Day 06 - Shopping, Take II

TLDR: Change of plan from Volcano Bay, due to its alarming popularity we ended up on a pool/shopping day. Kids loved the pool and didn’t want to leave. At the shopping malls, the kids spent more of their money with Gracie getting 2 out of 3 if the things she planned to buy - result! Ann & Myself never really bought anything, so the five full bags of kids toys went to the car for the lift home. Decided on Golden Corral buffet for dinner, just us and the folks - wasn’t disappointed. Rolled home. Hatched a hatchimal.

Change Of Plans…

So I explained yesterday that we found out Volcano Bay, Universal’s new water park, was VERY BUSY, and it was at capacity most days at opening. We had this park on the schedule today, but with it being full in the morning and it scheduled to rain in the afternoon, we decided to scrap the plan and do our own things instead. Well have to wait for a good day and maybe hit the park in the afternoon for our best chance at it. As it was pretty much a free day, we allowed ourselves and the kids to sleep a little later. Our first proper trip to the hotel pool was long overdue, so once everyone was up and ready, we headed off for a swim with very happy kids. The kids absolutely love the water and after some swimming practice (, cannonballs, underwater antics and chilling by the pool-side, we decided it would be good day for shopping, especially if it was likely to rain later in the day. Here are some snaps from the GoPro which is yet to be utilized to its fullest, so will need to try harder.

Shopping, again!

We’d seen a Toys R Us on our way to Best Buy the other day, so headed back to the same shopping mall to spend a few hours this time. We hadn’t had any breakfast yet, so pretty much bypassed all the shops on the way to the Food Court. There was pretty much every type of food available, but we had set our sights on Taco Bell, which was our fast food guilty pleasure from last time. We loaded up on burritos, tacos & nachos (with the exception of Robert, who went for a foot long Subway - which was his first one and was pretty stoked about it). I’m not sure if it was tiredness, but Ann tried to pay with our hotel room key card - LOL - unfortunately were not that technologically advanced yet… :P

We mostly hit shops for the kids, including Disney, Gamestop (3 different ones) and the aforementioned Toys R Us, though we did manage to pick up a few gifts for people along the way. Grace, who had here heart set on ANOTHER Hatchimal and a Furby, got both, with the Hatchimal being a rarer Draggle type (according to her, she is very knowledge about that kind of thing I led to believe). She was really really happy and couldn’t wait to get home. Robert settled on Pokemon cards for the most part, and Patrick was a little more reserved. I did get a cool Star Wars Decal for the car back home so now everyone will know we a geeky family! :P

Heading back to the car, via the restaurants, Gracie recalled my promise of getting her some sushi (y'know one of those promises to kids, where you dont actually have any intention of doing the thing in the hope that theyll forget about it). Oh well, a ‘promise’ is a promise I suppose. So she picks a seafood platter (obvs) and the next thing I know she’s sitting down with chopsticks in hand, ready to tuck in. I said she could probably just pick them up with her hands and she didnt need to struggle with the chopsticks. She just shook her head and began eating away, as if she’d been using them all her life. We were all staring in amazement at this wee 6 year old, masterfully wielding two bamboo sticks to eat her lunch. Now, we dont actually eat that much sushi (save for me and P), and I think we’ve used chopsticks once, through our make you own sushi phase - so Im bewildered where she has picked this up. Watching too much Kung fu Panda, maybe?

Last stop before home is Walmart to get a few essentials and it is here where we were enlightened by Patricks Fun Fact Of The Day. And with this, Ill give you an example of how Patrick Fun Facts come about. We were in Walmart, walking past the freezer isle and see ice lollies. One brand which are called popsicles, to which he responds out of the blue:

> Y'know the Popsicle was invented by an 11yr old called Frank Epperson? When he was wee, he put a stick in a can of soda and left it overnight. He called them Eppsicles but when his kids came along, they began to call them Pops’ sicles and the name stuck…

And this happen at least once every single day. We’ll just be blethering about something and Patrick will pipe in with his wee Fact and then carry on as if nothing happened, its really funny and astounding at the same time.

Dinner, dinner, dinner, dinner… BATMAN!

We’d planned dinner for Golden Corral, a buffet place (or rather palace), and were joined by my mum and dad. The other guys had had a later lunch so weren’t ready for a full on buffet yet. It was just as awesome as I remember, but I have to call particular attention to the Steaks, these things were absolutely massive!!! Ill pop a pic of some of the smaller ones I managed to snap below, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen steaks so big. And they just go and cook them to order for you right there and then, its brilliant!

I did also manage to grab my first dessert here - Pumpkin pie, which is one of my absolute favorites but don’t normally get to eat it because well I don’t live in America. Everyone was satisfied from starter to dessert including little Gracie who still seemed to have a passion for chocolate covered strawberries…

An image from the archives from 4 years ago…

And now tonight…

We noted the time in the UK had turned midnight as we finished up which marked the official time for Patrick’s birthday (not when everything turned back to a pumpkin. though wont be fully celebrated here in until tomorrow). He was pretty content and was now really looking forward to tomorrow :)
On our road home (to apparently hatch a Draggle, dont ask), we were treated to a rendition of of the song 7 years, performed by Grace Gaffney (originally by Danish pop group, Lukas Graham). Its here song of the holiday and shes been practicing ever since we got here. I’m pretty sure she’ll have this perfected by the end of the three weeks and Ill likely have a video of the finale performance for your pleasure. Watch this space.

Tomorrow Universal Studios and more importantly the not so wee Patrick officially turns 11. Eeek.