Cooper's Birthday Adventure

To celebrate Cooper's 6th birthday, we decided we would all go to Orlando and stay at the Nickelodeon Hotel. We had heard that there were so many activities there you don't really need to do any of the other Orlando activities.

Chris and I packed the car late Thursday night, as we wanted to keep the trip a surprise for Cooper as long as possible. We had told Chandler already, and he was looking forward to the trip.

We all woke up around 7a.m. on Friday morning, and wished Cooper a Happy Birthday. It was a cold and windy morning. We got dressed and went outside to release balloons to Tyler, something we do every year. We watched the balloons until they could be seen no more.

Grandma and Grandpa Bosket arrived at our house as they were going to Orlando with us (driving seperately, though). We drove to Dunkin' Donuts as our first stop on Cooper's Birthday Adventure. This was a treat for the boys as eating donuts is not something we normally do, much less actually go inside a Donut store.

Then we all piled back into the car for the 2 hour drive to Orlando. At this point Cooper still did not know what was going for the day. The boys were mostly quiet during the trip as they were absorbed by their video games, and Max feel asleep. As we got into Orlando, Cooper realized we were in Orlando as he saw all of the huge billboards advertising the theme parks. He was quite excited as we pulled into the Nick Hotel parking lot.

By this point, it was around 11 a.m., we checked into our room, which was quickly as messy as our house usually is, with stuff everywhere. The boys had their own bedroom, the Spongbob room, with bunkbeds, TV and a PS2. They were pretty excited about this. We had lunch at the hotel and we were pretty much one of a very few families in there, which was nice to have the run of the place. We did Cooper's little birthday celebration, having cake and lettting him have his presents. I don't think he could have waited any longer. He received some nice gifts and was pretty excited.

Although it was still too cold for my liking, Chris and the boys went into the pool. It was heated, so you didn't feel the coldness until you actually got out of the pool. Brrr!

For Cooper's birthday dinner, we took him to a new restaurant in Orlando called the TRex Cafe at Downtown Disney. It is owned by the same company that did the Rainforest Cafe, so the concept was the same with the huge robotics creatures and authentic noices, etc. The TRex Cafe is all about dinosaurs, and had huge robotic life-like dinosaurs, and all of their surroundings. It was pretty cool. We sat inside of the Iceberg room, and it changed colors as we ate. One of those things you have do to at least once.

So that was the end of Cooper's birthday "day". It was a long day, but I think he had a great birthday.

Saturday morning we got up and went to a Character Breakfast at the hotel. It was buffet style and they had different Nick characters coming around to the tables. For some reason, my boys were most excited to see Squidward, the grumpy guy from Spongebob. Max was excited to see Dora, one of his favorite characters. Cooper got out and danced with the Characters and other children there celebrating their birthdays.

We spent the rest of the day at the hotel. The boys went swimming, played mini-golf, basketball, and spent alot of time at the arcade. Chandler made sure to get "slimed" at the mass sliming.

We also went to the 4D movies they had on property. These are short 10 minute movies, like 3D, but called 4D cuz you "feel" things from the movie. For example, if a guy spits in the movie, you get spritzed in the face. If there were mice running across the floor in the movie, you could feel it on the back of your legs. Both Chandler and Cooper HATED these and refused to go back. Chris and I thought that was pretty funny. We ended up leaving Chandler and Cooper with Grandma while we went to the movies.

Saturday night, Chandler and Cooper went to Nick After Dark, which is like a Kid's Night Out, where they play games, have snacks, go see a Nick Studio show (in the hotel). We were worried they wouldn't like, but we peeked in the door a while later and they seemed like they were having fun. Grandma and Grandpa kept Max for the evening, while Chris and I went to Downtown Disney for dinner and to just take in the sights. We got back around 9p to the hotel, and called the Nick After Dark to see if the boys were ready to come back. They both said they wanted to stay, to our surprise. In the end, they stayed until about 1030p and I think this was one of their favorite parts of the weekend.

We got home Sunday afternoon, happy, tired and broke :).

As a side note about Max, he was a cake eating fiend. From the moment he saw Cooper's birthday cake, that is all he wanted to eat. He ate cake all weekend, and usually asked for seconds. It was amazing.

Now when I ask him what he wants for his birthday, he says "Cake!"