I haven’t mentioned it in my daily updates
yet this week; so I should at least mention that we haven’t been doing morning
Tai Chi workouts. That’s mostly been
because it didn’t really fit into our busy play schedule; though we’ve also
been getting enough exercise to make up for the missed work-outs.
Today, we were trading that off for another
early breakfast and then an immersion into the Wizarding World of Harry Potter –
this time in Hogsmeade. Yes, we did a
bit more shopping, but not as much as we did in Diagon Alley; and I still
managed to keep myself from buying any top-of-the-line racing brooms no matter
how tempting that still is – and then learning to fly one! ;^)
That isn’t a musing I need to go into
again; so let’s get back to the news from today.
Getting to see the envisioning of Hogsmeade
was as interesting for me as Diagon Alley had been, and the shops were all fun
and entertaining. We took our
interactive wands along today, and could use them in Hogsmeade too; so that
added to the fun as well. That wasn’t as
cool as using our Magi gifts to do ‘magic’ around there would have been, but
since that wasn’t really an option; the interactive wand gimmick was still
cute.
Once the rest of the park was open, it was
time for some extreme rides. The
Forbidden Journey and tour of Hogwarts was a favorite for all of us, and eight
out of the ten of us that could go on it took turns going on the ride while
others kept the five younger kids busy. Grandma
and Aunt Leanne were the two exceptions; and Grandpa went on the ride with Mom,
Dad, and Uncle Adam when they took their turn.
It really is an awesome ride, but then Michael, Tim, Rowen, and I pretty
much loved every extreme ride. The
coasters were my favorites; but the high-tech, indoor rides can be just as wild
– as long as I shut off my extra Magi senses while going on those
mini-adventures.
That’s something else that I haven’t
written about in my journal this week; and doing that isn’t as simple as it may
sound. Some strong Magi empaths would be
able to relate to a certain extent, and in addition to Mom, Ethan, Ehlana, and
I; Michael has needed to protect himself this week with the strong emotions
that come with extreme fun, large crowds, and even the heightened stress that
many visitors feel while trying to juggle everything that goes along with this
kind of family vacation. What I’m
talking about with rides that rely on audio-visual stimulus more than physical
motion is that my heightened senses can’t be fooled by any of those tricks
unless I basically shut them down and allow it to happen. Doing that requires overcoming instinct and
takes some practice too; but it is possible.
I won’t drag that out into a long, boring
lesson about mastering control of those Magi senses, but I will write something
up for the training archives; since this type of thing isn’t exactly something
that the Magi of centuries-past had to deal with. Whether it’ll be an issue for you, reading
this in my future, remains to be seen and for all I know; there won’t be any
more need for dampening senses in your now than there is for some talents that
ancient Magi developed to deal with contemporary issues that are useless to us
now.
Getting back to the Islands of Adventure
action, the rides were where the extreme fun was found; but we also made time for
a few of the shows too; took snack and meal breaks; and spent time in the play
areas that were especially good for Zack; since he couldn’t go on very many
rides compared to what the rest of us could do.
Some teens would likely find some of that family time very boring, but I
didn’t; and Michael, Tim, and Rowen either had fun too or faked it for my
benefit. For me, the Dr. Seuss or
Jurassic themed activities and junior rides were cool; and I loved doing all of
that with Ethan, Ehlana, Naomi, and Aiden – and with Zack for everything that
he could do with us.
Mentioning the express pass bonus we’ve
been able to enjoy is probably getting boring for anyone reading this in the
future, but I’m bringing it up again with this report because it really does make
a big difference for how much we get to do in a day compared to waiting in
lines that can eat up a lot of the day before getting to the few minutes of
extreme action. Sure, there are things
to do and see along the way in most of those lines; but it’s still very tedious
and limiting. Today, having those passes
allowed us – the teens – to not only hit all of the rides we wanted to go on;
but repeat most of them – and then use our multi-park passes to go back to the
other park for the last couple of hours of the evening and hit some of our
favorite rides there too before heading back to our hotel.
