Florida- Part 2- Downtown Disney

Orlando was SOOOO much better than Cocoa Beach- the hotel was gorgeous and the atmosphere was more entertaining! It was helping to make up for the fact we were not going to see a space launch. We went swimming at the hotel- great warm water & sunny FL weather! The girls loved it! Then we hit Walmart of all places. We picked up a few "cheap" Disney souvenirs so our wallets wouldn't feel so light once we got to the real Disney stores.....

The indoor pics are the toy stores- they turned a little dark but it was so neat inside the stores themselves with all the attention to detail & decor. It was entertainment just walking around. Here is the princess store with the Bippity-bobbity boutique!

The girls are mesmerized after being sprinkled with pixie dust & given a magical wish! They were sparkly from head to toe...

The happy couple- how cute!!

We ate at the T-Rex for dinner. Just like the rain forest cafe but with dinosaurs. Expensive but entertaining. The girls got to dig for fossils while we waited for our table- pretty neat!

Downtown Disney surrounds a big lagoon that has all kinds of Disney water transportation to the different resorts. This dragon was in front of the Lego store & is made entirely out of Legos!! They had a lot more lego statues but this was the only one in the water. The tail goes out further than the picture shows.

Inside the Disney Pin store....

This cute castle was a mix & match dress up area that the girls LOVED!! You could spend a small fortune!

Hats are everywhere....

We headed back to the hotel- girls crying because they wanted to buy everything!!! We needed a good nights sleep for our BIG day tomorrow.......

Florida- part 1- Cocoa Beach

I am catching back up on my posts- I have been a terrible blogger, I know. So let's take a trip back to March for our memorable trip to Florida. We tried so hard to see our friend Steve launch into space to the ISS, but we failed miserably after further delays occurred while in FL. Oh well!! We had a great time anyway! These first pics our the afternoon of the original launch. Mary (Steve's wife & my good friend) & her family threw a pre-launch reception at the Cocoa Beach country club. It was an outdoor pavilion surrounded by bay waters- very lovely & GREAT company! By the end of the party, the launch was officially delayed until what would become Sunday (this was Wednesday).

Vacation!!!

Here is Audrey at the park with bay behind her....lovely!

The girls!! Me, Mary, & Ofelia (my other good friend from nursing school)

Ofelia & her hubby Michael- this was their second launch!

Audrey devouring cupcakes!!

Back up plan! Since there was no launch that evening we headed to the beach. It was a perfect evening but I was NOT impressed with Cocoa Beach at all. Very disappointing. This pic is as close to the shuttle as we get- what a bummer! To the left on the horizon is a white sailboat- the shuttle is the spec to the left of that- HA! Very far away!!The next day we piddled around Cocoa Beach. We hit the massive Ron Jon surf shop & picked up a few souveneirs......

Well, at this point the launch was still pending so we headed into Orlando!!