The Vacation of Their Lives: Mason Edition

We saved our money for years. We drove almost a thousand miles to get to Orlando. We bought passes to Disney and Universal Studios theme parks. And what did my son want to do the whole time we were in sunny Florida? Chase lizards.

My boy has a long-established love of all things reptilian and amphibian. He could hardly contain his glee at the sight of so many little lizards scurrying this way and that across the pavement and sidewalks of Orlando. He made it his mission to catch one of the speedy critters. It took a couple of days, but by Wednesday he had succeeded. Many people will remember their time in "Africa" in Animal Kingdom by the elephants, rhinos, lions and giraffes they saw. Not my boy. He'll always remember it as where he finally caught one of those elusive, lightning-fast Florida lizards.

That is not to say that Mason didn't enjoy the safari ride; he did. He loved seeing the amazing African wildlife so closely. What he didn't love was his mother making him turn in the opposite direction so she could get a picture of him with the wildlife in the background. This is his seriously-mom-you're-making-me-look-away-from-the-cool-stuff-to-take-this-stupid-picture face.

Mason was a little leery of many rides. I blame the warning posters at the beginning of each ride. They list so many conditions under which you should abstain from riding that it is a little intimidating. Mason was easily intimidated--until Teense would get off a ride jumping up and down about how cool it was--then he'd want to try it so badly that he'd swallow his fear and give it a go. He was always glad he did.

I had two catch phrases for him. The first was "Trust your mother." After serious reluctance to ride Soarin', he ended up giggling on the ride the whole time, pronouncing it his favorite thing in life and begging to go on it again. I annoyingly brought this up at later times when he was reluctant to try something I thought he'd enjoy. I don't mean to brag, but I was always right.

The second thing I kept repeating to him was, "I have news for you, son..." This came about because he'd make these huge blanket statements that weren't even true. "I hate roller coasters," he'd proclaim, "but I like the Rock 'N Roller Coaster." Seriously? So, I adopted my "I have news for you, son...if you like the Rock 'N Roller Coaster, you like roller coasters." He still doesn't believe me.

I realize now how few pictures I got of Mason alone. Here he is in line for Star Tours:


This boy loves to make people laugh. Here he is hamming it up as one of the aliens from Toy Story:
You'd be surprised at how many photos of him have his mouth hanging open like this:


What a bunch of goofs!


Mason is our biggest Harry Potter fan. I was so excited that we got to take him to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. He loved the main HP ride and got to ride it 5 times. He was thrilled to purchase himself a wand; that was his one goal of our whole trip and he'd been saving towards it for years (naturally, he had more than enough money since he'd saved so long). He drank more than his share of cold butter beer. I loved seeing my boy in this world that makes him so happy!