The Sunshine State?
Instead of doing a play by play of my interesting, fun-filled vacation I will just make a list of the key points, it'll make it easier on my memory and you, the reader.
-- The flight into Orlando was uneventful, although we got lost in a huge thunderstorm on our way to Tampa, Becky is officially fired as the navigator.
-- My mom and my sister went to visit the University of South Florida the next morning while me and Julie ran around the uber-cool science museum right across the street. Who said learning can't be fun?!? We got to see the Omni movie as well.
-- Drove to St. Pete's Beach for some wave action, but there was none, the hurricane was too far from the gulf at this point. We laid around for some sun though and met Jim Cantore from the Weather Channel.
-- The next day we drove to my grandparent's house outside Haines City. My aunt and cousins (Ben and Lindsay) were already there and we went to a place called Fun Spot where I drove my very first go cart. Ben did most of my steering but it was fun! I want to do that again. We also got on the bumber cars and the bumber boats, which thanks to my driver, Ben, we went head first under the waterfall and came out drinched! He also enjoyed straying the innocent people who happened to be walking by the ride at that time. I missed my little buddy Ben!!
-- That night we went to a shack called The Cherry Bucket for dinner and we feed some alligators popcorn.
-- Thursday we bought Park Hopper Passes and spent all day at Disney. We started out at MGM studios and hit the main rides, the Tower of Terror is awesome! Next stop was Epcot, where of course we had to get our pictures made in every country! They had this ride called Mission to Mars that I nearly died on. I didn’t relize until too late that it’s a 4 minute spinning, virtual reality ride, and that I get motion sickness. They had all these rules: only look straight ahead and don’t close your eyes or you'll get disoriented. The whole ride was basically you have you assigned job (to hit little buttons when they flash) to make it to Mars safely. We crashed thanks to me, but there was a reason there were barf bags on the ride, I was frantically looking for the escape hatch. It was horrible. Much later, we ate a fabulous meal in Italy and made our way to the Magic Kingdom. We rode the famous rides, Space Mountain, Thunder Mountain, Splash Mountain, Pirates of the Carribean and watched the fire works before they closed. Let me tell you, walking around miles of Disney World is a lot more fun when you do not have a broken toe.
-- Friday the 13th, what a day. We started out at Universal Studios Islands of Adventure, which was awesome, my personal favorite. Luckily we got everything in we wanted to do because due to Hurricane Charlie the park closed at 2. We were going to get something to eat on our way home when my dad calls and said that we better get home fast, that the first outer band of the hurricane was heading right over us. Sure enough, we got to the car and it started pouring. The traffic was crazy from scared toursits and people just trying to get out of town. We drove right under a suspeciously dark cloud were you could actually see the rotation, there were beginnings of tornadoes everywhere. We made the 30 minute trip home in an hour and a half and things were pretty clear for about an hour until the next band came in. The actual hurricane didn’t hit until around 8 that evening. In Florida they build houses that can withstand 200 mph winds, we were having 80 mph sustaned winds with gusts up to 110 mph. My dad had to go outside and try to stand in it and ended up getting hit with flying debri on his back, stupid. The electricty went off a few minutes later and then the eye went right over us. It was the strangest thing, you could hear the roar in the distance but it was dead still. That lasted for about 5 minutes and we had to stand through the back half, that wasn’t as strong, but was laced with tornadoes.
-- Due to the air conditioner being out we had a rough nights sleep but we got up early to survey the damage. Not one tree or street sign was left standing. The buildings didn’t have much damage, just some bent gutters and shingles. We drove to my aunt Jana's house in Oviedo (outside Orlando) the damages were devistating driving around. It looked like all those images on TV you see after a tornado hits a trailer park. We couldnt do anything but stare in awe.
