A Pre-Disney Experience

We've been in Orlando since Saturday for the National Religious Broadcasters convention. Well, Rob went to the convention, Caleb and I have been checking out all the non-Disney, non-Sea World, non-Wet & Wild, non-Universal Studio, non-admission charging things to do in Orlando. This has been a good trip - I'm definately getting an idea of how Caleb will react to days full of Walt Disney. (By the way, Lori - there were some characters in the convention expo hall for some Bible videos and they came up to Caleb and he seemed interested at first, but when they got to close, he lost it...)

Yesterday we checked out the extremely nice city park around Lake Eola. It was recommended to me by a friend from the U of A who lived in Orlando for a few years, then moved back to Arkansas. It had a super toddler playground and SWAN BOATS! Which I do not have pictures of :( It also had two of Caleb's favorite things - ducks and dogs - Caleb was in Heaven.

Today we visited the Henry P. Leu Botanical Gardens. There's actually a charge there, but while researching online I discovered that Monday mornings, it's free! And it was absolutely beautiful.


Although they did have a section with the usual palm trees and bamboo, the real heart of the garden was a large area of roses. I showed Caleb how to smell the roses, which he did...right before reaching out to grab the petals.

Our whole trip has been very nice. I feel like I've successfully navigated my way around Orlando (minus the parts where Disney World is actually located) and Caleb has charmed every person he's met - especially when we were at the convention - there was a serious baby shortage there. Still I'm glad to be going home tomorrow - Caleb has had some diaper "issues" that I'd rather not deal with in resturants (he's been completely naked at two very nice resturants now). And...it's been so cold! In the 40s and 50s, which I know seems like summer to anyone, well, anywhere except Florida. I've been pulling my jacket close around me watching aghast as the British tourists swim at our hotel.

The Orange County Convention Center is just enormous, it's like an airport where they enclosed all the runways. They had about 10 different conventions going on at the same time. One was the Megacon convention - it's some kind of comic book/I don't know what convention. They were all dressed as characters from comic books, cartoons, Lord of the Rings, and Star Wars. There were several storm troopers and a lot of them were carrying fake weapons...at least I hope they were fake.