That Time We Had A Lazy Weekend...

Typically our family is go-go-go. We like to have fun and spend lots of family time at least every weekend. Whether it be a trip to the zoo, Disney, or something else, we like these crazy outings. However, this weekend we have just wanted time to ourselves, time to unwind, and time to RELAX. With my team's track season ending this seemed to be the weekend to do it and just lay around doing nothing just like the Bruno Mars song...Lazy Song

Now, we did not just do nothing all weekend and lay in our PJs. My family still went to church, still went to get groceries, and made a stop at the Catholic Store in Tampa. However, we didn't have some all day event and just chose to stay home for this one weekend. Sometimes, we all need these kinds of weekends. Sometimes, we just need to recharge our batteries and that is what my family has done this weekend. It is important to have these types of weekends from time to time especially with a lovely pregnant wife who can use the rest.

This weekend is also just another chance to reflect and realize how blessed we are. I am blessed. My family is blessed and you are blessed. We are blessed with life, with nature, with wonderful people. Sometimes it seems like some of us are more blessed than others. Circumstances dictate that we all have different challenges and obstacles, but it's how we embrace them that dictates how things will go. It is taking the time to recharge and reflect that we are able to really put things into perspective. These are the moments that allow us to be thankful. To appreciate the times and the people in our life that make them so great. I thank God for all the things that he has put in my life and embrace the challenges that the future brings. Judging by our past, the future for my family looks bright. Trusting in God and his plan will make it all the brighter.

In the future weekends, I will try my best to remember this reflection and try to embrace everything. It is important to stay on the positive train and look at opportunities for the potential happiness that they possess. One quote I remembered this weekend that I absolutely love is from the original first lady Martha Washington...

"The greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions and not our circumstances." -Martha Washington

Of course sometimes its easy to keep a positive disposition especially with this little guy around....

Try to keep that positive disposition at all times. It is near impossible with the business of life, but just remember. There is someone somewhere that unconditionally loves you as well. Try to remember these people. If you cannot believe that, you can hopefully believe that Jesus is always there for you and will always love you no matter what. Happy Holy Week people!

-Noland

ZooZoo Review Zoo Ratings So Far

On Tuesday, I announced that ZooZooReview would be moving from Blogspot over to this blog. This site is where we have reviewed zoos all across the United States, but mostly in Florida. To catch you up with what you have missed, this post is to inform you of our best and worst zoos so far.

Today, we will take a look back at what we have rated each zoo so you can see how many elephants each of the zoos we have reviewed has received. For each zoo we use a rating scale from 0 to 5 elephants with 5 being the best. We have seen some awesome zoos and some zoos that are not so great. Here are the ratings.

O Elephants
The Seas @ Epcot - Lake Buena Vista, FL

0.5 Elephants
No Zoos @ This Ratings

1 Elephants
No Zoos @ This Rating

1.5 Elephants
Clearwater Marine Aquarium - Clearwater, FL

2 Elephants
Leesburg Animal Farm - Leesburg, VA
Mote Marine Laboratory - Sarasota, FL
South Carolina Aquarium - Charleston, SC
Tallahassee Museum - Tallahassee, FL
Tarpon Springs Aquarium - Tarpon Springs, FL
Wakulla Springs - Wakulla, FL

2.5 Elephants
Gulfworld Marine Park - Panama City Beach, FL

3 Elephants
Florida Aquarium - Tampa, FL (will be higher upon update which is coming soon)
Gatorland Zoo - Orlando, FL
Royal Gorge - Canyon City, CO
Sea World Orlando - Orlando, FL
Wild Adventures - Valdosta, GA
Zoo America - Hershey, PA

3.5 Elephants
No Zoos @ This Rating

4 Elephants
Montgomery Zoo - Montgomery, AL (Guest Post)
National Aquarium - Baltimore, MD

4.5 Elephants
National Zoo - Washington DC
Reston Zoo - Reston, VA (Zoo Controversy)

5 Elephants
Busch Gardens - Tampa, FL
Disney's Animal Kingdom - Lake Buena Vista, FL
Jacksonville Zoo - Jacksonville, FL
Lowry Park Zoo   - Tampa, FL
Maryland Zoo - Baltimore, MD
Zoo Atlanta - Atlanta, GA

Any zoo at or above a 3 rating is one which we would visit again. The zoos below 3 we will probably not be going back to unless we are starving for something to do. We would check out someplace new instead of going back to those zoos.

Looking at our ratings you can see that we absolutely loved 6 zoos and those zoos got 5 elephant ratings. We will go back to each of those zoos someday. Two zoos got 4.5 ratings and were really good, but one of those zoos has had some controversy and we won't be returning. We will likely visit the 4 elephant zoos again. There were also six 3 elephant zoos which we will likely go back to.  There are 6 2 elephant zoos that were okay. We rated only two zoos below a two so far and one was the Seas at Epcot, only because it is a ripoff solely for the zoo. However, since it is a part of Disney and we will likely have passes again at some point, we will be back there. Look forward to many other exciting ratings to come this year and beyond.

