Rain spoiled our plans for another boat ride and the beach on Monday. Instead I believe it was a day out at lunch at the Cracked Egg (they definitely believe in big meals, was so full) and then a bit of grocery shopping for the trip up to Orlando and home. After work, Steve and Holly came back to the house and surprised Ben with an early birthday cake. This one had a cone from their ice cream shop and frosting to simulate his favorite flavor there, “blue goo.” Good cake and fun on the Wii was had as Mary’s boyfriend wanted a rematch in Brawl. We then tried to get some things packed and some sleep to prepare for the drive to Lake Buena Vista on Tuesday.

(more…)

We went back to the beach at Veteran’s Memorial Park on Wednesday. The kids really enjoyed swimming & splashing in the ocean as well as searching the sand for shells and coral again. On Thursday, we went about and looked through some shops for some souvenirs. Mandy did spy a wind chime made of a tea pot, cups, and utensils. My penguin radar was still in full effect even while on vacation as I spotted a cute penguin bath/travel pillow in the same store.

On Friday we got the kids some ice cream at Tropical Freeze before heading back to the house to dip in the pool. Steve & Holly joined us in a while as did Alesha’s kids. The kids had a great time splashing around in the pool with their cousins as expected. I did manage to snap a few pictures before the camera started to freak out on me. After getting cleaned up, we went out to dinner at Boondocks. It’s a bar & grill type of restaurant with its own miniature golf course. Dinner was excellent and even though golfing was a bit late for the kids, they managed all 18 holes. There was some adjusting of golf balls in order to sink their putts but that’s okay. Kids be kids, you know.

(more…)

We arrived in the Keys on Saturday without too much incident. The trip was long as always but spread over 2 days, it seemed like more than forever. I think we’d just rather have drove through the night and gotten it over with. And why couldn’t Georgia have something worthwhile to look at along the highway? We didn’t get into Florida on schedule due to road construction and the kids needing to pee at inopportune times. We had also planned to eat picnic-style for lunch but the weather would threaten with rain and thunder.

We got into Gainesville late in the evening and stopped for the night at a Days Inn. After a [good] night’s sleep (it was as good as it was going to get, frankly), we headed back on the road onto the turnpike. There was some traffic congestion when we first got onto US-1 but we did get to Steve’s before sunset. We even had time to relax in the pool before bed.

(more…)