Anniversary Vacation!!!

January 13 marked our five year wedding anniversary. We made a pact when we got married that each year on our anniversary we would go someplace warmer than where we currently were. For the most part we stuck to it. Last year was the exception since we had a 5 month old baby at home.
This year though, we made big plans! In the past we have visited our friends in Tampa and visited one of the major FL theme parks while we were there. 2007 we went to Magic Kingdom, 2008 we visited Sea World, 2009 I was in Texas for school, 2010 we skipped and this year we visited Universal Islands of Adventure...specifically to see the Harry Potter exhibit!
Instead of the usual extended weekend trip we decided to stay a whole week and take Dill with us! Traveling with a toddler was an adventure to say the least!
We had planed to stay in FL from Jan 20-26, but mother nature had a better idea. She dumped snow and ice on Baltimore and 'stranded' us in FL for an extra 2 days!! It was *just* awful... yeah, even I can't say that with a straight face. Considering we were staying with friends and not in a hotel, it wasn't any added expense for us. We did have a rental vehicle, but the extra time was next to nothing.
We had an amazing trip. Harry Potter was the best exhibit at a park I have ever seen. The attention to detail was incredible. Is. of Adv also has a Dr. Seuss area for kids that Dillan just couldn't get enough of.
He went on his first ride, The Cat in the Hat, and really enjoyed it. He also rode the Caroseussel. He was too small to do much else, but was mesmerized by all the sights and sounds of the rest of the park.

Flying can be a daunting task in itself, but adding a toddler to the mix creates a whole other world of things that can go wrong. Luckily there are some amazingly helpful women on the Traveling with Children board on Babycenter. After taking note of all the advice we decided to travel as light as we possible could. Unfortunately this still meant taking the car seat (we bought D a seat for safety and we'd need it in the car in FL), the lightwt stroller, 2 medium suitcases for Mike and I (putting everything in one would have put it over the wt limit for Southwest), a small suitcase for Dill, the diaper (book)bag, small carry on for me, Mike's carry on, portable/ fold up booster seat (we could have done without this, but it was nice to have), and a small soft cooler with juice and snacks for Dill. It wasn't too difficult to get through the airport once we checked the 3 bags. We had the car seat strapped to the stroller, the cooler on the handles, the feeding chair (which was Mike's "personal item") in the basket, and our carry-on in the car seat. Mike wore the diaper bag and I wore Dill in our Ergo. I have to say that when traveling with kids, a carrier is a MUST!!! Made things in the airport, at the park, and just about everywhere we went soooo much easier!!
We rented a mini-van at the airport since we would have 4 adults and 2 kids in car seats with us most of the trip. Enterprise gave us a Dodge Grand Caravan which was nice, but reconfirmed that I will NEVER own a minivan. The sliding doors were handy and it had lots of storage, but that's about it. Everything else about it was a pain in the butt!

To be continued...