Photos from Universal Orlando

I included some of the photos I took on my posts about our Florida vacation, but wasn't able to show you some of the best ones until now. These are the pictures that the Universal Orlando photographers took at many of the park's attractions. We ended up buying quite a few of those professional photos. They're not cheap, but for me the best souvenirs are the memories we made and these photos help to preserve some of the best ones.

This first picture was taken just before we rode on Escape from Gringotts, the fantastic Harry Potter attraction that we saw first at Universal Studios.

From that same photo, we also purchased a Gringotts ID for Kai. One of the things I like about these pictures are that they have the date printed right on them.

This next photo was taken during the Men in Black ride, where you ride around and shoot aliens. My wife commented on how serious I look and how competitive I always am. What's funny is that she actually won this one, scoring about double of the points of me and Kai combined. Kai just looks happy.

After buying a couple of photos already that first day, I wasn't planning to spend more money. But after Kai enjoyed the thrilling Revenge of the Mummy ride, I just had to buy this next photo.

Here's a closeup of the same picture. You can see Kai clutching Mom's arm, but with a big smile on his face. Meanwhile I look like I am hanging on for dear life. Ha!

The next day we went to Universal's Islands of Adventure park. The water rides were especially refreshing on a hot day when temperatures hit 90 degrees.

This next photo was taken just as we are dropping on the steep part of the Dudley Do-Right's Ripsaw Falls ride. I love Kai's expression - it's a mixture of happiness and terror as he's bracing for the big drop and big splash at the bottom.

The following photo might be my favorite. After we got off the Jurassic Park River Adventure, we went to look at the picture. The man operating the register looked at the photo and said to Kai, 'Oh oh, are you alright?' Take a look at the picture and you can understand why he asked.

By the way, Kai actually loved the ride!

On our last day in Orlando, we went to the Wet 'n Wild waterpark. This park will close after this year so we are among the last ones to experience it.

Kai loved all of the slides. The following photo was taken on our last ride of the day down his favorite one of all, Disco H2O.

Here are the three of us afterward:

Ah yes, great times and great memories!