In the coming weeks look for Sarasota Jungle Gardens, The Brevard Zoo, The Central Florida Zoo, ZooWorld, and an update of the Florida Aquarium.

-Noland

Busy Busy Busy

In life we have all become very busy. That is no different in our family than in yours. Despite my two-week spring break (yes two weeks, go year round school!) I have still found myself to be quite busy lately. With a pregnant wife, a wild two year old, teaching, and coaching full time, it is pretty tough to find extra time for the little things in life. It is important to stay busy, but to also make time for everything that you need to get done. We have stayed busy, but no more than normal I don't think. We have made plans during spring break that have taken up all of our time, including the time I normally spend on the blog in the morning. Actually, I have been sleeping later by about an hour during spring break and haven't been as active on the blogs. However, I found some time today and Jenna and I wanted to announce some changes coming soon to This Little Light.

Since this blog is largely about our family life and some tips that our family has for others, it will be moving more and more towards that theme. We will be posting more pics of our family and talk more about our adventures to Disney and other places. Those other places include of course the zoo! With a little one that's favorite place is the zoo, it seems natural to move those posts over to this blog. It seemed silly to keep up two separate blogs that go over the same thing. Therefore, over the next few weeks, we will be moving all of our ZooZooReview blogs over to this blog. It will help us post more regularly and post about more new and exciting things. We have visited several zoos in Florida over the past few weeks and cannot wait to share. This spring break alone we visited ZooWorld in Panama City and the Central Florida Zoo in Sanford. We also plan on visiting Lowry Park again at least once. Hopefully, by Friday the posts will be moved over here so you can get a feel for how our zoo reviews go. If this task is not done by Friday, the posts will still be moved in the next few weeks so stay tuned.

Life has stayed busy during spring break, but that is partially necessary so that it was able to stay fun. There always needs to be times for those fun and awesome moments (some of which were captured below). There always will be time for these moments with our family and we look forward to sharing the moments with you.
From our family to yours, we hope that you enjoy the changes and are having a wonderful week. We also would like to wish you a Happy Saint Patrick's Day and God bless!
At Spring Training Game @ Wide World Of Sports

Playground @ ZooWorld

Getting Ready For A Spring Break Trip

Excited @ The Brevard Zoo

Sometimes You Got To Make Your Own Dinosaur Train

Kisses For Me While I Was @ A Track Meet

Family Fun Day @ Sarasota Jungle Gardens

Raising Him Right With The Noles

Fun With Cousins

More Fun With Cousins


-Noland

Clearwater Marine Aquarium

Clearwater Marine Aquarium

Clearwater, FL

www.seewinter.com

Date of Visit: Summer 2012

Admission: $21.95

Hours: 9AM-6PM

Quick Intro

As you have probably figured out by their website name the Clearwater Marine Aquarium is where the Dolphin Tale movies were filmed. Judging by that fact it seemed like it would be a cool little place to check out. It was reasonably priced and local to where we were at the time. They rescue, research, rehabilitate, and release animals so the mission is awesome. It is a tad smaller though than most places we have visited.

Highlights

The rescue part of it, winter's story, the sea turtles, and the pelicans were all neat.

Disappointments

Wish it was much bigger and had a wider variety of animals to look at.

Pictures from the website

Turtle Bayou

Shipwreck Alley

Otter Oasis

Shark Pass

Rufus Beach

Winter Zone

Rating

I gave this zoo 1.5 out of 5 elephants.
This zoo gets ranked higher than the Seas at Epcot because it is a rehab zoo that does a tremendous job. If you have seen the Dolphin Tale movie and liked it, I am sure that adds something to it as well. It also isn't too expensive. Most importantly though as far as viewing animals it is not an impressive place to be so it can't be ranked too high. Just from an amount of animals to look at, it matches up about even with Tarpon Springs, but Tarpon Springs is 1/3 the price. Therefore, this had to be somewhere in between 0 and 2. Putting it on the higher end of that because of the entertainment value of Winter and the mission of the aquarium.

-Noland

Hollywood Studios Upgrades

We believe that we have become experts of sorts on all things Disney World. Throughout the year with our passes we learned a lot about how the parks work and how to navigate them. It was a good time for us to learn what to do and how to do it. Through all of that though, it was apparent that one park needed some major upgrades and that park was Hollywood Studios.

As much as we love Hollywood Studios, it was difficult to attend with a toddler. The reason it was so difficult is that currently this park only has 5 rides operating. Three of those rides (Tower of Terror, Rock n'Roller Coaster, and Star Tours) have a height requirement of 40" to ride. My son is quite tall for his age, but he is not 40" tall so those three are out for Hollywood Studios. This leaves us with little options when attending that particular park as a family. Those options decrease because the Toy Story line is never less than an hour and we are not fans of The Great Movie Ride. Now, we are able to get by because of character meet and greets, and the Disney Jr. show, but the park needs to increase it's level of family entertainment for this park to reach its full potential. We always make sure we get a Toy Story Midway Mania fastpass+ before we go here so we have as many options as possible. Unfortunately, everyone else can not be so lucky. Other great offerings at the studios are Character Palooza and The Osborne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights. However, Palooza isn't advertised (for good reason) and the Light show is only during Christmas. Those going can see Fantasmic, but often have to wait close to an hour for seats on many occasions. It is no wonder why this is the least crowded park at Walt Disney World and there obviously needs to be some changes about it.