-- We ate lunch at Jana's and piled into the cars and headed to Cocoa Beach. We stayed in Ron Jon's Beach Resort which was awesome. We had a room in the Penthouse that held 12 people so it was perfect for us (I don’t even want to know how much it cost) we went out to eat and shopped at Ron Jon's Surf Shop came back to the hotel and went to the arcade since it was raining and couldn’t do much anyway, we all played some pool and just a word of advise, do not play DDR with a broken toe. Jana, Greg, and Julie had never watched The Ring so we stayed up late watching it after the children were put to bed.
-- Ben woke the whole room up at 7 because he wanted to check out the pool complete with a four story waterslide, volleyball net, and a lazy river. We swam until we had to check out and walked to the beach and got a couple of hours in with the killer waves (!!!) before the afternoon storms hit again and we left and went back to Jana's house. She has an awesome car, it was a Mazda Tribute with leather seats, a GPS and DVD system so Lindsay wanted to watch Spirit, cute movie by the way.
-- We ended up staying the night at Jana's that night since the electricy was still out at my grandparent's. We played Catch Phrase most of the evening while we drank her famous Carribean punch. That is some good stuff! Her house is amazing. My uncle is a doctor so they are well off, but this new house of theirs is huge and it is like looking through a magazine from Pottery Barn when you walk through it. It's gorgeous and must have cost a fortune! I took a shower in her steam shower, I need one of those! Though I turned it on too high and I started having difficulty breathing in there, but I felt so relaxed when I got out! Later, the kids wanted to watch Brother Bear (kids are a great excuse to watch all the Disney videos that no one else ever wants to see!) They went to bed and Jana brought out this game that shocks you. You have the press the button fast when the light changes green and the slowest one gets the shock. We played with Island Pinapple jello shots. I do believe that I got a little tipsy. Haha it was all in good fun!
-- Monday we made it back to Haines City, the electrity was still off but we had to get packed to go. We made it to the airport (in yet another strong thunderstorm) dropped off the rental car, checked our bags, and did more shopping in the Disney shops in the airport. As if we didn’t get enough of that already. We spotted a Chili's and ate an early dinner and ran through security to catch our flight. Now, I don't know if you have ever been to the Orlando airport, but the terminals are a couple of miles away from the check-in and security so you have to take a shuttle over to the gates, but they were temporarily broken due to some water from the storm that had gotten inside the electrical units of the trains. After about 20 minutes they got them dry enough to where they were safe enough and got to the gate were we found another line of upset passengers. Evidentally, due to Charlie there was some structural damage to the roof, and the storm outside made it collapse. We had to wait another 30 minutes to get a walkway cleared so we go get through. It was crazy walking through it, it looked like it had been bombed (don’t worry, I got pictures of it, to cure your fasicination!) We made it into Dallas around 10, only 40 minutes late, I figured it would be a lot more than that. But I hit the pillow hard when I got home.
-- I gained a lot of weight this summer (I'm not going to mention how much. . . ) but this means, no more chocolate (or snacking between meals for that matter) and starting working out again. I swam some laps today for a start, but when I get back to school its going to mean running around the track again.
-- Colleen, Nicole, and me went and saw the Princess Diaries 2 last night. Very cute movie! We all throuhgly enjoyed it. And just as a sidenote, tthe intern security guy was hot. Nicole also gave me my Nemo and Dory stuff animals and a Dory T-shirt. I love you Nicole, my friend in high places!
-- My car is "deader than a doornail" as my dad says. He is coming home early from work today and me and my mom have developed a plan that we have to run by him first. I want to buy a new car, but that means insurance will go up almost double what we are paying now. So, if I buy the car with my own money, we are thinking he will pay the extra $400 a year for the next 2 and a half years until I graduate and start recieveing a steady income. We'll see. Right now, if I had to get one today, I am looking at a 2005 Toyota Corolla. Time to work my charm!
-- I leave for school a week from yesterday. I guess I need to go get my stuff out of storage AKA my granparent's closet and get going to Target for some extra supplies. Time to start packing. I'm ready to go back and I'm ready to get this year started right. GO JACKS!
So you know me and my camera, several pictures are already posted. Click to the left.
