Tag Archives: vacation

Aug12

Island Boat Lines Wildlife Tour

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Island Boat Lines Wildlife Tour

Hellooo everyone and happy Hump Day! So as you know, this week on lifewithlilred I’ll be discussing a different highlight of my Orlando, Florida vacation every day. Last Thursday my family took a break from hanging out at Universal Studios to go on an amazing wildlife tour through Island Boat Lines. We drove about an hour away to the 1,000 Islands of Cocoa Beach and boarded our “tour boat” in search of dolphins, manatees, and birds. I got to see some wildlife that we definitely don’t have in Ohio, so take a look at some pics and let’s get to it!

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The Island Boat Lines wildlife tour is two full hours of exploring the 1,000 Islands with the boat captain and two naturalists who are all extremely knowledgeable. Not only did I get to see a lot but I also learned so much from them as well! After a quick lesson on boat etiquette our tour began and within ten minutes of sailing we saw our first manatee! Unfortunately, these sweet and shy creatures were very difficult to photograph but let me tell you: THEY’RE SO CUTE!!! It was so fun to see their big ol’ bodies bobbing along in the water. The entire time I just wanted to jump out of the boat and pet them. We saw five or six manatees on our tour and of course there were more but they are pretty hard to spot because they blend in with the water so well.

All throughout our tour we saw an abundance of birds like pelicans, herons, storks, and anhingas. They were everywhere!! It seemed like wherever we looked they were perched in their trees, in flight, or in the stork’s case just hanging out in someone’s backyard. I’ll admit that I’m not much of a bird gal, I had two parakeets once…and they died…But that’s neither here nor there. The point is, that it was really cool to see these majestic creatures up close and personal because Ohio obviously doesn’t have anhingas flying around every time you turn a corner.

Not only did we see our fair share of animals but we also saw a lot of plants and flowers native to Florida. I was very excited to see a Naked & Afraid staple of the Mangrove Tree, myself! It was such a nice change to see vivid blossoming flowers and palm trees rather than the yellow grass and weeds that I’m used to in my neck of the woods. Speaking of grass, did you know that palm trees are actually a type of grass? You didn’t? ME EITHER!! #wildlifetour101

Everything that I got to see on the tour was awesome but the most memorable part of the wildlife cruise was seeing the dolphins!!!! During our two hour ride we saw eight to ten playful dolphins splashing and jumping about and it was something that I will never ever forget. Like the manatees, they were next to impossible to photograph but rest assured that they are  gorgeous! The major highlight of the tour was seeing two dolphins, a big and a little one, jumping at the same time. It looked like something you would see in a movie and I got to experience it first hand. Most importantly, I got to witness such beautiful creatures in their natural habitat doing what they do best…avoiding getting their picture taken. -_- 😉

If you are ever in the Orlando, Florida area, I seriously cannot recommend the Island Boat Lines wildlife tour enough. All of their information can be found on http://www.islandboatlines.com or they can be reached at 321-454-7414. Make sure to check them out!!

So there you have it, my Island Boat Lines Wildlife Tour experience! What was the most memorable animal you’ve seen in real life? Have you ever been on a tour similar to the one that I described? I wanna hear from all of you, so leave me a comment and let’s chat! Much love. -Sarah

PS: The stud in my featured image photo is my dad!!! Isn’t he handsome?! ❤

Aug11

The Wizarding World Of Harry Potter

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The Wizarding World Of Harry Potter

Hey heyyy everyone and happy Tuesday! As you guys know this week on lifewithlilred will be featuring posts all about my Universal Studios adventure, which started with yesterday’s Monday Update: Orlando Vacation Edition. To continue with this theme, I thought that we could finish our conversation about my favorite part of my vaca – The Wizarding World Of Harry Potter. Take a look at these cool pics and then let’s discuss:

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As I mentioned before, Universal Studios added on to The Wizarding World Of Harry Potter park with Diagon Alley. The pictures that I’ve posted and will continue to post throughout the week does not do the HP replicas justice in the slightest. We’ve already talked about a lot of what the newest HP park has to offer yesterday but we have yet to talk about all of the different rides, so let’s get on that!!

Diagon Alley features two new rides, an interactive train ride on the Hogwarts Express and Escape From Gringotts. The nice thing about boarding the Hogwarts Express is that it takes you to Hogsmeade, which lies in the neighboring park, the Islands of Adventure. And of course you can hop the train and head back to Diagon Alley. To get to the Hogwarts Express you must walk through Kings Cross station, complete with the luggage of Hogwarts students and a hologram which makes you look like you’re walking through the wall to Platform 9 3/4 to onlookers.

