But of course, the main events were the ocean critters. We saw the dolphin show first, and Jenny snapped an unbelievable photo of the dolphins in midair.
We all got to touch a whole flock (school? herd?) of stingrays. Madeleine even got brave enough to stick her hand in.
We enjoyed the ever-popular sea lion and walrus show as well. The best part of this show, though, was the mime usher that “helped” people into the stadium while not-so-inconspicuously mocking his unsuspecting victims.
Madeleine actually rode her first rollercoaster with me at Sea World in their huge kids area, and she was duly freaked out by it. But she was a trooper and didn’t cry or anything. She enjoyed the teacup-style “Swishy Fishy” ride more than anything there.
And, of course, we had to see Shamu. It was probably the least favorite of all the shows we saw, though. It tried way too hard to convince you of the magical, spiritual bond between humans and the ocean, while all we wanted was just to get splashed by a killer whale. We were disappointed, and came away dry.
By the end of the day, we had done theme parks for three straight days, and we were really ready for a day off. Luckily, the next day was Sunday, so we were able to sleep in, relax a bit, and enjoy the first session of General Conference via the Internet. It was nice to relax and hear from the prophet, and we were grateful for the wonders of technology that let us listen to conference thousands of miles away in our little hotel rooms. Later in the day we took a drive out to Cocoa Beach and stuck our toes in the Atlantic Ocean. The weather wasn’t that great, but the rain only came down for the first few minutes that we were there. I think we actually got our best pictures of the whole trip here. I’ll let you decide.
This last picture is what happens when you turn your back on a one-year-old, only to turn around and realize that she’s just swallowed at least three handfuls of sand and seaweed. Judging from her expression, though, it seems like it was pretty tasty!
On our last day we went to Disney’s Animal Kingdom theme park, and thankfully it was only open for a handful of hours. We were too tired at this point to really enjoy everything to it’s fullest. However, Madeleine did enjoy the river raft ride.
The second is a better picture of Madeleine on the ride, except someone is poking her eye out. She was just barely tall enough to go on this big kids’ ride, and she loved getting soaked. Thankfully we brought an extra change of clothes for her, because she got drenched. Jenny wasn’t so lucky as to have extra clothes, so she walked around wet all day, which was nice for her because it was deathly hot. The heat, though, contributed to the feeling that we were on the plains of Africa, which made these pictures feel more realistic during our mock safari.
But like I said, we were pretty pooped by the end of the day, and the oppressive humidity finally brought a thunderstorm. We were definitely ready to be done with our vacation, and I think this next picture shows it pretty well.
At least Jenny’s happy here, but both Tori and Madeleine are trying to make breaks for it. I think Tori’s actually playing dead and hoping we’ll stop dragging her to take pictures with strangers in costumes. I mean, even Goofy doesn’t look excited to be here.
Anyway, photographic evidence to the contrary, we did really enjoy ourselves, although I think we’ll wait several years before we do Disney again. At least until the girls can really appreciate the experience; I think they were still a little too young to really fully enjoy themselves. A special thanks, though, to the Goodmans for putting this together, helping out with airfare, and watching our girls while Jenny and I did the more adult rides. We couldn’t have done it without you!
The trip started with the girls' first airplane ride. Using frequent flier miles, Madeleine and Matt left first at 11:59 pm with many of the other Goodman clan. Tori and I left the next morning. Madeleine was ecstatic about flying. Here she is looking at our plane with her Uncle Jordan. She was glued to that window for at least an hour explaining every detail about her plane. Because of her vantage point, she was convinced that the plane only had one wing. Funny girl. She loved being on the plane and would probably tell you that was her favorite part of vacation. Although she loved it, she only got a few hours of sleep that night. So, our fun began with a tired Madeleine which continued throughout out time in Orlando.
We danced with Woody... 
So much fun and we've only begun!! Well, I'll stop there and let you digest that. We would hate to overload you on all our good times.
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2) Trying to get a group of small children to look at the camera all at once is an impossibility. 
4) Manti is approximately 87 billion miles away from civilization. We basically spent all day driving there and back. A lot of my pioneer ancestors are from San Pete County, and I came away with a new appreciation for the hardships they must have faced. I can't imagine trying to settle a place like that. But somehow they did. The Manti Temple even had a piece of Isaac Morley's original temple clothing on display just past the lobby. Isaac Morley was basically the first convert in Kirtland, Ohio, which became the first real center of the LDS Church back in the 1830's. He is one of my great-great-great-great-grandfathers, and was featured recently on "The Joseph Smith Papers" television series recently. So that was pretty cool.
