Getting Excited!

The UPS man delivered our Sea World tickets today! We're driving to Maryland in 2 days, and we're flying to Florida in 3 days. YAHOO! On Monday I was paying our credit card online and noticed we have quite a few points. I usually use them to get gift cards for restaurants, and we use those when we go out to eat. We get 5% rebate on gas and such like that. I always pay our credit cards off in full every month, and we use the credit cards for just about everything so we accumulate a fair amount of points. On Monday I decided to explore the options a bit, and I was SO glad I did because I stumbled across Sea World tickets! Normally 5,000 points would get me a $50 gift card to a store or restaurant, but the Sea World tickets were only 5,000 points, and to buy a ticket costs $72 (online or $79 at the gate). So for 10,000 points I got tickets for myself and Nadia. Ian is free since they don't charge admission for those under the age of 3. Had I discovered this last week, I could have gotten them totally free, but I opted for the rush handling fee of $10 since we're leaving on Friday.

They arrived in less than 48 hours, which was a relief as I was still nervous. Normally 10,000 points is only worth $100, but in this case it's worth $144! When I feel badly about paying the $10 for rushed shipping (regular shipping is free), I just remind myself that we're only paying $10 (plus parking) for the 3 of us to go to Sea World. Not bad, eh? Nadia keeps talking about how we're going to see a whale in Florida. Here's to hoping that after this trip we don't have to talk about Jonah and the whale every single solitary day! At least she should realize (after seeing one in person) that there is no way a whale would fit in her bathtub. I think they'll both enjoy the park. We're going to go there the day that my sister and her family go to Magic Kingdom. Paul doesn't want to miss experiencing their first trip to Disney. If any of you have been to the Orlando area and have suggestions for us, I'm all ears! We're planning on spending a lot of time at our resort which has a playground, water park, miniature golf, etc. I'd like to take the kids to a beach for a few hours as I can't fathom going to Florida and never going to the beach, especially since we never made it to the beach in January on our cruise.

I usually want the kids to grow up as slowly as possible, but it will be nice to be able to enjoy the park as a foursome once Ian is at least 36 inches tall. There are only a couple of rides that Ian can ride that Nadia enjoys. She does very few "kiddie" rides, but aside from the Ferris Wheel, Carousel, and teacups, Ian is too small for the bigger rides. Nadia's current favorite ride is the Skloosh. It's been rather cool and rainy lately, but thankfully it was warm enough yesterday for them to enjoy that ride. She also did the flume with Daddy. We were split up most of the time - I was with Ian at some points while Paul was with Nadia (and couldn't take pictures of Nadia and Daddy riding rides together and she's FAR more photogenic at the amusement park as he rarely smiles on the rides even though he does enjoy them). Nadia went on a few rides yesterday for the first time ever, including the Whip. She has loved almost every ride she's ever been on. She's a girl after my own heart! My stomach wasn't too pleased with me that I chose to go on the teacups right after eating dinner. I'll keep that in mind next time, lol!

Ian isn't happy about sliding down the stairs on his belly, but his nap went about the same as it did the past week even though he didn't have melatonin today. This meant he wasn't a crabapple this afternoon! He cried for 10 minutes, then slept for 20 minutes, then cried for 15 minutes, slept for 35 more minutes in his crib, and then he slept for another 40 minutes in my arms. The kids went to bed 30 minutes later than usual last night, and amazingly they got up 30 minutes later than usual this morning (7:30). Way to go, kids! I introduced Nadia to a new food this evening - french toast. She loved it!