Tracy Calhoun Photography - Part 3

Universal Studios Orlando

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In keeping with my theme of blogging about super old vacations, today I’m sharing our trip to Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida. My husband had a conference in Orlando last February, so we decided to pull my oldest out of school for a couple of days and tag along with him and make some memories.

This was my son’s first time to a theme park and he absolutely loved it! He was tall enough to ride a lot of the rides, although he did miss out on our favorites that were at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. I guess that means we’ll just have to go back again. 🙂

While my son, who was 3 at the time, loved meeting all of the characters, my daughter’s favorite part was the rides. Especially those in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter because she loves all things HP! Unfortunately I didn’t get a lot of pictures of this part of the park because we were too busy riding all of the rides.

Both kids enjoyed picking out their wizard wands from Olivander’s and walking around, casting spells. Since our son wasn’t tall enough to ride some of the rides, my husband and I took turns taking our daughter on them. Which means she got to ride everything twice!

Valentine Cards for Kids

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Are you one of those moms who creates Pinterest-worthy valentine treats for your child’s class? Well, I am not. But I don’t really like the generic Valentine cards that they sell at the big box stores either. So what do I do? I order semi-custom cards online, of course!

We get our Christmas cards from Minted each year and I love the quality. Did you know that they carry Valentine cards as well? They have custom photo cards, but I like the classroom valentines. You can customize them with your child’s name printed and then they just fill in their friends’ names. I’ve rounded up some of my favorite designs to share with you.

Back Home to Alaska

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I’m not sure how many of you already knew this, but my husband and I are both from Alaska. We haven’t lived there since we were young adults, but we still consider it “home”. Last summer (August 2015) we took a trip back up there and got to play tourist. It’s fun to go back to a place that you once lived and experience it as a tourist.

We spent the first part of our trip in Talkeetna, which offers up some of the best views of Mount Denali. Since our kids are growing up in the plains of Oklahoma, they thought that the mountains were pretty spectacular!

We were able to see some amazing wildlife while we were up there too! There is an amazing wildlife sanctuary south of Anchorage that is home to several species. Many are there because they were found injured. We also visited the Alaska Zoo in Anchorage and the Alaska Sealife Center in Seward.

A family friend took us out on his river speedboat one day and the kids had a blast! The view wasn’t too bad either.

On the day that we drove down to Seward to check out the Alaska Sealife Center, we decided to hike up to Exit Glacier. It has melted back quite a bit, so the hiking part is a little longer. But it was so cool being able to get that close to a glacier. I definitely want to take a glacier cruise out of Seward during our next visit and see some bigger glaciers!