With two days to report on I don't know where to start! Yesterday morning we woke early (although not as early as we have been) and had a quick breakfast/shower rotation before legging it back to Universal Islands of Adventure for 8.30am. Harry Potter Land was already heaving and the weather was HOT. Jakey and I joined the (already 45 minute) queue for the 'Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey' ride leaving a hot Benjamin and a sad-faced daddy behind...
As the queue moved along outside the ride Ken came up saying 'we can child-swap! We all queue, Benjamin too, and when we get to the front we take it in turns to go on the ride!' So a hot sweaty toddler and his daddy parked the buggy and joined us in the long queue through the 'Hogwarts Greenhouses' in the blazing 92 degree heat (!) 
As we moved into Hogwatrs Castle it got cooler and much more interesting for both boys (and both adults) and we listened to the paintings talking to each other, along with hologram footage of Professor Dumbledore and Harry, Ron and Hermione to keep us amused along the way. Ron even cast some snow for us!!!
The ride was totally worth the wait, even with trying to amuse a hot sweaty toddler for over an hour in the end, the interactive animated footage teamed with some clever movement of the car and some old-style 'jumping out at you' ghoulies etc makes for a wonderful experience and all of a sudden it was clear why people were standing in line for hours to ride it - a 45 minute queue before 9am!!!!! And the best of it? The 'child swap' element meant that Jake went on with me whilst Ken stayed in a room watching Harry Potter on a TV screen with Benjamin, then Jake got to go on again with Ken whilst I sat with Benjamin!! What a lucky boy he is! And then we had Butterbeer - one frozen and one just cold, in souvenir (read rip-off!) mugs and Jakey has found his most favourite drink ever, knocking Dr Pepper to the number 2 spot!
And so we pottered next door to Universal Studios, a slower, more amicable pace where the toddler was free to roam the streets and enjoy a bit of space. The toddler was also able to partake in a couple of rides in this park...
I digress! We all went on the Jaws ride, and Benjamin (as prompted) just shouted 'RRAAAWWWRRR' when the big shark reared out of the water, as the rest of the boat screamed! And after whooping Jakey's ass 111300 to 36350 one the Men In Black ride we all went on the ET Ride where we all rode side by side bikes, with ET in a basket in the front of Benjamin's bike. We rode through the town and the forest and as we were confronted by police cars our bikes took off into the air! We rode over the city and across the moon as in the film, we then passed through ET's world (the bright happy bit, which Benjamin hated, he much preferred the car chases!) and as we left the ride ET said 'Bye-bye Benjamin, Stephanie, Jake, Ken'!! Benjamin came out saying 'thank-ooo lady, ET say bye-bye Bemin!' which is pretty much all he said for the next half hour!
Fast forward a few hours and a shopping trip to Old Navy later and we popped into Downtown Disney for dinner. Jakey's choice of restaurant was the Rainforest Cafe but with a wait to get a table we moved on...and found T-Rex Cafe where we were seated straight away in the prehistoric rainforest right next to a baby triceratops (which Benjamin wasn't fond of!)Jakey now has a new favourite place to eat as well as a new favourite drink - what a day!!!
I would love to show you a fantastic photo now of Jakey splitting a pre-historic rock and the contents which have never been seen by another human eye...but for some reason the photo won't behave...
If you can be bothered to turn your head, or even better, turn your screen, you will also see the bizarre fluke of holding a plastic bag that will never happen again...when I first looked it was a cross lizard, then a p'eed off monkey...Ken thinks it is a tiger...whatever it is I guarantee Jakey will never randomly hold a bag across his arm like this again!!! I only wish I knew why the computer feels the need to turn it around...it was taken landscape...ho hum...
All the wrestling with the photo hassle makes me glad that we did very little today, the bigger boys played golf whilst Benjamin and I raided walmart for dodgy denim nappies!!!
Then both boys got the new trainers they desperately needed. A nap and a swim later we Skyped my mum and dad to complete the 'ET Phone Home' theme - Benjamin loved seeing Nana on the 'puter but got most upset because grandad sat still and quiet! When we wanted to say goodbye Benjamin was very upset and for ages after was asking for Grandad and Nana...he wanted to see them properly now!
When we asked the boys what they wanted to do after dinner, they both said the same 'fwimmin' so we spent the evening teaching Jakey to dive...and Benjamin too. We have a video which we will upload when we can (if you have 15 minutes of your life to waste LOL!) but until then believe me that Benjamin's diving is coming along just as well as Jake's!!!
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