Florida, Day 1......Daytona & Pirates!

Our first day in Florida we slept in.  We were all very tired from the late night/early morning.  We decided to head out to Daytona.  Originally when we were to go last February we had purchased tickets to the Gatorade Duels along with Sprint fan zone passes.  So since there is no racing going on (I should say NASCAR) we decided to show the boys the track and to take a tour.  Now they keep talking about coming back for a race!  The tour we went on included several different stops.  We drove down pit road.  We stopped at the start/finish line and walked on the track - there is only an 18 degree banking there.  We drove around the whole track - checking out that 30 degree banking - that is scary.  It's hard to believe that there are 43 cars, sometimes 3 wide going over 200mph on that kind of banking - it's amazing.  We also got to see Nationwide & Sprint Cup car garages, where the drivers have their meeting, victory lane, the Sprint fan zone, where they inspect the cars and even went up into the sky boxes where broadcasters sit.  The tour ended with a quick movie and getting to see the car from last year's Daytona 500 winner (Matt Kenseth)!  The boys really enjoyed the visit.  Here are a FEW pictures of our time at Daytona International Speedway!

 
Here we are in Victory Lane!!
 
 
 
 
The boys with Matt Kenseth's car.  It still had all the confetti and "stuff" all over it!
 
 
Well, since we slept in and Daytona was an hour drive away from our condo, we didn't have much time to spend at any other places in Daytona - we had dinner reservations at 7!  It was New Year's Eve and I wanted to do something special with the boys.  Have you ever heard of Medieval Times?  Well we didn't take the kids there!!  We took them to a Pirate Dinner Theatre.  It is very similar to Medieval Times - you eat your supper while you watch the show.  It has live actors.  I LOVE Medieval Times and would have loved to have taken the boys there, but I knew that they wouldn't have eaten anything.  The good thing about the Pirate Dinner Theatre was that they had a kids menu - mac & cheese with chicken nuggets!!  They had said to arrive 90 minutes before your time - which really wasn't necessary - but since we didn't know that at the time, we did show up early.  They were still doing their Christmas show (which honestly, I never really caught the plot - I was confused of the story line most of the night).  The boys really enjoyed it.  It was a lot of fun and good food! 

 
 
Cheers! (this picture was better than the family one we took)
 
 
 
This was the blue Pirate, Benjamin - we were in his cheering section!

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