about crazy stuff like being on bridges, overpasses, and parking garages.)
Christina, Rebeccah, and Kimberly start telling stories of their one visit to Universal (Daddy’s birthday two years ago for Rock the Universe). They laugh over Kimberly falling asleep on Daddy’s shoulders during the last concert and marvel at the weird purple mountain that is the icon for the new Volcano Bay waterpark.
As usual, it’s one of the girls who reminds me that I have a camera!
Kimberly took pictures of her favorite “cove” in Disney Springs. This twist of sparkling water and beautiful plants fascinates Kimberly.
The beautiful “chess knight” fountain (the girls call it that because the horse heads remind them of chess pieces) is also Lucas’ favorite fountain.
Admiring the giant Lego statues is a must.
The giant water dragon was admired and discussed for almost fifteen minutes!
There’s Buzz and Woody from Toy Story (Kimberly loves that one).
Jillian and Lucas sat with the Lego Friends statues (and Lucas tried to do what he does to everyone else’s Lego creations, take them apart!).
We watched the Rain Forest Café’s Volcano explode with hot lava across the bay.
Kimberly’s favorite place to wander around is in the T-Rex eatery because she loves to jump when the robot dinosaurs move. All lit up, it looks like a Mayan temple from this angle.
Another fountain picture appears since Lucas loves all fountains.
We raced to the top of the parking garage (we always park at the top level) so we could watch the fireworks from Epcot and Magic Kingdom at the same time! A third park’s fireworks were a bit further in the distance, probably Disney Studios, but we weren’t sure.
We were going to stay to go watch the water parade on the Lagoon, but with everyone zonked from a long first day at college and the inability of the stroller to carry four people, we ended on the fireworks and journeyed home.
Yes, they all slept on the ride home, which made for some Mom and Daddy conversation time!
Thank you, Jesus, for our amazing life!
Thanks for reading!
Type at you next time…
~Nancy Tart