Once you’ve boarded the train you enter into a spacious cabin boasting luggage racks, plush seats, and framed photos of London. As the train begins to move you can see scenes of London streets, HP characters like Hagrid, and the approaching Hogwarts castle through your window. Make sure you pay attention to your cabin door as well, where you will see silhouettes of Harry, Ron, Hermoine, and the soul sucking Dementors. Once Harry’s Patronus charm chases the Dementors away, you can exit the train and you will find yourself right in the heart of Hogsmeade.

The second new ride in Diagon Alley is the Escape From Gringotts, a high speed 3D roller coaster. The awesome thing about a lot of the rides at Universal, specifically the HP rides, is that they make the waits in line completely tolerable because you are able to interact with your surroundings. In the line for Escape From Gringotts, you get to experience walking through a perfect replica of the bank, complete with high vaulted ceilings, crystal chandeliers, and talking and moving goblins. And it wouldn’t be a HP ride without talking and moving pictures on the wall!

After your walk through the bank, you board an elevator that’s measured in miles instead of floors to take you deep into the bottommost layers of Gringotts. Before you begin your mine cart ride, you get to see a short hologram interaction between Bill Weasley and a goblin, to tell you a little bit about what you’re in for during your tour of the Gringotts vaults. From there, you enter your mine cart and get down to business. If you are expecting a nice leisurely ride, you will be in for quite a shock…Especially during your run ins with trolls, dragons, Bellatrix, and Voldemort!

There are three rides in Hogsmeade, but I am only going to discuss one of them, as the other two are your standard roller coasters. One of the best rides that Universal Studios has to offer is Harry Potter & The Forbidden Journey. This is another 3D roller coaster which takes you on a grand tour of the Hogwarts castle and grounds. Similar to Escape From Gringotts, a lot of the fun is waiting in line! During your wait you get to walk through the corridors of Hogwarts, where you encounter holograms of Dumbledore, Harry, Ron, and Hermoine. You get a look at the greenhouse, the Gryffindor common room, as well as multiple classrooms. You also get to see the pictures on the walls interacting with each other. The most interesting picture experience comes from watching the founders of each house discuss letting muggle born students practice at Hogwarts. (We all know how Salazar Slytherin feels about this!) And of course, a tour through Hogwarts wouldn’t be complete without hearing the fat lady sing! All of this excitement occurs before even coming close to going on the ride!

You know that you’re in for a wild ride just from getting into your cart because they are moving along a platform at a pretty quick speed, and once you’re on and buckled in the ride begins. Harry Potter & The Forbidden Journey let’s you feel what it’s like to fly as you travel behind Harry and the gang, going everywhere from the Quidditch field to the Forbidden Forest. Be on the lookout though because your journey is filled with dangerous twists and turns, putting you face to face with giant spiders and Dementors. You get up close and personal with the HP trademark, the Whomping Willow, as well as a high speed adventure beneath the Quidditch field rafters a la Harry Potter & The Chamber Of Secrets. The Forbidden Journey is a long ride and by the time you’re done you really feel as though you made the million mile trip throughout the Hogwarts grounds. Shake it off and cool down with a delicious frothy Butterbeer…you earned it!!

So there you have it, the Lil Red inside look at the rides of The Wizarding World Of Harry Potter! Make sure you tune in at the same time and same place tomorrow for more of my Orlando, Florida vacation fun! Until then, have any of you been to Universal Studios before? What was your favorite ride there? I wanna hear from all of you, so leave me a comment and let’s chat! Much love. -Sarah

Aug10

Monday Update: Orlando Vacation Edition

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Monday Update: Orlando Vacation Edition

Helloooo everyone and welcome to a brand new edition of the Monday Update – Vacation style! This past week my family and I made an eighteen hour trek from Akron, Ohio to Orlando, Florida for some fun at Universal Studios! I arrived home at three fifteen on Sunday morning and I’m still recovering from the drive home, but that’s just a small price to pay for a week of paradise. Because my family did so much on our vacation, this week on lifewithlilred is going to be a bit different…Every day I’ll be posting a new segment about my vaca complete with pictures and witty commentary. But for now, let me throw a few pics on here and we can talk about some of the amazing things that Universal Studios has to offer!

