Christine's Trip to Orlando, Part 2

February 22, Sunday

I'm very grateful I was able to go to church with Emily today and have a fun day with her and also get some rest! I got all ready for church and she picked me up at 8:15 AM. It was just her and who went to church. I was impressed with how many people were there. The talks were excellent! They were all about testimony. The first guy said he had been on a mission to Japan and he was in flight school. He referred to a talk by President Uchtdorf and Elder Brown's talk from the last Conference. He said something in his talk and I wish I could remember exactly what it was but it was something like if you are having trouble with a branch of the gospel, look to the trunk of truth that it comes from. That's not exactly what he said but it was something along those lines and I thought it was really good. The next girl that spoke talked about how people their age need to have their own testimony and can't rely on their parents testimonies any longer. Boy, that's so true! She also said you can't rely on a spiritual high and expect that to carry you through. For instance, if you go to girls camp or EFY and you have a great experience, that's not enough to strengthen your testimony for the rest of your life, you have to keep doing the important things like praying and reading your scriptures regularly. She referred to Elder Uchtdorf's talk from October 2024. The last guy to talk was Ethan Meyer. Emily said, I know that guy. They were talking about how they had a hoedown activity last night and how he is a good dancer, that's what the bishop said when he announced him, and Emily realized she recognized him from ballroom dance at BYU. He referred to President Oaks's talk called Testimony from 2008. Ethan said we share our testimony because we love others. The girl who gave the Relief Society lesson did a great job. The topic of the lesson was: the Lord looks on the heart. She gave everyone a piece of paper and a pencil and asked us to write down on one side how other people see us and on the other side how the Lord sees us. They ended the lesson early and said they wanted to do some ministering so they asked everyone on one side to go to the other side and introduce themselves to somebody. We met Erin, who gave the lesson, and Maddie, who works at Cosmic Rays and she jus just started at BYU because she said she still has 3 1/2 years left. She doesn't like her position at Cosmic Rays and is trying to get an accommodation for it but so far they haven't accepted it but she really hates working in the kitchen there. I felt so bad for her. 

After church, we had a nice brunch at Olivia's Café.

While we waited for our table, I gave Emily her Tangled birthday card and she loved it! 

Emily and I both got the chicken and Dad got an omelette and Brandon got the breakfast meal. They had some banana bread French toast so I asked for that for an appetizer because I just wanted to try a taste of it. I ate all of my food and it was so good. 

They brought out a cupcake with a candle for Emily and we sang Happy Birthday to her.

Brandon had to go to work after brunch so I said goodbye to him and told him it was very nice to meet him and I gave him a hug. Then the rest of us drove over to the Residence Inn. We were annoyed that Emily and Dad had to pay parking just to be in the parking lot during the day. Apparently, it's really strict and the camera would give them a ticket if they didn't pay the money. We saw another car with a ticket on it. Anyway, Emily and Dad came to my hotel room and we played cards for a little while. By about 2:30 PM, Dad said he was going to hit the road and drive back.

Michael sent me this picture of what he made for Jonny at home. 

Emily and I took a nap. Andrew had a different p-day this week so we didn't have a call with him today. Once we got up, I suggested we go to the big McDonald's. Apparently, this one in Orlando that's not too far from our hotel is the biggest one in the US. It's on Sandlake Road. So we got ready and went over there. It was fun because it was an enormous McDonald's and they had other foods besides regular McDonald's foods.

They had pizza and pasta and a Philly cheesesteak and of course we ordered every one of those. It was pretty fun. The food was actually really good. We were impressed with the pizza that Emily got. It was like it was woodfired or something and it tasted great. 

We had fun eating our food and then we went exploring upstairs to see what was up there and there was a big play place, more seating, and a big arcade area. Then Emily drove me back to my hotel. 

February 23, Monday

I'm so grateful I got to go to Universal with Emily today! We had so much fun! I'm especially grateful that multiple times this weekend she has turned to me and said, "I'm so glad you're here Mom!" She picked me up a little bit after 8 AM at my hotel and we drove to Universal Studios. I bought my entrance ticket on the drive over. It takes a while to walk from the parking garage into the park. We were especially bummed this morning because we found out that there's no Hogwarts Express from one park to the other so we had to walk like peasants. Oh well. 

We got into the park, figured out where we needed to stand for the rope drop and went to Hagrid's Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure. I was pretty sure the wait time said 110 minutes which sounded close to what Emily thought it was going to be. It took us a little bit to get a locker because it was a chaotic mess in there. But we got right into the line and started weaving through. It was pretty slow moving and there were multiple times that it was fully stopped so that was frustrating. When we were outside, we were so cold it was hard for me to focus on things to talk to her about. I think it was around 50 degrees. It was so cold outside I was shivering like crazy, and even once we were inside it wasn't exactly warm and we stopped many times. 

All in all, we spent three hours between waiting in line and being on the ride. However, I'm so glad we did it! It was super fun! It was so fast! There's a part where you go all the way up to the top and then back down again backwards, and there's also a drop. On a roller coaster. That was crazy. It was also super cool because we were in the front row! Anyway, we loved it and we're so glad we got to do it. 

