This week, I downloaded a program called Picassa to my computer to help me organize all my photos. I am very excited about this and hope to be able to play with it a little more next week or maybe the week of Thanksgiving. It scanned my computer for all the pictures and put them in one place. It was so fun going back through the years (that tells you how old my computer is,huh?) and looking at the pictures.
Another favorite program is OneTrue media where I can make videos out of our pictures. As you will quickly find out (if you haven't already) is that I love to take pictures.
This week's flashback is from our beach vacation this year. My Mom & Bill are SOO gracious that they normally let us use one of their timeshares, so each year we get to go to new places(for the most part!) This year we ended up in Daytona Beach Shores,Fl. We spent a week at the beach doing mostly nothing except enjoying the beach and each other (Except for one very busy day). I LOVE the beach and could spend all day at there with no worries (As long as I had something to eat, drink, and read). The kids love playing in the sand and digging for critters. And they usually find some things. This year, in particular, they found some very unusual creatures. They would ask me what they were. Ha!Like I know. I told them to ask the lifeguard. I figure he sees this stuff all the time. He didn't know. Then they asked people walking down the beach who stopped to check it out. They didn't know either. Then some long time Fl residents came up-they didn't know either. In the end, no one could tell us anything but we had a lot of different guesses. So, we usually keep them for a day or so in our buckets and then release them back to their home the next day. It was really weird looking. And the one thing (I think it was a clam) was very interesting as it would open up and you could see it breathe in and then poop constantly. Seriously, about every 3-5 minutes, it would poop.
One evening after dinner, we went to play putt-putt. We had a coupon but this was still more than we wanted to spend, but everyone had a great time. And everyone scored very well too. The kids had a blast. They also had some alligators that you could feed. You hang the food off of the fishing pole and then they suddenly grab it. I was worried that the kids would drop their fishing poles when they quickly snapped at the food, but they didn't. Then they held the alligator.
They actually decided to use their own money for this. It wasn't too bad when they split the charge. I was proud of them for working together and will admit Justin wanted to do it much more than Jennifer, but she knew how much it meant to him. This place also had panning for gold or minerals. So, the kids spent a little more and Justin bought a bag that had a bunch of fossils in it. Jennifer bought a bag of minerals. If you watch the video, you can see they REALLY enjoyed this part. It was very exciting to see what treasures they would find in those bags. It also came with a description brochure so that you could figure out what you found. One of Justin's fossils was dinosaur poop-yeah!! But they both loved this activity. We ended up spending all evening there.
Then one day in the middle of the week, we went over to Disney World. We were a little over an hours drive away and had some passes left over from previous trips. This is the first year we really couldn't decide which park to do. You see the kids are both big enough to ride all the rides now and each park had something special we wanted to do. So, we did them all that day!! Well, except for the Magic Kingdom. We all had a park hopper pass that we could use. Can you believe we are that crazy? We got up early that morning (around 6:30 or so) and headed out the door around 7. We got to Epcot as they were opening and went straight to Soarin'. The kids had ridden it before but it had been so long they had forgotten about it. They loved it, naturally. It is one of my favorite rides too. Then we went to grab a fast pass for Mission Space while we stood in the longest line of our lives(Test Track). I think we waited over 2 hours in this line with Justin NOT wanting to do the ride or stand in line. We eventually got to ride and it was fun, but not worth 2 hours wait. Then we went right on Mission Space. Again, they had ridden it before but Justin was excited this time because he could reach the buttons to perform his "job". We sprinted out of Epcot and drove to Animal Kingdom. There we played in the boneyard, rode Mt Everest (the coolest new ride!), saw a parade and, ate Micky icecream bars, and did the safari. Of course, it was the best safari ride ever! We saw so many animals fairly close up, but the reason is because I didn't have my camera. Normally, when we "do" Disney, I have a backpack stocked with everything we might need. I have a plan, and we know where we are going and if anything comes up, Mom has something in her backpack to help. And of course, normally my camera is in there. However, we really were just going in each park for a short jaunt, so I took NOTHING in with me. Lunch was in the car in between parks. Waters and Gatorades and juice boxes were enjoyed in the car between parks. So, I have NO pictures of this quick trip through Disney World this year, but we have our memories. Anyway, we left the Animal Kindgom and headed to MGM studios. We rode the Tower of Terror, where Justin was terrified but loved it in the end and wanted to do it again in the dark. We rode AeroSmith's Rockin Roller Coaster, which was another favorite. This is the one ride where I wished I had taken something in-some money to buy the picture at the end. I never buy those pictures, but this one was priceless. We laughed so hard and seriously considered going to the car to get some money, but decided not to. I wished I could share it on here though. It was a picture of all 4 of us with completely different expressions. I was smiling, Dale was screaming (mouth wide open-in fun), Jennifer had her eyes totally closed, and Justin had a look of horror on his face. We all thought it was hilarious!! We had dinner at the Sci-Fi Dine in theater for the first time. It was pretty cool. You "sit" in old cars while you watch old black and white movies as if you were at a drive-in. Then we went to the Chronicles of Narnia, which is not really a ride but a walk through show. The kids played on the Movie set adventure, which is like "Honey I shrunk the kids" where blades of grass are HUGE! They really wanted to go back to this as last time it was closing right after we got there. We ended the evening by going to the Fantasmic show-one of the best Disney shows! The kids ended up falling asleep before we got home (to be expected) around midnight. But they were such troopers all day long. I am so blessed to have 2 great kids who can keep up with their crazy Mom' s ideas. Needless to say, the next day was a veg-out day ( on the beach for me, of course!) It took a day to recover from our Disney Day, but that was okay. It was so much fun for all of us and the kids rode all the "big" rides. They were so brave!!
The last night of our trip we met some old friends and some new friends for dinner at Aunt Catfish's restaurant. Then we went to the boardwalk and walked around. Jennifer and Justin met their kids on the trip down as we caravanned down together. Dale & Carey have been friends for YEARS when they worked together at Winn Dixie as teenagers when they were young single men. Now they both have families and we have maintained the friendship through the years, even though we don't get to see them very often.
Well, Carey and Dale had this brilliant idea to travel together on the way down to Florida(they were going to Boca Raton for the first half of the week) and see what differences there would be in the gas mileage if they drafted each other. Carey had the whole thing planned down to each leg of the trip. First Carey would travel closely behind us for the first 200 miles, then we would gas up, and switch positions for the next 200 miles, and then the standard would be when we dropped off and Carey and them went the remainder and then compare all the gas mileages. They are some funny!! Kim and I just rolled our eyes at the plan.
As always, we had a wonderful family vacation!! Thanks Mom & Bill for so many wonderful memories!!!
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