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A year or so ago, a new edition was added onto The Wizarding World Of Harry Potter section of the amusement park – Diagon Alley. Previously, the Harry Potter park was limited to Hogsmeade and I must say, they really outdid themselves with both parks. The last time my family attended Universal, Diagon Alley was still in production so it was absolutely incredible to be able to experience the finished product, which can be seen in the first three pictures that I posted! You might notice in the pic of me in the telephone booth that I have a sign attached to the back of my shirt – this was an impromptu attempt at promoting lifewithlilred while exploring Universal Studios. Lol, anything for the sake of advertisement!

Anyways, back to Diagon Alley…It. Was. AWESOME. What was so cool about the newest addition to Universal Studios was how big it was! There were so many different twists and turns you could take throughout the park which lead to different shops, performances, and rides. Watch your step though, because you might end up in the dark and spooky Knockturn Alley, which was my favorite part of Diagon Alley. The execution of Knockturn Alley was exquisite…It captured the mood of the Dark Arts to perfection with pitch black corridors, singing shrunken heads, and wilted flowers adorning the windowsills. But the best part of Knockturn Alley was exploring Borgin & Burkes, a store for all of your Dark Arts needs.

Borgin & Burkes sold souvenirs, of course, but it also had tons of HP movie memorabilia, which included a Vanishing Cabinet made special for the park by the Potter prop masters. Stepping into Borgin & Burkes seriously felt like walking onto a Harry Potter movie set…that’s how authentic the creepy atmosphere was. The store was filled with “cursed” items that are easily recognizable from the books and movies, like the severed hand that closes itself onto you of you get too close! Borgin & Burkes was where I picked out a cool shirt for my sister donning the killing curse in ink and quill script…AVADA KEDAVRA!

If you’re looking to spend some moolah in Diagon Alley, then you can drop forty-eight bucks on a wand that let’s you interact with the park. In all of the windows of Diagon Alley, there are displays which will move with just a flick of your wrist. All you have to do is stand on the designated spot in front of the window, which is marked on the ground, and put your wand to use. I can imagine that there is some type of chip in the wand that activates the window displays which can be anything from making troll armor move to lighting up all of the candles in a window and blowing them out again. The interactive windows were a brilliant way of letting the park goers experience some magic and it was definitely cool to see what each display had to offer. I didn’t buy a wand because I got a lowtech one during my last trip, so I was a bit jealous of everyone who had one!

There’s a lot more to discuss about Diagon Alley, which will be saved for another article, so make sure you keep it posted on http://www.lifewithlilred.com to learn more about The Wizarding World Of Harry Potter! Until then, who has been to Universal Studios before? What was your favorite part of the park? I wanna hear from all of you, so leave me a comment and let’s chat! Much love. -Sarah

Aug7

Lil Red’s Vacation Homecoming!!

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Lil Red’s Vacation Homecoming!!

Helloooo everyone and TGIF! This post is going to be the last of my prewritten “away on vaca” articles and it’s just to let you know that I will be returning home soon! I will be back in action for the usual Monday Update and Man Crush Monday posts starting on the tenth! Until my homecoming, please continue to peruse the various archives of http://www.lifewithlilred.com. No matter what your interests are, I’m sure there is a post for you on my page somewhere! 🙂

Wish me save travels on my journey home and I will talk to you all very soon! What is everyone up to this weekend? Any fun plans? I wanna hear from all of you, so leave me a comment and let’s chat! Much love. -Sarah

Aug1

MIA On Vaca!!

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MIA On Vaca!!

Hello everyone and happy Saturday! This is an FYI announcement to let you guys know that I’ll be out of office starting today until the tenth because this bitch will be on vacation!!!! But fear not – I plan on prewriting some of the usual posts for you to enjoy on http://www.lifewithlilred.com including Man Crush Monday, Woman Crush Wednesday, and If The Shoe Fits. In fact, this post is prewritten! Until I return home, please continue to show the ol’ blog some love through your likes, follows, reblogs, and comments! There are now over three hundred and fifty posts for all of you to enjoy on lifewithlilred so make sure you scroll through the archives and check out some of the articles that you might have missed!

Oh…my bad, guys. I totally forgot to let you all know that I’ll be getting my Harry Potter on at Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’M SO EXCITED!! I can’t wait for a full week of nothing but exploring the amusement parks, eating hella food, and going to the beach! God knows I need it after an entire summer of slaving away on school work! I’ve been looking forward to this Florida trip for months and I plan on enjoying every second of it…except the eighteen hour drive. -__- #FML

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To anyone who is a Florida native or vacationer, I need your help! What are some of your favorite restaurants, bars, or shopping centers that I should visit? What television series should I watch on the drive to my vacation destination? I wanna hear from all of you, so leave me a comment and let’s chat! Much love. -Sarah

