Sea World

By vicki on July 20, 2010

The next day we decided to give Sea World a try. I haven’t been there since I was a kid so it was a new experience for all of us. Once again, the entire southeastern U.S. had the same idea. Ugh. I was done with crowds before the day ever started.

To be honest, the whole Sea World experience was a little eh for me. The shows were cool but the girls were much more excited about going on rides but the rides were limited because all 3 of the girls are short.

The older two really wanted to ride a big coaster but they couldn’t meet the height requirement. They begged us to be measured so they would know how close they were. It was so pitiful I had to take a picture. . .see that bar above Bryn’s head? If her head could make that bar move, she was allowed to go on. Not even close. Check Lydia out: standing there with her arms crossed completely frustrated with her vertical challenges. Ha!

So we were forced to hang out on the little kiddo rides all day. Here’s Conrad being a sport:

My favorite thing was admiring the sea creatures. Amazing! Conrad took this picture of me checking out the sharks swimming over my head:

We also enjoyed the shows, especially Shamu:

We had a lot of fun but by that night we were all done with being hot, sweaty, and sunscreeny. We were all happy to lay down our weary heads when we got back to the hotel.

On our last day in Florida, we hung out at the hotel pool and that evening we went mini-golfing. I was dreading it (I was so tired of the heat and the crowds, it just didn’t sound like fun to me at all), but it ended up being a really good time.

The next morning we packed up and headed north. Our plan was to stop for the night but the more we drove the more anxious we were to get home. We pushed hard and pulled into our driveway at 4:00 the next morning. Home.

I could tell you endless stories of fun conversations we had as a family, or how we had a family talent show one night in the condo, or about the fun people we met along the way. But I am feeling a need to move on to more current happenings. I may refer back to our trip now and then and I still hope to write a post about the family reunion, but other than that, I’m moving on to other things. . . stay tuned!

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amy

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Orlando

By vicki on July 16, 2010

Ok. I lied. I told you that I would be taking you to my family reunion in the deep south. Well, as I was preparing that post I realized that I’m not all that happy with the pictures I took that weekend so I’m going to postpone writing that until I get the pictures that others took of the reunion. I hope to have it to you soon. . . if the Good Lord’s a willin’ and the creek don’t rise and Aunt Linda sends pictures. Amen.

So, on to the final leg of our journey: Orlando. We flew into Orlando on Sunday afternoon, got settled into our hotel and headed to Downtown Disney. If you’ve been reading my blog for a while you’ll know that we’ve been to Disney a couple of times, including an extended family trip last summer. Call me what you will, but if I’m completely honest, I get a little Disney-ed out. I mean I love it because the girls love it, but the crowds, the heat, the lines, the expense, it just gets to be too much for this mama.

But Downtown Disney is different. I love it because a) There’s no admission fee, b) It has great restaurants and c) There’s a Ghirardelli Chocolate shop and they hand out free samples.

So Sunday night we hung out downtown. The problem was that it was July 4th and approximately half all of the southeastern U.S. had the same idea. Oh the crowds. I would enjoy Disney so much more if we could be there all by ourselves. We headed back to our hotel without seeing even a single firework (or is it single fireworks? I’m struggling with that grammar, I really am).

Monday morning we woke up to pouring rain and the weatherman said that this was not a typical Florida thunderstorm that passes quickly. He predicted that it would rain at a steady drizzle all day. We were really disappointed about that because we had planned to go to Sea World that day.

So to make a long story a little shorter, we decided to scrap Sea World and just hang out at Downtown Disney. There are plenty of indoor things to see and do, and we were determined to not let the rain ruin a perfectly good day.

The first thing we did was buy tickets to see Shrek 4. The movie didn’t start until 1:30 and it was only 12:00 so we decided to grab some lunch before the movie. We wandered from restaurant to restaurant trying to find something that sounded good and was within our budget (very tricky, Disney is not so budget friendly!). Finally we settled on a pizza place and I wish you could have seen us pouring over that menu. Nobody gets salad. Everybody drinks water. We were trying to trim costs everywhere. Finally we settled on our order. I hate to admit to you, but despite our trimmed down order, our bill was still about $50. For pizza! It was good pizza, but still, it’s pizza.

So at the end of the meal, we were waiting for our check and it seemed to be taking forever and I kept looking at my watch knowing that we had to get back to the theater in time for the movie. Finally, our waiter came to our table and said, “You guys must have a guardian angel looking out for you. . .your meal has been paid for.”