That’s gotten a bit ahead of the story; so
let’s back up to the afternoon action.
It’s been another hot, beautiful day, and while we had a dash or two of
rain this evening; the afternoon weather was perfect for going on the water
rides, getting soaked, and cooling off.
Since most of the members of our group had no idea who Dudley Do-Right
is, I expect it’ll mean nothing to Magi of the future either, but I can tell
you that doesn’t matter at all for the ride that bears the fictional, animated
character. Surviving the bad jokes along
the way to the big drop down Ripsaw Falls is another matter; but the parents
and grandparents that went along for the ride were amused by all of that too.
While that ride got fairly silly along the
way to getting us wet with the big finale, the Jurassic Park ride reached the
same conclusion at the end of a combo of cool dino immersion that ranged from
the educational to attempts to scare us with escaped Raptors and just escaping
being eaten by a T-Rex before escaping down an eighty-five foot drop and
drenching. Both rides are great on a hot
day; and probably not so much fun when it’s cold out.
The fear-factor for that ride has me
thinking about Grandpa; though not because he was scared of any of the
rides. What he was in need of by the end
of the day was a minor Magi Healing session that I helped him out with this
time. I hadn’t talked about that with
Mom or Uncle Adam, but he’s apparently needed other healing help that I hadn’t
heard about until he mentioned it to me; but we’re all happy to help out with
that in exchange for the extra fun with him. Getting that done for him meant coming up with
an excuse for a short bit of alone time with my grandparents; but we managed to
do that without looking too suspicious shortly after dinner – and right before
they were ready to leave for home.
They missed out on a few more hours of play
time, but then they’ll be back for the day again tomorrow – the last that we’ll
be spending together before we head home on Sunday. We’re getting a teen night tomorrow night, so
Michael, Tim, Rowen, and I stayed with the parents and kids until they wanted
to head back to the hotel and let us head back over to the Universal Studios
Park for the rest of our evening – though it ended up taking them a while to
get back to the hotel too after taking a ride on the Hogwarts Express and then
going on another ride or two on the way out of the other park.
I guess there’s no point in going into much
detail about that part of our evening; and there wasn’t much of a change-up for
the rest of our night. We went for a
swim after getting back to the hotel; Michael and I stopped in to say goodnight
to the parents and four out of five of the kids between the park play and swim;
and then it was teen couple segregation time after the swim for an hour and a half
or so – this time so that we could pretend to watch a late movie. Michael and I definitely didn’t end up
watching the show we’d picked, and I know for sure that Rowen and Tim didn’t
either; since she couldn’t even remember what movie Tim had picked for them not
to watch when I asked her about it back at the beginning of our girl chat time.
She’s sleeping now as I write this, but
that’s mostly because my family business work took longer than I’d have liked
and she ran out of chat steam. As I’ve
mentioned, we only have one full day left to play here at Universal, and while
we’d talked about other options before even coming here; the majority just
wanted to have a best-of play day at the parks instead of trying to do any
major day trip. Yes, that means that we
didn’t get to the ocean or gulf coasts, and we didn’t try to do any of a
million other things that you can do in Florida; but that just gives us some
incentive to come back again and have another sunny winter break!
Or a school band trip! ;^)
Okay, it’s a bit early to be looking ahead
to the next trip, and it’s past-time for me to be sleeping; so let’s wrap this
up. I don’t have any major news from
home, but I did check; and they’ve had a much nicer weather day. That’ll be great for the kids and teens; and
I’m sure that the farmers will be happy about having better weather again for
working outdoors. Maybe we’ll get really
lucky and spring will be there to stay in Witch Falls when we get back; though
it might be a bit early and too much to hope for. Either way, I don’t want to think about that
until I have to on Sunday, and I also need to stop dragging out this update and
get into snooze mode; so that’s it for now, and, until next time...
...May the Magi Force be with you!