Performers near Hogsmeade

After that, it was already lunchtime when we were kind of hungry so we decided to see if we could go to the Comic Strip Café. On the way, we saw that Spider-Man had a wait of only 45 minutes so we figured we may as well do that. It was more like 20 minutes by the time we were in and out of there. We walked to the Comic Strip Café and it was freezing cold in there. They had every single door open and we just wanted to sit down and in the warmth for a little while and enjoy a meal but that wasn't going to happen there. So we decided to try the Captain America diner and that was much better. Emily got a hot honey chicken without the hot honey and she really liked it. I got a burger with pulled pork on it. The pulled pork was really weird looking, like a yellow color. It tasted good though, just mustardy. I ate the pulled pork and took the burger out of the bun and put it on my tortilla. 

The wait times for the rides we wanted were pretty long so we decided to go to the Cat in the Hat and that was super cute. 

Then we walked over to Jurassic Park just so we could walk around. The VelociCoaster line was like 90 minutes but by the time we got over there it was only 60 minutes so we hopped in the line. The wait was more like 40 minutes so that was great. 

The queue inside was very cool!

That roller coaster was super fast and goes upside down a couple of times. I had a headache after that one with my head banging against the headrest. I'm glad Emily said to put your head back because I didn't even realize I needed to do that but it was written on the back of the seat in front of me I just wasn't paying attention so I'm glad I did that. Anyway, it was super fun. 

Once we got off I had to record it because it was hard to figure out exactly where you were while you were on the roller coaster.

After that, we decided to get some butterbeer and drink it as we walked over to Universal Studios. I loved walking through "Toon Lagoon."  

We also stopped at the Croissant Moon Bakery which I wanted to try. That was my reward for surviving the VelociCoaster. I got an almond croissant that was delicious but I tried a piece of cookie butter cake and it was disgusting. It was more like just a plain old spice cake and Emily ate a few bites of it and then we left. 

We walked past the Chocolate Emporium and stopped in there. I decided I wanted to get a little something to make up for the cookie butter cake so I got two macarons and I ate them as we walked over to Universal Studios. Emily was too full.

Emily was surprised that the wait times were longer than usual but we headed over to The Mummy. 

That wait wasn't very long either. I didn't even realize it was a roller coaster; I thought it was some kind of simulator but it was pretty fun. After that, we walked over to the Men in Black ride. That was a cute one. I got like 20,000 points and Emily got over 100,000 so she kicked my butt. I didn't really get it and I wasn't doing very well with my shooting to try and get the points but it was still fun.

Men in Black queue scene 

After that we headed over to Diagon Alley to see all the cool Harry Potter stuff. 

We tried to watch for the dragon to breathe fire but it never did it for us so we got onto Escape from Gringotts and that was amazing. 

The queue was fantastic! It looked like you were walking onto the movie set with the animatronic bankers in the cool chandeliers and all the marble. It was really cool. 

We really enjoyed the ride, as well. I think that's the first roller coaster I've ever been on where you wear 3-D glasses on the roller coaster. It was very cool. After that we were pretty tired and decided we wanted a break but we walked around Diagon Alley for a bit and walked in the sweet shop. Then we happened upon a cute little restaurant called The Leaky Cauldron. I saw on the menu that they had meat pies and Emily liked the idea of trying that. We had originally considered just going to the City Walk but this looked way more fun. It's one of those restaurants where you can sit down at a table and do your mobile order from the table and then they bring it to you. It's really nice! The Leaky Cauldron is huge with tons of tables and plenty of space for everyone so we did the mobile order and it was super handy. 

I got two pies; one was a cottage pie and one was a fisherman's pie and it came with a salad. I also got a sticky toffee pudding. Emily got the shepherd's pie which looked like a meat hand pie and she enjoyed that and she especially enjoyed her butterbeer ice cream. She let me have a little bit and it was amazing!

The Leaky Cauldron

Once we were done, we headed back out and went to the Jimmy Fallon New York Experience ride. Emily had heard that it was kind of lame but I actually liked it. It was kind of like Star Tours, only going through the city of New York. After that, it was 8 PM and the park was going to close at 9 PM. We both agreed that we had done all we wanted to do so we headed out. It took us a while to walk back to the car but we were relieved to get warm. Emily dropped me off at the hotel and we had a prayer and said good night. 

February 24, Tuesday

I'm grateful I made it home safely and that my flight was uneventful! Emily picked me up from the hotel at 8:30 AM. I had her go through my pictures and pick some favorites and send them to herself. I asked her to have a prayer with me and she said it. She drove me to the airport and dropped me off. I got through security and sat in that big waiting area, then I got some food and went to my gate.

Trying out my "airplane pocket." It was very helpful! 

Michael was right there to pick me up and he drove me home. It was so good to see him and Jonny, but I am so glad I was able to go on this wonderful trip!