Downtown Deland is really beautiful, with great restaurants, fun stores, tons of flowers, and great random art in alleys...
We also had a great time with Papa at their community pool, but I was enjoying the water myself and didn't take photos.
Grandma Pat arrived at the Orlando airport a couple days later. She arranged for us to all stay at an Orlando hotel, so we turned it into chance to explore Orlando attractions. We didn't want to deal with a huge, expensive, crowded attraction (so Disney was definitely out). But there are plenty of other things to do in Orlando. Before Grandma Pat arrived, we checked out "Fun Spot America", a lower key amusement center full of family rides. We were attracted to it because of the large number of go-cart options (since Ronan is still into car racing). We started with with smallest go-cart attraction, since it was the only one where Ronan was tall enough to drive a car by himself.
Luckily there was some problem with taking tickets so the worker there let the kids go on the ride for free. I say "luckily" because it was absolutely lame. It was a really small track with tight turns that the cars couldn't make without hitting the sides. And when they hit the sides, the car would stop. The poor worker had to run between the three cars non-stop to get them started again, because the kids could only ride for about 3 seconds before their cars got stuck again! Yeah...I took a photo to show what it was truly like...
However, the kids remained very positive. We were able to all go on a larger, more challenging course together (with parents driving) and it was a lot of fun.
Entrance to the park is free, then you can either pay for individual rides or get an all-day ride bracelet. Since we were only going for a short period of time, we just decided to pay per ride, which worked out well. There were a lot of rides we didn't get to, but we can always go back again some day. We were really excited to see this double-decker carousel - we'd never seen one before. Brielle and Ronan are riding on the upper level.
It was a really hot day, so after a few rides the kids wanted to just play a little bit in the arcade.
Then we picked up Grandma Pat! It was really nice to relax in the hotel and let the kids play in the pool while we enjoyed the beautiful evening weather with a glass of wine.
We decided that the next day we'd explore Winter Park, since our family had never been there before but have always heard good things about it. It's a suburb of Orlando. First we went to the Tiffany Glass Museum (actually known as the Morse Museum), since we all love stained glass. We were lucky to be there on a Tuesday at 11, which is the only time during the week when they offer free family tours. The kids participated in an educational tour and were sent home with an art project to work on. While inside, we were able to walk around and visit the rest of the museum, which was beautiful and impressive. Photos weren't allowed.
For lunch we checked out a vegan restaurant that had some great food and some complete fails and mistakes. It took too long to eat there (which is often the problem with vegan and vegetarian restaurants, which is why we usually don't go to them), but we managed to run out of there in time to catch a boat tour that we really wanted to do.
The boat ride goes out into a lake then winds through beautiful, shaded canals into other connecting lakes. The tour guide spoke about the history of the area and pointed out interesting facts about the gorgeous houses on the shores. He also threw out a horrific number of kindof clever puns, which was impressive and painful for everyone. But it was really beautiful and peaceful. It was very hot outside, but with the breeze it wasn't too bad. It was great to see this beautiful town.
Back at the house we enjoyed our usual fun activities of playing in the pool and eating great meals (and I made a couple of them!). Grandma Pat was amazing at playing with the kids for hours at a time and they absolutely loved it.
And of course we visited our local beach. We often see tortoises in the dunes, but we were all excited to see one up close next to the road.
Then we saw this colorful grasshopper on the boardwalk to the beach.
The water was warm and wonderful. I played with the kids in the water and took some time to collect seashells as Grandma Pat kept an eye on them. July has been really hot, but the benefit is that the ocean and pools feel like a perfect escape. 
We enjoyed a great dinner at The Columbia on our last night. Thank you, Grandma Pat, for a great visit, and for taking a rare family photo of us!
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