Weekend Post

   Hi everyone. I hope you are having a lovely weekend. It's gotten cold  in my area for the last few days, but luckily it is supposed to warm up a little bit during the upcoming week because I still have leaves to clean up. 

   Today  I'm joining Nicole for her Sunday in the Art Room (also known as Sitar) and Gillena for her Hey It's Sunday.

   If you stop by my blog frequently you may have read that I took off for a girls trip to Florida with my friend Deb. This time we headed for  the big amusement parks mainly because there was a new Harry Potter exhibit called the Ministry of Magic at one of the Universal Parks in Orlando. We booked our trip back in February through Costco, and on this trip we even splurged and went for a one day pass over to Disney's Animal Kingdom park too.  I had never been there and figured since we were in the area, we might as well check it out.

   As you may know, one  of the things the parks do exceptionally well is create a themed based  atmosphere. When I visited the Harry Potter World exhibits a couple of years ago, I felt like I was immersed in one of the books. Of course that's what the parks want to do, hoping you'll spend lots of money on food, photos and souvenirs. I was not exactly buying lots of souvenirs or anything else, but I do enjoy seeing all the scenery details and snapping lots of photos with my phone. (Since we went on  a ride or two most days, I don't bother to bring my actual camera on a trip like this.)

  Today for my Sunday art, I'm going to share some of those artistic details from the new Ministry of Magic part of the newer Universal Studios park called Epic Adventure.  We spent 2 half days in this part of the park. The beauty of getting our package through Costco, (who I am not working for but I must say their prices- at least back in February when we booked- were great)  was that our tickets  allowed us to change parks as many times a day as we wanted on park transportation. Plus staying in the park we were able to get early admission to the parks before the mid-to-late day crowds came in.

  These  next photos were taken first thing in the morning when we took advantage of early admission and had much smaller crowds. Here we go. Off to 1920's  magical Paris which was the theme of this new park within the bigger park.

   The treats below were actual edible ones in a patisserie in the park. But look at the colors. I did not splurge on any though.

  The tent in the photo below led into a show, which was another thing the parks do well. None of them were more than 30 minutes long, but they usually had some fun light and other effects. This particular show wasn't bad, but was not my favorite. (But the new ride in this area, which I'm not including here, was fantastic.)

     And here's a few photos I took in this same area on Sunday when we were there in the afternoon and so it was a bit more crowded.

    Even if theme parks are NOT your thing, I hope you enjoyed the photos.  Have a great rest of your weekend and start to the new week.