Ready, get set, goooo!

On Wednesday, whilst the kiddos were in school, we caught up with family at Islands of Adventure. We managed to do 2 rides that we hadn’t been able to do before — the first was Hagrid’s Motorbike Adventure which was pretty cool, we went in without any prior research so there were a lot of surprising moments which I won’t spoil here. The second was the Velocicoaster which officially opens June 10th; they had it open for trials so a full month early we managed to give it a go. The queue took about 30 mins — I can see this one being super long in future. The ride itself starts fast and just gets faster and faster. I’m a screamer, and I found that there was no time to get over the terror of the last swoop, turn, loop, corkscrew before the next one turned up. Insane and intense! I think I loved it.

The following day back at home, I tried some productivity work with the kids. Every morning we go through the same routine — breakfast, bags, shoes/socks, and hair. And every morning they seem to forget everything. Considering the time sensitive situation it leads to tension and raised voices. The eldest two put their heads together and noted the items they need to get done every morning before they go off to do other things, then numbered them in order of priority. This is what they ended up with. I’ll look to tidy it up and print it off to stick somewhere visible — probably the fridge door. Fingers crossed things will improve over the coming week.

I also got a little sidetracked digging into the definition of productivity. My knowledge comes from The Goal by Eliyahu Goldratt and my early morning googling led me to some slides on Throughput Accounting — bookmarked for future reference.

On the Friday we managed to get back to the parks, this time Universal Studios where we checked out Mummy’s Revenge, Fast and Furious, and Gringotts before grabbing a butter beer, a caprese sandwich, and popping in for our annual caricature. We had enough time for a few more rides before heading back to pick up the kids and then scooting back for a meal at Chocolate Emporium. I’m a big fan of the steampunk aesthetic. Food was pretty good and I made sure to keep some space for the ridiculous milkshakes they have on the menu.

BBQ at 4 Rivers and a few whiskies with the penultimate day of having family around. Also prepping for #3’s 6th birthday. The wife has made a tradition of baking the kids’ birthday cakes — so she gets four attempts a year. She’s come a long long way over the last 8 years. Luckily there are pictures of the first one and the most recent one as a comparison. It looks pro!