Jul13

Monday Update: Here Goes Nothing Edition

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Monday Update: Here Goes Nothing Edition

Hellooo everyone and happy Monday!! I hope that all of you had a fantastic weekend and a great start to your week so far. Some pretty exciting stuff has happened this past week so let’s dive right in and discuss:

So the first awesome happenstance occurred this past Wednesday when my brother, Peter, officially received his PhD in chemical engineering! He argued the thesis that he’s been working on for what seems like forever and all of the hard work finally paid off. Words can’t even describe how proud I am of him and his accomplishments. July is a great month for my family but specifically for Peter because in under two weeks he’ll be getting married to my future sister in law, Megan! They’ll be tying the knot at the end of the month and we’re all ecstatic. Peter and Megan will be honeymooning in Italy so if you live in the area make sure you keep your eyes out for them! YAY PETER!!!!

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Another little something something that I am so thrilled to announce is that I submitted my information to http://www.ModCloth.com to potentially do some modeling work for them. I was browsing on Mod during some downtime yesterday and just for fun I decided to look at the career section of the site. Under the hiring page they were advertising that they were searching for models of all sizes so I thought, “why not?” Lucky for me, ModCloth has a station in Pittsburgh which is only a two hour drive for me and I have family there so if I were to work there occasionally it wouldn’t be a problem. I feel like I would be a perfect model for ModCloth and I can’t even begin to tell you guys how desperately I want to work for them. I wrote up a fun “about me” bio, took my measurements, and picked out some pictures of me that I thought would showcase my ability and sent it their way. As I hit the “Send” button on the email I literally thought to myself “here goes nothing”, shut my eyes really tight, and hoped for the best. Please, please, please send some good vibes my way and who knows – maybe you’ll be seeing me on http://www.ModCloth.com sometime in the future! Fingers and toes crossed!

On top of all of the super fun stuff that’s happening, everything at school is going just swimmingly as well! I’ll be done with my summer courses in three weeks and I’m SOOO ready for them to be over! Two days after I’m officially donezo with my classes, my family and I will be heading off on vacation to Orlando, Florida so we can hit up Universal Studios. I can’t wait!!! Once we return from vaca, I’ll have a little less than a two week break and then my fall semester will begin. A lot of major events are happening in a short period of time and before I know it, I’ll be back on campus at Tri-C! All I have to say is, let’s do it! Here goes nothing! 🙂

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^^^ Sissy and I go hard! ❤

Well I must be off so I can get some more homework done, so I will talk to you all later! Until then, how was everyone’s weekend? Are there any other websites that you know of that need models? I wanna hear from all of you, so leave me a comment and let’s chat! Much love. -Sarah

May30

Best Dream Ever!

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Best Dream Ever!

Heyyyy everyone! So this past week I’ve been having the most god awful dreams ever – assaulted in a Taco Bell parking lot, assaulted in a mall (so many assaults!), and lots of murder. Luckily last night I had a totally amazing dream to make up for all of the shitty ones. I dreamed that I got a job as a character actor at Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida. It was seriously the best dream I’ve ever had and it felt SO real. As soon as I woke up I thought that my dream was my reality and I was so disappointed when I realized that I was still in my bed in lame old Ohio. But guess what? My family is vacationing at Universal Studios this August! So while I was in bed, I grabbed my iPod and Googled different careers at Universal Studios until I found the acting jobs. As I looked through the audition listings for all of the different character jobs at the amusement park, I saw that they were basically holding auditions for different characters and shows every two days. So if I’m lucky, there will hopefully be a bunch of different auditions that I can go to while my family is in the area. While looking further into the audition requirements, I was happy to find out that pretty much all you need is a one minute comedic monologue – which is easy peasy lemon squeezey! In case you guys weren’t aware, I’m a huge theater nerd and have acted in multiple shows, so a comedic monologue is no problemo. And lucky for me, I have the most perfect one in mind to brush up on if there are available audition times during my vacation. I mean really? How cool would that be to be a character actor at Universal Studios?! (Which happens to be one of my literal favorite places in the entire world!) My dream last night was just too cool to pass up a perfect opportunity to at least try my hand at an audition. I don’t think I would forgive myself if I didn’t give an audition my best shot while I just happen to be in the area – which is a whopping eighteen hours away from Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio! So why not, right? And no matter what happens, it will be an amazing experience and I’ll be able to say that I tried my absolute best!

I hope all of you are having a fabulous weekend so far! Are any of you into acting? What was the last show you performed in? Are you or someone you know a character actor at an amusement park? I wanna hear from all of you, so leave me a comment and let’s chat! Much love. -Sarah