End of the day...

We had a good end to our day except for a couple things. We rode Haunted Mansion, Thunder Mountain Railroad, and Splash Mountain a second time after supper, then we beat the pavement over to Tomorrowland because this nice woman on the other Mountain rides told us that Space Mountain was running again! We made it and got to ride, but I lost my Raybans. Ah well-if that is the worst that happens, I guess i'll be ok. *grumble*. Lexie asked me if she could do 'the foot trick' that mommys best friend Ron showed her. It involves doing something with your feet so the lap bar can't go down as far and allows you 'room to bounce around'. What a dumbass showing that to an 8 year old. Thank God she has about ten times the common sense as Ron and she didn't just do it. With these two kids you just never know, but they are very good. They have been trying all day to buy souvenirs for family and friends instead of themselves. I don't know what I'd do without them.

Zephyrhills Disease water or???

Zephyrhills is a local brand of bottled spring water. That is no big deal, we passed that town on the way here. It DOES sound like a disease. I was ok still with that. The weird thing is that we filled our bottles at the drinking fountain next to the Cinderella water fountain and it tastes like she may have peed in the water or something. Plus it smells stanky...

Watery Ball of space crap

The good thing about this huge marble ball is that water pushes on the bottom and makes it go around and rotate. The awesome thing is that you can use it to wash the turkey grease glue off your hands. Its right there next to the Turkey Legs!

Lexie and the Turkey Leg!

The thing is greasy! It tastes like ham! It makes your fingers so sticky!

Logan and the Turkey Leg!

I'm telling you, it was as big as his head! It made paper napkins stick to your hands like glue! It was awesome. We also got and orange then a little later a funnel cake...

Space Mountain Closed

My luck is pretty much crap. Can you believe Space Mountain is closed today?

MISSION TURKEY LEG: ACCOMPLISHED

Whooooooo Hoooooo!!

Thrown in the Stocks!

Lexie and Logan got in trouble

Magic Kingdom

We are at Magic Kingdom finally!

Sunburn + Apricot Scrub = PAIN!

I should have known better, but when you do something every day, it just becomes second nature. Once the scrub was on my forehead, I had to rub it to get rinsed off...

Water Slide /Brave Logan!

Logan was just barely tall enough to go down the water slide, so I went first and stayed beside the exit tube. He loved it! As wall clingy as he is and he loved it anyway! He is being so brave by riding the rides and going on the water slide. I'm very, very proud of him! Lexie too- they know we can't afford to do every little thing, and they understand and they don't ask for a lot. That's why it was important for me to do this for them.

Water Fun at Splash Island

We played at Splash Island today and took a 2.5 hour tour of the resort which was mainly centered on a high-pressure sales pitch.

Daddy has a moment

We had supper at the Rose and Crown (I would highly recommend the fish and chips) and were served by Sarah from the U.K. Afterwards as we were headed out, I got a half yard of Bass. This is the least stressed I have felt all day.

Lexie's Shoe gets sucked up

I have told her 1000 times: tie your shoe Lexie! Well now she has a damn good reason. Her shoe lace got sucked into the escalator! People were falling all over her and it was a nightmare! Finally, I yanked hard enough and her half-eaten shoe lace came out...

Mouse Ears...

Logan didn't need to be coaxed into getting the mouse ears with his souvenir budget. Lexie did, but she's older. She just said "I don't see anybody but us wearing Mickey ears!"

World Showcase at Epcot

Here is the kids at the lagoon thing in Epcot. I thought Logan was going to freak out on Mission: Space but he did awesome!

Epcot!

we are on our way in!

Park Snacks-carry in

I have packs of cheese crackers, trail mix, slim-jims, and beef jerky I made that I am taking in with us. All the guide books and people I've talked to say food and snacks are so expensive in the parks. We are going to Epcot today. And I just realized that TODAY IS MEMORIAL DAY. We might get to ride a couple things I guess... ~sigh~

Small Coffee

This place has about all the dishes you need, but the coffee cups are like thimbles compared to what I'm used to!

