Spring Break: "Take your broke A** home!"

We're back!

Road trip to Florida started at 9pm last Saturday night...never let it be said that we are exactly TIMELY in our endevors as a family. As Team Leader SOO politely pointed out to me

"I had all my stuff packed in 5 minutes."

FOR REAL?!!!
Last time I checked there were FIVE of us going to Orlando, not ONE?!!
(Clearly, it must be me!)

Anyhoo...we got in the truck and started driving.
We drove to SC.
We drove to GA.
We started looking for a hotel around Savannah.
We drove to FL.
We FOUND a hotel 20 minutes outside of Orlando, at 5:17 in the morning!
We checked in and slept until 1pm.
NICE!
Looking like ass when we got up, we drove into Orlando, and got lost.
We drove down the main strip of Orlando.

We caught up with Team Leader's family around 2:30ish and got the best gift ever:
our sister in law has lost the better part of 100 pounds!! Now, she will probably KILL me for posting this, but what Julie has done is nothing short of amazing.

Seriously.

What we all take for granted, is life, and by taking hers into control she has given us years and years to enjoy with her. I for one can't thank her enough. She's always been such an important link to Florida for me; I could NEVER imagine being there without her...maybe I'm being overly dramatic, but I really can't begin to tell her how inspiring she is, and how thankful I am for her determination!!

So now I've used [thank] in way too many sentences, and Julie is busy cursing me under her breath, but I can live with that! Short version:
WE ARE PROUD OF YOU JULES!!! and now everyone on the internet knows it! :)

The nephew-let and niece-let were fabboless!, The brother was hysterical, the sister was a hoot in the pool, and mother in law looked great, and all were fun fun fun to hang with! The kids got along so well; we all commented on how easily our children melt into one happy group of silly no matter HOW much time goes by...very lucky folks are we!



*sigh*

We spent 2 days just hanging out and playing crazy putt putt before they had to leave.



Tuesday got blown due to a stoopid stoopid timeshare pitch that we had to attend because we exchanged points to go to this yucky place in Orlando where EVERYONE is as grumpy and rude as can be!

SO we ended up at the poorman's theme park in Old Town for the day, before we finished up our family putt putt tournament "COMMANDO IN ORLANDO!" Which I won!!
Yay me!
We went to the Arabian Nights dinner show, true experience let me tell ya, that night and fell into bed.

Wednesday was a different story!


We hit SeaWorld!
Which totally rocked, even though we walked at least 8 zillion miles!

We saw Shamu, up close and personal, in the second row where we got totally soaked.





The kids all want to sponsor a Manatee,

which we will somehow figure out and do, and we all have at least one great memory. We left, exhausted, after 8+ hours at the park to begin the long drive home. THIS time, we called ahead and reserved a room in St. Augustine! Never let it be said that I don't learn from a mistake!!

We got back, to happy but wickedly spazzing kittens and a very relieved Foxy Momma, and seriously cold weather...in APRIL! Is this reality, who knows, but we're back and Team Leader leaves for Germany tomorrow. Fingers crossed there will be no available quarters on post and we'll be "forced" to live on the economy in Heidelberg (my secret wish)!

I've promised photos for days and days and that will be the next post.
really.

Hugs and Love as you celebrate the joys of Spring!
essie