Murray Reunion in Orlando Florida! Day 1- the much anticipated Universal Studios Day!

AKA All-Our-Dreams-Come-True-HARRY-POTTER-WORLD Day!!!

So. Last August Eric's parents said they wanted to take the family on a big vacation (we later discovered this is their every-five-years plan, woo-hoo!! Except that in 5 years Katelyn will be graduating from High School.............end of conversation I'm not ready to go there!  So we aren't dreaming that far ahead quite yet.) They decided it would be our Christmas present and we would go in May!  (Most of us wanted to go earlier to avoid the rainy season, but Kurtis couldn't go until after April because of tax season.  And it didn't rain much so it turned out fine, it was just a long time to wait!)

So we had been waiting and dreaming about this vacation for a long time!  Then the end of February Mary got really sick with this horrible infection that almost took her life.  She was in a hospital in Japan for 7 weeks!  So all planning was put on hold.  By the end of April when she got out it was cutting it close and she was still recovering so thankfully Elizabeth took over and got the Disney part of our vacation all planned and taken care of.  It turned out that we would have 2 free days to plan on our own, so we got to go to Universal Studios on Day 1 of our vacation!

The Murrays are not Harry Potter fans, but Kjarom is and Lauren (Kurtis's awesome fiance) is, so Kurtis, Lauren, and the Pedersens came with us.
IT WAS AWESOME.
Real quick first here's us at the airport.  We only checked one bag, and then all this kids had their own carry-on suitcase, it was pretty adorable actually to see our line of suitcase-pulling kids hiking through the airport.

Now to Universal Studios.  After surviving a giant meltdown by one child in the parking lot (I wasn't sure we were going to make it in!!) we headed straight for Hogsmeade!  We decided not to pay to go to both parks, so we opted for this one instead of Diagon Alley because we wanted to see the castle. It ended up being great!
Honeydukes was so pretty!

Hogsmeade was so cute.

And honestly the best part- not pictured- was the frozen butterbeer!  SO GOOD. We downed a couple of cups of it.

Hogwarts!

Hagrid's Hut, in line for the Flight of the Hippogriff ride.  This was an awesome ride because even Emma was tall enough!  And it was a fun little roller coaster.  So we and the Pedersens and Kurtis and Lauren all went.

With Buckbeak in the background

In line for the Hogwarts ride, in the Hogwarts Greenhouses.

More people kept joining this picture haha

The wait inside the castle was SO FUN, so many cool things to see!  it ended up being the kids' favorite part of the day, one of the best parts of the whole trip!

House points!

Dumbledore's office

talking paintings

Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom

The ride itself was fun but a little scary.  And Universal's Child Swap program ROCKS.  You wait in line together, then they have a cute room for you to wait in with the little child and the parents take turns going with the other kids.  Far superior to Disney's.

Then we explored the Marvel and Seuss parts of the park.

We ended up circling back around later in the day to buy souvenirs and get more frozen butterbeer-- SO GOOD!

And of course ended the day back at the house in the pool.  Here's Maris and Jayda, so cute.