Hunkered down for the night

We got to the time share, settled in and did our grocery shopping. I had a problem with my camera and had to get some software to recover all the pictures I had on the memory card. They were all of the last three months. It was very nerve wracking. The hotel room last night had wi-fi, but this place doesn't. This place is supposed to be a lot nicer, but they don't even have a DVD player. That seems weird to me, but we are only going to be here about half the days and those we'll probably spend at the pool, so it doesn't matter for us. My sister was going to watch movies and relax, but she brought books to read too. They have these bugs here called "love bugs". They fly around hooked together mating. They were created by Florida State University and they got loose into the wild. Now everywhere you go, the front of people's cars are just plastered in bug gut goo. They don't bite, and I don't see that they serve any purpose, but there are clouds of them and sometimes a pair will land on you. You have to ride around with the windows up. We got down to Publix which is a grocery. I thought all their prices were ridiculous. It was almost $4 for a gallon of milk. We got just barely enough groceries for the days that we'll not be at the parks. We are going to save money by eating breakfast here, then taking snacks to the park. Hopefully we can get by with only one "serious meal" per day. Well we are pretty exhausted now. So its time to get some.....zzzzzzzzzzz...

Bradenton at Night

Lexie and Logan Playing in the Ocean

This is Lexie and Logan at Bradenton Beach. This is the first time they had ever been to a real beach, or seen the ocean. We played and gathered seashells.

Bridges

Here's some of our pictures of the bridges of Southern Florida. This one bridge--the Sunshine Skyway was very high up in the air. It kinda freaked everybody out. This was the first time the kids had ever seen "the ocean" (even though it was the Gulf of Mexico and not technically and ocean).

Tampa

Here's our pictures of Tampa.

Bradenton Badcock & More

Patti and I thought this sign was funny for some reason...

Florida Visitor's Center

This is the Florida Visitor's Center. Still filled with smoke yesterday. Logan was freaking out about all the palm trees!

Southern Georgia on Fire

Southern Georgia and Northern Florida are still super smoky from the wildfires that continue to burn. There is still 200 active fires over 195,646 acres.

Nashville at Night

I was trying to get a good picture of Nashville--especially the "Batman Building" but this is the best shot I could get.

Bowling Green, KY- McDonalds!

We stopped for a quick bite in Bowling Green at McDonalds. The kids ate and played at the playland. They look kinda grubby. Both of them had "field day" for their last day at school. I picked them up and we drove over to get Aunt Patti and came straight on.

My Sister Bonnie

Here's my sister Bonnie. She has lived in Bradenton for quite a while now. It was nice to see her.

Lexie and Logan at Bradenton Beach

We swam and played in the Gulf of Mexico, and we collected shells!

Ocean! Finally!!

tampa

we are going thru tampa now. the kids will get to see the gulf soon

Wildfire smoke in Florida

This is Lexie and Logan finally in the state of Florida. We've been seeing smoke since Valdosta Georgia.

valdosta ga is smoked from wildfires

atlanta at 251 am

McDonald's at Bowling green

we stopped for supper at about 8:30

I thought this sign was funny

I went to lunch with my friend Charlie (see last blog entry!) and I saw this sign at the fish place. Well, the kids, my sister Patti and I leave for Florida tomorrow. We are driving down, and my sister and I are going to take turns. We are going to Bradenton for the weekend to see my sister Bonnie and then leaving Sunday afternoon for Orlando. Monday we are going to Epcot, Tuesday rest at the time share, Wednesday to Magic Kingdom, Thursday rest, then Friday to Universal Studios. Saturday we will rest then leave early Sunday morning. Patti is just going to hang out by the pool at the time share and relax. One evening we are going to go see a dinner show called "Midieval Times". I think the kids will have a good time!