I have a ton of pictures from our trip, so I decided to break it up. I figured people did not want to sit and look at 100+ pictures in one post. So here we go with the first part of our journey. We flew a total of 6 hours to get to Orlando. It was a long time for all of us, but the kids handled it really well!
My sister made matching shirts for all of us to wear the day of the competition to support my mom. We also wore them on the flight over.
Miss H says no pictures please!
We arrived at basically the same time as my mom and I rode with her over to the hotel. I was starving because our layover was so short we didn't get a lunch. So we scoped out the place while looking for dinner and it was a super impressive hotel.
These are the two fountains where the ducks hang out. The ducks are a favorite at the hotel.
One of many beautiful chandeliers they had.
In front of one of the restaurants the hotel had. There were a lot of places to eat, but they were really expensive. Pillsbury gave us a food allowance to eat, but our money went really fast. For example a yogurt parfait that was a cup with granola cost me $8. For a cup of fruit it was $11. Needless to say I am glad I brought snacks with me to munch on. Even though it technically wasn't my money, I am so cheap it was hard for me to spend.
This was our mirror in the bathroom. It had a television in it which made me laugh.
The pool was our view out of our room window. It was huge and had a lot of different things to do. They had a slide, fountains, waterfalls and a sand area for the kids. Then those tents along the side were set up with a mini bar, flat screen televisions and people who gave massages. I couldn't capture it in the photo but they have ducks all along the top of the roof too. You can see the tip of the ducks in the bottom left of the photo.
Mom went to register on Sunday and I went with her. Even though the competition was in one of the ballrooms, it was a LONG walk. This hotel was like a convention center. It was absolutely huge!
The signs leading up to registration.
Mom's recipe was on the first sign outside of the Bake Off Competition. We had to take a picture of her next to it.
This is outside of the ballroom where they baked. The table was set up later with all the contestants creations which I will show pictures of later.
This was one of the lobby's leading to the competition.
The first night we had a reception with different representatives of stores the contestants shopped at. Not every contestant was invited to go here, just those whose stores came to support the Bake Off. Safeway was there, along with Walmart, etc. We ate lots of good appetizers and drank Sprites. The whole purpose of this reception was to celebrate and rub elbows with people. There was a lot of drinking involved, just not by us haha. Mom and I got to meet the President of Pillsbury and she was so kind the whole competition. She came up and introduced herself to us during this reception which was really cool.
We then went to dinner with the rest of the contestants. The food was fabulous and it was interesting hearing everyone's story on how they made it there. A third of the contestants were there for their second or third time. How crazy is that?
At dinner.
Even their butter was shaped as little ducks.
Monday was a big day. It was the day of the Bake Off! We got up nice and early for our 6:30 am breakfast (which back home is really 4:30 am!) We didn't get very much sleep this trip.
We snapped a quick picture with mom before the competition began in our matching shirts and then she was off to bake!
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