the last week or so leading up to chrissy...

17-12-08 (Wednesday)
Magic Kingdom
Today we did the Magic Kingdom. You know, the place with the giant Disney castle, the place where all your dreams come true. Well…mine didn’t. I still don’t have my Prince Charming and I still can’t sing like a Disney Princess. But I did meet a couple of characters. Guess what guys!! I met Prince Caspian. Yeah, take that. And he kissed me and told me I was beautiful. Then I got a photo. And he did it all over again with Tamika. And I thought I was special. Loser. We also met Aladdin and Genie. Yes, that’s right girls, the one and only ALADDIN!! He was cute. Do you know what’s awesome? Having an accent. It makes you totally cool. Tamika and I are the oldest people in the line wanting photos with characters. We stand in line and everyone else in like 5. We feel kind of odd standing there. Our excuse is that we never met them when we were little so we’re making up for it now. We watched Aladdin while in the line and he would sign for Genie and then Genie would point to the paper and ‘sign’ so the kids thought he used magic. It was cute. We hit the rides and they were all pretty cool. We watched a couple of shows and chilled. It was a long day. We got to see fireworks behind the castle. Like at the beginning of all Disney movies and they have Tinkerbell who starts the fireworks…well it all happened just like that. It was pretty amazing. We then headed back to our hotel that has a bed just for me. Tomorrow we hit Animal Kingdom.
18-12-08 (Thursday)
Animal Kingdom
Animal Kingdom is pretty cool. There’s animals everywhere and rides and all that jazz. Dad absolutely loved it. Lions and tigers and bears…oh my. Actually there weren’t any tigers or bears. But there were monkeys and birds and dinosaurs. Yeah, real live dinosaurs that we brought back from the past. We even saw the dinosaur on all the surveillance cameras. We experienced what its like to be an honorary bug. It was kinda scary. The 3D movies were great at Disney. Waaay better that anything we’ve ever seen before. We checked out more of the animals, saw an awesome Lion King show and an amazing Finding Nemo puppet show. It was all really cool. We totally let Stitch escape but I did all I could. It wasn’t my fault I was strapped to a chair. One thing I will say, when Disney do a ride or a show they totally go all out. We have decided that it is the attention to detail that totally makes all the Disney theme parks so good.
19-12-08 (Friday)
Busch Gardens
What can I say about Busch Gardens? There were no lines, heaps of awesome rollercoasters and animals. It was sooo much fun. Tamika and I did all the rides at least once. Cause there were no lines we often did then a couple of times. We did the water ones first and we survived the first 2 with a token amount of dryness left but the third one we did, the river rapids, it totally soaked us. We had no dry clothes, our hair was saturated and it took us the rest of the day to dry off. It also didn’t help that when we were not in the sun we froze. We saw a couple of shows and they were all of the highest quality which probably has a lot to do with the fact that the people on the shows had probably done it over and over and over again. But they were good. Mum and Dad walked around in a daze most of the day. We got Dad to do the SheiKra. There’s a massive drop and Dad was kind of petrified. But he enjoyed the ride. Tamika and I defied the 5 (as they say) and did the 5 wildest rides there a couple of times over. It was a great day for all.
We, once again, experienced the joy of being Australians. People come over and chat to you. Then they kind of expect you to continue talking and all you want to do is get on rides. It does get kind of annoying.
Dad won’t stop talking about this chick from brekky. Apparently she ate heaps and Dad counted it all. We hear about her over and over again. I guess we’ll see her tomorrow at brekky.
One thing that we have noticed is Dad’s complete disorientation in America. He gets lost so easily. And he doesn’t know which way to go. It’s actually quite funny to watch him. He gets to experience what it’s like to be a female. He’s hating it. Know he kind of knows what it’s like for every female to drive somewhere they’ve never been before. A learning experience for him.
20-12-08 (Saturday)
We did the Busch Gardens again today. Tamika and I had done all the rides so we were pretty ok with just chilling and seeing the animals. One thing we realized is that Mum and Dad did nothing yesterday. They must of just wandered around in a complete gaze for the entire day. We kept going on walks and Dad would be like “this wasn’t here yesterday”. They seriously did nothing all day. The animals were cool. They had meerkats, lions, hyenas, the black swan, pelicans, ugly seagulls, lemurs (the heeby jeeby monkey from Madagascar), elephants, skunks, humans (lots of humans), and fat people. There were lots of birds, school kids (everyone is on holidays), giraffes, zebras, chimpanzees, gorillas (we have come to the conclusion that I have inherited my small thumb from our chimpanzee ancestors). Let’s just say that we saw heaps of animals. That’s about all we did today.
I was craving veggies today (I know, shock horror!) so we hit a cheap buffet and ate heaps of veggies and salad. Dad ate a fair bit of meat. This living off Taco Bell and free brekky thing is really taking its toll on us. Maybe it explains our constant state of tiredness. Maybe tomorrow we’ll have all this energy. Like I do now. I’m not an expert on jet lag but I totally thought it would have been finished by now. Don’t sleep well at night but always tired during the day. It sucks.
Well…I have an early morning tomorrow – 5am so I’m gonna hit the sack. This brings you all fully and completely up to date with all the happenings of the Sutton Family (who, unfortunately, do not have a family holiday t-shirt, which, if we did, I would NEVER wear in public like so many Americans seem to be able to do)

