Monday, May 2nd

We went for our morning walk.  We keep getting distracted by the cranes. 

Debbie they have floating golf greens on the pond.  After our walk, George had to take Rebecca to her conference. 

Nathan and I played 18 holes.  I won 52 to 61!!

Nathan finished up paper number 2 and and started in on paper number 3.  We took a break to go to Subway for lunch and then Publix for a few more grocery items.

Nathan gave me a hard time about taking flower pictures.  

He took another break to go to the pool and the lazy river.  We had a lot of fun at the waterfall.

I am pretty sure that this is against the rules

Nathan and George both enjoyed the slides.  

lazy river was my favorite. 

Thanks so much Trudy - this is fabulous.

Back to the condo so Nathan could work a little more.  When George went back to pick up Rebecca we hit the happy hour by the pool.  We had the Gumption Hard Cider. 

 It was very good.  When George and Rebecca got back we did take-out Chinese.  It was good.  While we were eating we saw pictures Rebecca had of "her" kids.  Very cute.  She has quite a relationship with them.  

In the evening there was a huge lightning storm.  I tried unsuccessfully to take pictures.  Did not work AT ALL.

Lightening was happening, really - I just couldn't react quickly enough.

And then it poured.

All our towels drying on the porch are now drenched. Maybe they will dry tomorrow.

la-de-dah day

George took Rebecca to church this morning and then she had some errands to do as well.  Nathan was busy doing homework.  He has 2 papers to write by Monday and 1 by Wednesday.  I relaxed.  Nathan took several breaks.  We went on a walk behind our condo.  There is a nice lake.  We took a lot of pictures of the family of cranes.

What's left of a alligator snack.

another break to check out the condo pool

working hard or hardly working. 

Ahhhh

Nathan and I had left-over Olive Garden food for lunch.  George and Rebecca finally got home a little after 3 pm.  We left about 4 pm to drive to Ocala, Florida to meet 2 of my high school classmates for dinner at Amrit Palace.  Delicious Indian food. It was about 1 1/2 hour drive away.

You can't tell very well but a waiter decided to get into the picture at the head of the table.  But we have Amanda,& Shanta, Cheryl & Gary and George & me.  

me, Cheryl and Shanta

the sun was setting on our drive home.  

Nathan got most of 2 of his papers done, Rebecca got most of her errands done and George and I relaxed.  Nice day.

.

20,000 steps today

Whew what a day!  We went to Universal Studios,  We got there just in time for it to open.  So it was not very crowded.  We headed right away to the Harry Potter section.

Before exploring the Diagon Alley we waited in line for an hour for our first ride.  We did not get in a line after that unless it was less than a 1/2 hour line .  They have a lot to look at while you are moving in the line.  After that we explored the area and went on several more rides. 

Nathan and Rebecca went on the loop-de-loup ride.  Not me.

Then we went to the King Cross station to take the Hogwarts Express to the other close theme park.

By then it was time for lunch

I had the ribs, corn and potatoes with Hogs Brew.  Nathan had a bunch of side dishes with the Butter Beer (like a cream soda) and Rebecca had the pumpkin juice with her fish and chips and George had soup and salad. We explored the Harry Potter stuff in this section.  It had a different style.  It was decorated like winter.  Hard to believe since it was 90 degrees out.

One more ride.  Jet lag hit Rebecca plus this ride hurt her eyes.  So we went to watch a silly Sinbad Action show.  After that she wanted to take a break.  The rest of of left Harry Potter and wandered through this park to get over to the water rides.  The most fun one of the day was the Popeye River Raft one.  We were totally drenched and cooled off nicely.  

Then on to Jurassic Park

Then back to the Hogwarts Express to go back to the first area.  Rebecca met us at the station.  We went for an ice cream break.

This sort of shows the snow covered roofs of Hogwarts next to the tropical rain forest of Jurassic Park.  The music changed from "world to world".

When we bought our tickets to go into the park we had to do a finger print.  We had to use our finger print at other times during the day, like to put our stuff in a locker before different rides.  

We left the park about 6:30 pm.  After we got home and changed clothes (my clothes were still wet) we went to Olive Garden for dinner.

I don't think I actually did 20,000 steps, though it felt like it.  I think the jostling of some of the rides made the count go off.  

Friday, April 29

We were up at 3 am to go to the airport.  That is way too early in my book.  No problems with any of our flights.  We changed planes in Denver, where it was snowing.  Landed in Orlando, where it was 90 degrees.  Quite the contrast.  Rebecca had arrived first, then Nathan. We arrived about 3:30 pm.  By the time we got our luggage, our rental car and driven the 12 miles to the condo it was 6:30 pm.  We did not count on driving through rush hour.  It took us over an hour to drive the 12 miles.  Once we checked in and got a little organized we walked down the street to a TGI Fridays.  This is a very nice condo.  Townhouse style, with the bedrooms and 1 bath upstairs and the living room, dining room, kitchen and one bath downstairs.  We have not had a chance to explore the whole resort yet.  We are so lucky to have this place.All thanks to my great friend Trudy.  It is a time-share place that they are letting us use.

our car and condo

right in front of our resort

oreo cookie, ice cream sandwich

Rebecca was in heaven.  She has a week to get her fill of American food. 

After dinner we walked to the Publix Grocery Store to buy a few things for the week.  It seemed like a lot longer walk home than it had been getting to the grocery store.