Spring Break 2022

For our first spring break at post, we booked our rental property since we had only been able to visit for a week the year before! We planned park days for the first week and college campus visits for the second week (as M was a junior at the time). We arrived on a beautiful sunny day (which was much needed with all the gray days in Frankfurt).

We picked up the Florida Resident passes and opted for three park days! On our first day we went to Epcot. 

My in-laws opted to join us at the park that day (we did the photopass....so lots of snapshots). 

Someone recreated a photo from when they LOVED the movie Finding Nemo....lol.

We saw baby starfish in one of the aquarium tanks!

At lunch, we got the special 50th anniversary drink. It was lemonade with an effervescence Minnie that made the drink sparktacular! 

 

We opted to do single rider on TestTrack (shorter lines....and easy to do repeat rides). Someone had fun making faces at the camera....lol.

We had fun with our Spaceship Earth characters as well.

Since we were divided between multiple cars, my in-laws and I left a bit earlier and the rest of the family stayed longer, rode some more rides, and found Figment! 

We ordered some St. Louis Imo's pizza and had a special treat one night at the townhouse! We also snuck in a few doctor's appointments, met with the management company, and had some new furniture for the den delivered!

On our second theme park day, we went to the Magic Kingdom. 

My in-laws had gotten a multi-day park pass and joined us there as well.

Space mountain was Clarissa's first roller coaster ride. She seemed to enjoy it, I appear less impressed and Richard is seriously concentrating.

We made it to Clarissa's favorite, Tomorrowland Speedway a few times.

May's favorite - the Hall of Presidents (watched that show multiple times). Luckily, May is old enough and would go around the park on their own.

Some more magical fun.....Ariel ride and medieval torture....

We got to the park at opening that day and stayed until the sun went down!

I found a spot and rested the toes before the fireworks show.

We got to see the anniversary castle lit up at the night for the fireworks show.

The next day, someone had an appointment in the morning to get a Learner's Permit! This is a tricky feat to accomplish while living overseas. 

After spending the morning at the DMV, we went and picked my bestie up from the airport! We also made a big early Easter feast to celebrate before Richard had to fly back for work. We added chocolate birthday cake for someone as well.

On our last Disney day, we went to Hollywood Studios with my bestie and her family!

This was right before going on the Rock'n'Roller Coaster....I knew we travelled in a big limo, but didn't realized it went upside down until after we had been in the single rider line for an eternity. Clarissa eventually forgave me (and she now loves roller coasters!).

I feel like Hollywood Studios did a much better job of adding in fun effects to the photos than the other parks did.

The next day we headed west and went to St. Pete beach on the Gulf of Mexico.

With my Bestie at the Beach.....can the day get any better?

The next day we nursed some over sunning at the beach and enjoyed a pool day before they had to fly back to St. Louis.

Then the fun really began. We had scheduled 5 college campus tours over three days all over the state of Florida. My in-laws were kind enough to stay in town for a few extra days and Clarissa did fun stuff like play mini-golf versus complain about how much driving and walking we were doing (one day we had nearly 8 hours of drive time and my watch showed over 20,000 steps! College campuses are big)

Our first stop was Florida Atlantic University in Baco Raton. I personally liked the school. The stadium overlooks the Atlantic Ocean!

That afternoon, we headed over to Florida International University in Miami. May really liked this campus.

The second day of campus tours, our first stop was the University of Florida in Gainesville. We were only able to do a self guided tour. When checking in for that, they asked what tour group we were with. I got excited and asked if we could join the one a half hour after our self guided tour started. We were told no, guided tours are only for prospective students that have already been accepted. My narrative tour started a few seconds after May's and I spent the morning chasing behind.....lol.

That afternoon, we headed to Tampa. We met our old neighbors/friends from Tbilisi, Georgia. They had a son that was in the same classes as May. So went out for lunch and they did a tour at the same time as us at University of South Florida. Did I get any campus pictures...no. Did I get pictures of Marie and I, yes...lol. At USF, we ran into another dad/student pair that we had done a tour with at FAU.....it was pretty funny!

After my in-laws left, we had one last campus tour. Good ole University of Central Florida in Orlando. Clarissa joined us on this tour. She really like the campus more than UWF that we had visited in 2019. May stated it would be a good second choice school for them.

That evening my college roommate was in Orlando! She came over for a few hours (poor Alana had to watch me pack clothes as we were flying out the next morning...lol). 

It was fun and busy two weeks. The kids had to head back to class with jet lag.....but for May and I....well we must of picked something up on our college campus visits......first C-19 in the family! Somehow Clarissa did not pick it up, even though we were right next to each other on the plane!! She slept on my lap. The guy next to us gave us a bit of judgy look since we wore masks......little did we (or he) know, we were protecting him. We didn't have any symptoms other than allergy like symptoms, but we opted to all take tests since we had been traveling internationally. It wasn't too rough as we had been vaccinated and had a booster.