Universal CityWalk -- And The Lorax!

We were NOT going to do anything today! We had had a very heavy rain-storm during the night and I had been up several times shutting windows and pulling in awnings. Forry decreed that it was going to be a quiet contemplative, restful, catch-up day. Then later this afternoon, Bill and Leslie came over. Bill was antsy and wanted to go somewhere. He enticed Forry with the promise of a Margarita and convinced us that we needed to go over to Universal Studio's CityWalk. After all, I had been wanting to check out the Harry Potter merchandise for our grand-kids.

This picture is looking down from the walkway from the parking area at the very colorful Putt-Putt golf course. It looks like it would be a fun place. (I think that purple and green thing on the top of the rocks is a caterpillar...?)

 Sure enough, one of the first places we ran into was --

,

So we left Forry and Bill there while we went to check out the wands and other magical supplies.

Florida flora continues to fascinate me. There were all of these palm trees around the open area between the stores and buildings --

I was trying to figure out why they were green underneath the leaf area at the top of the trunk, then realized that there were ferns growing in between the stumps of the old dead leaves --

After wandering around a bit, we ended up deciding that we would go to Bubba Gump's for supper.

The whole restaurant is themed around the Forrest Gump movie, including the menu --

The portions were huge! This is about half of the tempura shrimp that came with my order. There was another cup filled with french fries as well.

There is a bench outside the restaurant with Forrest Gump's suitcase and a box of chocolates on it and his shoes in front of it. So my Forrest just had to have his picture taken there!

Universal Studios has a big CinePlex Theatre as part of the CityWalk complex. We saw that The Lorax was playing, so decided go see it after we ate. It was an interesting, albeit a bit heavy-handed,  movie -- as are all of the films based on Dr. Seuss books. I really enjoyed the whimsical characters and creativity.

Bill had bought some gourmet cupcakes at the Food Truck Bazaar last night, so we returned to Auntie Violet for dessert while we made plans for the coming week.

A Quiet Day at Mouse Mountain

It is eight PM and we are all sitting outside enjoying the beautiful warm evening. We are trying to decide what we want to do while we are here for this coming month. One of the reasons we decided to come back to the Orlando area was to join our Disney fanatic friends at Disney World. When we were here before, it was during the holidays which is entirely the wrong time to be at the Park with all of the crowds. The pricing system for tickets is rather strange. The best deal seems to be a ten-day pass. It would work well if we could scatter the ten days over the month, but the way it works is you have to use the ten days within a 14 day time period after the first day of use.

We also are thinking about going to Universal Studio to the Harry Potter show. We'd like to maybe go to Crystal Springs to kayak with the manatees. Then there's the Kennedy Space Center. And knowing us, we'll need to plan for some "down" days in there as well.

While Bill and Leslie went to their workout with their trainer this afternoon, I got started on the 2011 book work. I cannot believe I have been so lax this year -- the only month I actually had done was last January! I got another month done, but I am sure the rest will go faster as it took me a while to get back up to speed with the software.

We really need to think about a major grocery shopping trip, maybe even a Costco run. I made salads for dinner with the last of the green stuff in the refrigerator. I grilled the last two steaks in the freezer and the last package of sweet potato fries tonight. It was so nice out that Bill and Leslie sat outside with us to eat. And to think that last night at the same time, it was pouring rain!