It’s our last full day at Give Kids the World (@GKTWVillage)

It's our last day at Give Kids the World and we can't get a consensus of what everyone wants to do. It's more like what everyone feels up to doing. Elliott and Emmett don't want to even go to breakfast, but they do want to go to SeaWorld. It does appear that the bulk of the rain will be holding off unril later this afternoon. That would allow us to pull off SeaWorld. Personally, I'm feeling exhausted and not at all looking forward to the eighteen hour drive home tomorrow. Can we just stay here, and make this our new home?

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The weather has canceled our plans for today

There are zero plans for today because it's storming and will continue to for the next few days. Going to any parks is simply unrealistic at this point. Our priority for today is to attend the Christmas party tonight. Apparently, Santa is going to make an appearance and deliver presents to the kids. Needless to say, the kids are super excited about that. ☺ I'm going to grab a nap because I was up with Emmett throughout the night and I'm still worn out from yesterday.

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Wishes Can Happen: Pictures from Universal Studios (Day 4)

We had a pretty awesome day, and spent a large part of it at Universal Studios. We were very realistic about the kids limitations and rather than trying to create in as much as we could, we instead focused on what everyone wanted most. Our priority was everything Harry Potter and we managed to do just that. The weather was really crappy and it rained most of the time but that didn't stop us from making the most of our opportunity. Lizze and the boys picked out their official Harry Potter wands and aside from almost having a stroke when I paid for them, it was such an amazing thing to see the looks on their faces as they swished and flicked. ☺ We spent a few hours walking around…

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We’re heading off to Universal Studios today

We're going to be heading off to Universal Studios today. Everyone wants to see the Harry Potter stuff and buy their very own Harry Potter wand. The boys are in a pretty good mood this morning, with the exception of Elliott. He's being super grouchy and uncooperative. Part of that is he's still feeling rundown but the rest of it is anxiety/Autism, with a smidgen of pre-teen drama. I'm hoping everything works out today. It should be fun and I'm feeling pretty good about the balance were striking between time at the parks and time at the condo. ☺

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Give Kids the World (@GKTWVillage): Pictures from Day 3

I've already shared how we stayed close to home (our condo) today. Elliott wasn't feeling well and we're trying to balance everything out so the kids don't implode from overstimulation. It was kind of a lazy day and I really feel like that was the right decision. We explored Give Kids the World Village and checked a bunch of things out. We hit the ice cream parlor and visited a few of the other amazing things that GKTW has to offer. Lizze has made it her mission to photograph all of the fire hydrants because they're all painted in cute little costumes. I think she got all of them today and they really are super creative. ☺ The boys and I spent some time catching a few of the lizards…

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Terrifying: One of my kids with #Autism wandered off while on vacation

The family and I just got back to our condo after a roughly two hour long excursion. We walked the entirety of Give Kids the World Village and then went to dinner. As we were heading off to the café, Emmett said something about taking a shortcut. We thought he meant looping around the sidewalk but instead, he took off running behind one of the buildings and was gone. It took us a bit to find him and it was terrifying. On one hand, I knew he could get out of the village and would be found, but at the same time he was gone. Lizze went in one direction, while the boys and I went in the other. Thankfully, she found him waiting for us at the café. We…

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Behavioral problems we’re dealing with while on vacation

We're having an amazing time in Florida and for the most part, it's going really well. There's so much benefit to having time away from our lives like this, but there's also a downside as well. The downside I'm referring to is in regards to Autism related complications. It's nothing terrible but it does present challenges that we don't necessarily see at home. Emmett's default setting right now is teetering on the brink of overload. There's so many awesome things going on that he feeling overwhelmed by the entirety of them. It's not anything that anyone is doing wrong, it's simply the nature of the beast. We've had some very public Meltdowns over things like his food touching and other sensory related things. When it comes to Gavin, he's struggling…

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