21-12-08 (Sunday)
Today we went swimming with manatees. They are these really ugly, really gentle sea cows. They are so super protected that you can’t swim up to them, can’t swim over them, can’t swim down to them. You basically have to get them to swim up to you while you remain stationary. The water was cold so the whole not moving thing totally made it colder. They were pretty cool though. And very slimy. I had a couple swim up to me and we could touch them. They move for like 5 metres then they fall asleep. They are like the sloth of the ocean. They sleep all night and then have to sleep about 10 hours during the day which leaves approximately 4-5 hours of activity. I wish I was a manatee. Manatees have also starred in a very famous Veggietales song. Larry sings it – Barabara Manatee…you are the one for me. He dances with a toy manatee. Now I know what they are and it makes me happy. After we had taken enough punishment in the water and were beyond freezing with blue lips and giant shivers we left and got a little warmer. We headed back to the hotel and had warm showers which was nice. We then went to Denny’s for breakfast/lunch/dinner. Tamika and Mum shared a meal and Dad had his own. I got them to order a soup and salad side which I ate. I’ve been craving veggies and I would love to just eat a couple of bowls of vegetable soup (I’m craving it so much I actually wrote vegetables and not veggies!). We then raced to the next touristy thing which was a ride on a hovercraft boat thing. It was pretty awesome. The wind in your hair, the freezing temperatures coupled with the wind chill. They showed us coral and everyone on the boat got really excited but it was kind of ugly. And they showed us these pelicans which also got everyone excited but they were just like the pelicans back home. But it was a pretty cool ride. When we got back it was back to Orlando for us. A nice 2 hr drive. It was nice.

22-12-08 (Monday)
Today we slept in. And by slept in I mean till about 9am. Then we had brekky and chilled till we had to checkout then we went and re-did the Magic Kingdom. The crowds were totally crazy. 80 minute waits for a 2 minute ride. Retarded. Tamika and I did the fastpass thing so we did 2 rides and hardly waited at all. It’s a fantastic system. We then headed to the airport and we totally hoped that our plane wasn’t delayed. After over 48 hrs of constant snow in Boston and cancelled planes everywhere we were kinda worried. Luckily there had been no snow for the last 12 hrs so our plane took off and landed without much fuss. It was really cool landing in the snow. A cool experience. The landing was fun and everyone clapped when we made a safe landing. We left the plane and the cold just hit us. It was freezing. Its like -6 degrees Celsius. AGGGHHH!!!! Freezing. Below freezing in fact. We got to Aunty Sharon’s without much fuss and here we are. Chilling (literally) with fellow Aussies. And now for sleep.

23-12-08
Woke up this morning at around 9am. And its below freezing. And its really pretty. Icicles on the roof, snow on trees, snow everywhere. There is sooo much snow. I’ve never seen so much snow in my life. Even when we go skiing. There’s more snow in the backyard here then the entire ski field. Ok, so that’s a little bit of an exaggeration but you get my drift. There is a lot of SNOW. The houses are all like little gingerbread houses. Just like in the movies. The ones where it is all wintery and snow is everywhere – that’s what it’s actually like.
There is one thing I would like to say here. In America, the small print actually matters. They’ll advertise a swim with the manatees for a certain amount but if you want a wetsuit and snorkel and mask then you have to pay extra. A $6.99 buffet meal (excludes lunch and dinner and weekends). The small print really matters. And tax isn’t included in the price. So the advertised price is not what you pay. It’s annoying.
We experienced the supermarket today. It was just like it is back home only there was waaay more sugary cereals and hardly any honey. They pack your bags for you and put them into the trolley for you. I wore my “I’m mean because you’re stupid” jumper and it got a lot of laughs. People were commenting on it. The ladies at the cash register (the check out chicks) chatted to us about Australia and the weather and other stuff. It was cool. We bought a heap of veggies and fruit and are gonna make a massive veggie soup (just like we have all been craving). Uncle Brian bought eggnog which we tried. It tastes really good. Like a liquidy sweet custard. Its nice.

Check out the photos –
Las Vegas - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=56340&l=62330&id=694975793

Hoover Dam - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=56341&l=335e6&id=694975793

Orlando – Disney Parks - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=56342&l=30d47&id=694975793
Tampa – Busch Gardens and swimming with the Manatees http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=56343&l=12f74&id=694975793