Knowing there is an issue in this regard, Disney has decided to make some adjustments at this park. First, Disney decided to remove the Sorcerer's hat. This move is appealing to those who like the classic look of Disney before they get shocked by all the changes. It makes it more difficult for young families that grew up with the hat like myself, but those who remember the previous view of the Chinese Theater love it. That is the group Disney was trying to appease with this move. Not only that, but moving the hat symbolizes that this park is upgrading and heading in a new direction. The upgrades are something that I think everyone is excited about.

After removing the hat, Disney will continue the transformation of the park. The most significant talk is around doubling the size of Toy Story Midway Mania and Pixar Place in general. By doubling the size they would cut down wait time significantly. Opening a larger portion of the ride would be a huge boost by allowing more people to ride the park's biggest attraction. Expanding the entire Pixar section which certainly seems to be happening, would allow the Studios to add rides from popular movies such as Finding Nemo, Cars, and Monsters Inc. Additionally, they would be able to add more from the fantastic Toy Story franchise. Since Toy Story has been gold in the parks, this would be the strongest idea IMO. Rumored future attractions include an Army Men Drop, Slinky ride, Radiator Springs Racers, and a Monsters Inc. Door Coaster. All of those rides would be exciting, but any Pixar attractions would be sure to spice up the parks.

One other expansion that has been confirmed is a Stars Wars section being made at the park. While this expansion was put on hold last year, it will be happening at some point in the not too distant future. It was put on hold to include elements from the Episode 7 movie among other things. There is no doubt that Hollywood Studios will have an increased Star Wars presence. Talk exists that one new attraction could be a Star Wars Speeder Bike Coaster. The new coaster would be a fantastic attraction. It would seem that the Pixar section would be more family friendly and at least one major coaster would go in this Star Wars section. Additional rumors exist that the Indiana Jones stunt show will close for a Star Wars themed show. If that happens though, it will be far down the road. No doubt that Star Wars will add a much needed punch to the parks.

Finally, there are several rumors surrounding the shows at Hollywood Studios. People love the shows at Hollywood Studios and they have helped keep the park afloat all these years. However, they seem to be outdated. These shows are simply not as good as the Finding Nemo and Lion King shows at Animal Kingdom. Considering the name of the park is Hollywood Studios, this park NEEDS better shows. Not only do they need better shows, but the shows should be the best in the parks. I personally love the Indiana Jones show, but it gets old after a while. Meanwhile the shows at AK never get old. There are definitely better options out there for shows. This is certainly true about the Little Mermaid show which is not as cool as the ride at MK and the overrated Beauty and the Beast show. In fact, the Beauty and the Beast show was listed on my overrated attraction list. Now, there has been talk that Beauty and the Beast would be replaced by either a Tangled show or a Frozen show. Sign me up for Tangled, that show has an incredible amount of potential. If they got Mandy Moore to do it once and a while, I would be quite happy. Besides the fact that Jenna and I enjoy Tangled more, Anna and Elsa are being pushed far too hard on people. Personally, we understand all the Frozen updates, but a show with the rides and everything else could easily be overkill. Meanwhile, Tangled is not represented at all.

Removing that Indiana Jones show is on the backburner with all of these other updates, but will happen eventually. The question is what show replaces it? My guess would be that a show around Star Wars will eventually take its place, but I would enjoy a Monsters Inc. show or another Disney movie show. Personally, I believe a Jungle Book show would be the best idea in its spot. However, I realize that is quite unlikely. The Little Mermaid show is likely also on the backburner to be removed. This should happen though because it doesn't fit with the theme of that part of the park. It is all Disney Jr. stuff over there. I suggest either an additional Meet N' Greet with the other Disney Jr. characters (Sheriff Callie, Henry Hugglemonster, Handy Manny, Little Einsteins, etc.) or another Disney Jr. themed attraction. If they do a show, a cool idea that won't be considered is a Tinga Tinga Tales show! That was mine and Jenna's favorite cartoon on Disney Jr. to watch with our Jr. Another Disney Jr. attraction either a ride, a Meet N' Greet, or show would help make this park even more family friendly. Making it more family friendly would surely increase park attendance.

Hollywood Studios is a fantastic park, but it will get even better and that is exciting!!!

Here are some fun pictures of us at Hollywood Studios during our year with passes.
Hollywood Studios @ Christmas Time

Hollywood Studios is the 1st Park Jr. Walked In

The pictures were mostly from Christmas, but some other events were featured in these photos, like Fantasmic!
Have a fantastic weekend people!

-Noland