I’ll just wait here for a sec while you soak that in.

We both looked at our waiter and said, “Huh?”

He explained to us that someone had covered our meal for us, including tip. How awesome is that???

We have absolutely no idea who did that for us but it made us happy! and giddy! What a fun surprise!

The crazy thing is I started to get a little paranoid about being watched. Who was watching us in the restaurant? Were they still watching us to see our reaction? If I would have known I was being watched I would have been nicer to my kids. Ha! I distinctly remember nearly snapping B’s head off when she dropped her place mat for the 42nd time in about two minutes. I would have handled that with the patience of a saint if I’d have known someone was watching.

I was going to try and wrap these posts up today, but this one is getting long and we haven’t even talked about Sea World yet. So I’ll end here and bring you Sea World tomorrow. Over and out!

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amy

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I Just Heard from BooMama!

By vicki on July 15, 2010

I am interrupting these sabbatical posts to let you know that I just heard from BooMama! Do you know her? If not, you should! She is my very favorite blogger. The girl is hilarious and she makes me laugh every. single. day. And she’s southern which gives her extra bonus points.

So she wrote this post today and I left her a comment (go read it, it’s in the first half of the comments, but the number keeps changing). Well, imagine my shock when she wrote me back! I didn’t know famous bloggers write emails to non-famous bloggers! I was so happy I just had to call my sister. Well, then, then, she wrote me again. And she told me my comment was EXACTLY RIGHT (emphasis hers!)! Oh it makes me happy. Two responses on the same day.

I don’t even know what else to say about it. Go read BooMama!

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Sabbatical Part III

By vicki on July 15, 2010

I’ve been talking about our time in Siesta Key and I even wrote about a run in with a snake that I could have done without. One day we ventured out to see Toy Story 3 (adorable!) and we tried out a few restaurants but other than that we didn’t do much. We spent a lot of time in the sun where we read and talked and slept and thought. It was lovely. The girls loved the pool but they took a little time to warm up to the beach (especially Ellie who is fussy about the sand). But soon we were building sand castles and hunting for sea shells.

We spent a lot of time in the water riding the waves. One day the Gulf was so calm it looked like glass. Gorgeous. But a few of the days the waves were rough and the strong undertow made me nervous. We still really enjoyed the water, just a little closer to the shore:

On our last morning in Siesta Key we walked the beach and found this little guy:

And here’s a few more favorites taken on the beach:

Up next: We went to the deep south where we enjoyed a family reunion. Can’t wait to tell you about it!

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Sabbatical Part II

By vicki on July 13, 2010

Okay, so in the last post I referred to an incident that almost sent me packing. Here’s what happened. . .

See this pool?

Doesn’t it look cool and inviting?

We spent a lot of time in this pool. A lot.

One day, while I was enjoying some alone time, Conrad took the girls down to the pool. While my beautiful children were innocently playing in the water, enjoying themselves and thinking no harm could ever come their way, a little visitor made his way to the pool. And by little visitor I mean this:

Oh how I wish I was kidding. God in his great mercy, had me gone when this whole thing occurred. But I heard it play by play from Conrad and each of the girls. Apparently, Bryn and Ellie were in the pool playing nicely while Lydia took a break. Out of nowhere a snake dropped into the pool RIGHT BESIDE BRYN! Right beside my sweet 8 year old who was minding her own business and not stirring up any trouble at all!

Another kid who was hanging out at the pool saw the snake approaching the water but he couldn’t get to it before it dropped into the pool. Conrad said Bryn screamed and hopped out of the pool in record time! The kid (who we later learned used to have a pet snake and is quite comfortable handling them) grabbed the snake as it came out on the other side of the pool. By then all the kids were out of the pool and wanted to see the snake (I’m a little light-headed even as I write this). That guy just stood holding the snake and he let all the kids pet it before he put it on the ground and they all watched it slither away.

When I got home from my perfectly relaxing afternoon, the girls told me all about this. At first I thought they were joking with me but it soon became clear they were telling the truth! I told Conrad to start packing because we were headed north. He rolled his eyes. I don’t think there is anything on this earth I hate worse than snakes. Maybe lice. It’s a toss up. I was very impressed with Bryn who didn’t seem the least bit nervous about getting back in the pool. All three girls played the rest of the week as if nothing happened.

Just to be clear, that is not a picture of the actual snake. No one took the time to grab their camera and take a good shot. According to Conrad, the snake was only about an inch thick but close to three feet long.

Recalling that incident just took the wind out of me. I need to rest.

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