Spencer's Wish Trip Day 7: Last Day :-( and Gatorland

We woke up on our last day feeling bittersweet.  We were ready to sleep in our own beds, but not ready to leave this wonderful place.  We decided to spend the morning at the village, lingering over breakfast, finding Spencer's star, and getting one last scoop of ice cream.  God was smiling on us, because for his last morning the Gingerbread House was serving Spencer's favorite...pancakes.  They serve different things every day, and we had only had pancakes one morning up until then.  (However they do have a stand that serves amazing waffles every morning, so he was making due.)  We finished those up and then headed to the castle to find Spencer's star.  The kids jumped on the Carousel, while we went to the front office to check out and visit the gift shop.  I spent alot of money in there.  I bought both of the books about the founder of GKTW, we bought license plate covers and key chains, and we bought t-shirts.  I really wanted one of everything, truth be known.  Just as we were finishing up the boys found us and told us they wanted.....ice cream.  LOL.  So to the ice cream palace we all went for one last time.

There is nothing quite like ice cream in the mornings.  Amazingly, the place was PACKED!

Spencer's last ice cream was a chocolate milk shake.  Mike kept trying to get him to share but he refused.  Finally Mike got one sip and he said there is no wonder he wouldn't share...it was delicious!

I'm sure you have no doubts that as soon as we were done we grabbed some cookies for the road... Then we were off.  We had picked up passes in the office when we checked out to visit Gatorland.  We really had no idea what it was all about but it was a few hours until we needed to be at the airport so we decided to check it out.  Originally, we had thought we might head back to Islands of Adventure but we knew if we did that we might get distracted and miss our flight.  So Gatorland it was.

Gatorland it turns out is exactly what it says....it's all about alligators!  It's set up kind of like a zoo.  They have a few other animals but they have lots and lots of alligators.  You would  think this would be boring but it totally wasn't.

A lady saw us coming and grabbed us out of the line to get us set up and ready to go.  She even gave us a ticket to get a free photo taken! 

Yup...it's a real gator and a real snake.  Aspen ASKED to hold the snake.  Ick!  x2!

We knew we might be in for something interesting when we came upon this sign right after we got inside....

There were gators everywhere...

And sure enough, one tried to eat Aspen...

We decided if they were that aggressive, that we might need some assistance, so we set out to find out how it's done....

Yes sir, they wrastle them gators.  It wasn't long before they had one down....

Personally, I think that dude has WAY too much time on his hands.

By this time we were getting hot but we wanted to see some Gator jumparoo....well, hey, I didn't name it.  That's what they called it.  So we set back off toward the front of the park. (There were a whole lot more shows and exhibits that we didn't get to see while we were here....surprisingly, I think you could make a full day out of Gatorland if you are ever in Orlando!)  We did find these cool birds on our way back to see the Gator jumpin'....

I had to drag the girls out of there.  At one point they both had them on their heads, and they were holding like ten of them!!  But I DID drag them out of there, because I wanted to see the jumparoo.  Bascially, they hang chicken on strings (they make a show out of it, so it's funnier and more complex than that) and see how high they can get the gators to jump out of the water.

Them gators love chicken!!!!

And they can get pretty darn high up out of that water!  Good to know in gator country!

By then we were HOT, even though we hadn't seen even half of Gatorland.  We decided to head out and grab some food before we hit the airport to head home.  We did make our flight, and met up with the other wish family that traveled down and back with us from Virginia Beach.  Spencer spotted our limo waiting on us from the airport window before we even got down to the baggage claim.

The girls getting in the limo...this was one of their favorite things about the trip.

Our last ride of the trip.  It ended the same way it started.  But with alot more memories, and a week full of fun.  Everyone agreed it was the best vacation of our lives.  We had an amazing time.  Thank you Make A Wish and Give Kids the World.  We will never forget this one fabulous week you gifted us with.  Our lives will never be the same.