I confess…. I’ve been slacking here.

Yes, life has been busy. But let’s be honest – I just haven’t felt like writing. Or maybe it’s more like I haven’t felt motivated to write. But do I really need to be motivated to start? Maybe it’s like exercising (which I also haven’t been doing); the motivation isn’t always there but you do it anyway. So this is me doing it anyway.

There’s just been a lot of ‘regular life’ things going on. A bracket from my daughter’s braces fell off so we had to go get that fixed. My daughter does physical therapy twice a week and will be getting a second MRI done soon. She also joined the lacrosse team at school even though she can’t play until she’s medically cleared. But I’m still glad she wants to be a part of the team and shows up every day for it. We’ve been taking care of some things for Religion because my daughter makes her confirmation in the fall. I’ve had union meetings and contract negotiations because I thought it was a good idea to sign up to be treasurer of my union. Oh!… Also, my car wouldn’t start a couple of times and had to be jumped so it went to the mechanic after we had just picked up my husband’s car from the mechanic and just a few days before we went on vacation.

We’ve had some fun though, too. Like…we celebrated my cousin’s 30th birthday with a cool Cher themed party and yes we dressed up! We also celebrated someone’s 1st birthday. We celebrated my birthday and my husband’s birthday. There was also my sisters birthday and my brother-in-law’s birthday. There are a lot of birthday’s in March. I went to a head spa, which was Amazing and relaxing and owned by someone my family grew up with, which is really cool. If you’re on Long Island check them out – EQ Head Spa. I also got a lymphatic massage and a facial(at a separate place). I’ve been doing a little self-care lately cus, why not.

And last week we were on Spring Break (insert the Chandler Bing Spring Break Woo Woo – iykyk). We took a little family trip to Florida. And yes, every day I would repeat the words from Taylor Swift’s song “Florida…it’s one hell of a drug”. It just seemed fitting to me. But anyway…we had some fun there, of course. Spent some time at the beach, at the pool, in the hot tub. We went to a Cirque du Soleil-Drawn to Life show. That was pretty freakin’ amazing. The acrobatics were insane and a little scary to watch. But only because they were doing some sketchy moves and there were a couple times I found myself holding my breath until they landed. 10/10 fantastic though. AND THEN, we all got to experience for the first time together, Universal Studios and Universal Island of Adventure!

As a Harry Potter fan, I was very excited. Just walking through Diagon Alley – the buildings, the architecture, the butter beer, oh my. I was in awe. And if you were patient enough to wait in the really long line to buy an expensive wand (which we were not), I bet that would have been really cool too. There were so many interactive things to use your “magic wand” on, which I guess have some kind of motion sensor that if you wave your wand in a specific way something happens. Something moves, or water comes out, I don’t even know what else. But honestly, even though I know it’s not real magic, it was totally cool. Then there were all the rides. You can take the Hogwarts Train between Universal Studios and Island of Adventure. The idea of that was way cooler than the actual ‘ride’ if you even want to call it that. And if I were a little kid I would have enjoyed it way more. It wasn’t bad, just a short, slow ride.

There were so many good rides in both parks though. We did the Jurassic Park River Adventure which was a simulation ride. We also did VelociCoaster. If you are a rollercoaster fan, you have to go on this. It was so fast and unexpected and really wild. I definitely would not have been able to ride that twice in one day. We did The Amazing Adventures of Spiderman 3-D ride and the Incredible Hulk Coaster, both fun. E.T. Adventure was actually really cool, as well as the MEN IN BLACK Alien Attack. Rides I would totally do again. Dudley Do-Right’s Ripsaw Falls. You get soaking wet on that, so be prepared. The parks do have these “human dryers” though, for $8. You stand in it and it just blows hot air on you to help dry you. That was a cool feature, although I think $8 is a little much for 2 minutes. Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey was really cool. And then there was Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure. Which apparently was the most popular ride there because we waited about 2.5 HOURS in that line to ride that ride. Now, I know you’re probably thinking “that’s crazy! that’s way too long to wait!” And yes, yes it was. BUT, that was the one ride my daughter had been talking about and there was part of me that really, really wanted to ride it too. Now, that ride was definitely one of the best. The ups and downs, you’d go slow and then speed up so fast. The vision and execution of that ride was fantastic. But I won’t sugarcoat the waiting. It got a little brutal. We got cranky. People started sitting on the floors to take a break from standing. It was long. And I will probably never wait that long again for a ride.

We had popcorn and butterbeer. We had chicken fingers and burgers from Wimpy’s, treats from Cinnabon. And finished the night with pizza in Universal CityWalk. All-in-all we had an amazing time. And what was even more amazing was the weather originally called for rain so we went prepared with our raincoats and ponchos. But the rain held out which made it so much more enjoyable.

That’s been life lately. A lot of stuff with a little bit of fun sprinkled around because you can’t forget to have some fun in life!