My family's first full day in Orlando was spent at Universal Studios. They offered some fantastic Resident and Passholder discounts, so we changed our original plan from 1 day for both of the Universal parks, to one day for EACH of the Universal parks, so the first day was all for Universal proper. We rode on the Jaws ride, Trey got to experience a "twister" tornado, and we got to see some cool movie special effects.

These are the pictures Mom took with her camera at Universal Studios

I had taken my family to Islands of Adventure on their first trip out here 8 years prior, but Trey had only vague memories of it, and his honor to defend. At the time, he LOVED the movie Jurassic Park, so when he had the chance to visit a theme park with an entire section dedicated to the movie, of course we had to ride every ride in that section. Unfortunately, one of the rides was just a little too scary for him as a toddler, so this time, we set out to find that ride again so he could vindicate himself. We also rode all the fantastic rides that makes IOA my favorite theme park. At the end of the day, we went back over to Universal Studios to ride the newest roller coaster with a 90 degree verticle climb, and then off to see Blue Man Group for an evening of percussive comedy.

These are the pictures Mom took with her camera at IOA

This was the day we were scheduled to visit Epcot Center. A friend of mine who works for Disney offered to get us in for free under his 3-Free-Guests-For-Cast-Members benefits, but it turned out that he was working night shifts in preparation for the Main Street Spectacle of Lights and completely forgot. So after waiting half an hour without reaching him, we decided to go to Kennedy, the destination scheduled for the following day.

Kennedy Space Center was a wonderful opportunity to introduce Trey to science in action. We got to tour the facilities and see space ships, real moon rocks, tools and space suits that were actually used during the Apollo missions, bald eagles, and observe real engineers working in a clean room. I took along both of my cameras, and since Trey had forgotten to pack his own camera, I lent him my snapshot camera and he took some pretty good pictures!

These are the pictures Trey took with my little Canon Powershot S50 at Kennedy. There are a lot of them!

These are the pictures Mom took with her camera at Kennedy

These are the pictures Trey took with my little snapshot camera at ICE

These are the pictures Mom took with her camera at ICE

The Gaylord Palms Resort was in the holiday spirit. They had coupons for free cups of hot chocolate for people who went through the ICE exhibit, and they also had a holiday scavanger hunt featuring holiday gnomes! Trey and I wandered around the Atrium for a while, looking for all the gnomes based on clues they gave us in a little booklet, but Mom and Dad were ready to go, so we really only had time to find 3. They were sneaky little buggers, and most eluded us no matter how hard we looked!

Mom and Dad chose to stay in a hotel near the theme parks and invited me to stay with them, but I still had to come home every day to take care of the cats. My family came with me at various times to see my house and meet my roommate, but on one of those occasions, Trey played with the cats. It was too cute not to take pictures of.