Oh, and thanks for the lovely comments on my last entry (most of you). I love you guys!
XOXO
-- The flight into Orlando was uneventful, although we got lost in a huge thunderstorm on our way to Tampa, Becky is officially fired as the navigator.
-- My mom and my sister went to visit the University of South Florida the next morning while me and Julie ran around the uber-cool science museum right across the street. Who said learning can't be fun?!? We got to see the Omni movie as well.
-- Drove to St. Pete's Beach for some wave action, but there was none, the hurricane was too far from the gulf at this point. We laid around for some sun though and met Jim Cantore from the Weather Channel.
-- The next day we drove to my grandparent's house outside Haines City. My aunt and cousins (Ben and Lindsay) were already there and we went to a place called Fun Spot where I drove my very first go cart. Ben did most of my steering but it was fun! I want to do that again. We also got on the bumber cars and the bumber boats, which thanks to my driver, Ben, we went head first under the waterfall and came out drinched! He also enjoyed straying the innocent people who happened to be walking by the ride at that time. I missed my little buddy Ben!!
-- That night we went to a shack called The Cherry Bucket for dinner and we feed some alligators popcorn.
-- Thursday we bought Park Hopper Passes and spent all day at Disney. We started out at MGM studios and hit the main rides, the Tower of Terror is awesome! Next stop was Epcot, where of course we had to get our pictures made in every country! They had this ride called Mission to Mars that I nearly died on. I didn’t relize until too late that it’s a 4 minute spinning, virtual reality ride, and that I get motion sickness. They had all these rules: only look straight ahead and don’t close your eyes or you'll get disoriented. The whole ride was basically you have you assigned job (to hit little buttons when they flash) to make it to Mars safely. We crashed thanks to me, but there was a reason there were barf bags on the ride, I was frantically looking for the escape hatch. It was horrible. Much later, we ate a fabulous meal in Italy and made our way to the Magic Kingdom. We rode the famous rides, Space Mountain, Thunder Mountain, Splash Mountain, Pirates of the Carribean and watched the fire works before they closed. Let me tell you, walking around miles of Disney World is a lot more fun when you do not have a broken toe.
-- Friday the 13th, what a day. We started out at Universal Studios Islands of Adventure, which was awesome, my personal favorite. Luckily we got everything in we wanted to do because due to Hurricane Charlie the park closed at 2. We were going to get something to eat on our way home when my dad calls and said that we better get home fast, that the first outer band of the hurricane was heading right over us. Sure enough, we got to the car and it started pouring. The traffic was crazy from scared toursits and people just trying to get out of town. We drove right under a suspeciously dark cloud were you could actually see the rotation, there were beginnings of tornadoes everywhere. We made the 30 minute trip home in an hour and a half and things were pretty clear for about an hour until the next band came in. The actual hurricane didn’t hit until around 8 that evening. In Florida they build houses that can withstand 200 mph winds, we were having 80 mph sustaned winds with gusts up to 110 mph. My dad had to go outside and try to stand in it and ended up getting hit with flying debri on his back, stupid. The electricty went off a few minutes later and then the eye went right over us. It was the strangest thing, you could hear the roar in the distance but it was dead still. That lasted for about 5 minutes and we had to stand through the back half, that wasn’t as strong, but was laced with tornadoes.
-- Due to the air conditioner being out we had a rough nights sleep but we got up early to survey the damage. Not one tree or street sign was left standing. The buildings didn’t have much damage, just some bent gutters and shingles. We drove to my aunt Jana's house in Oviedo (outside Orlando) the damages were devistating driving around. It looked like all those images on TV you see after a tornado hits a trailer park. We couldnt do anything but stare in awe.
-- We ate lunch at Jana's and piled into the cars and headed to Cocoa Beach. We stayed in Ron Jon's Beach Resort which was awesome. We had a room in the Penthouse that held 12 people so it was perfect for us (I don’t even want to know how much it cost) we went out to eat and shopped at Ron Jon's Surf Shop came back to the hotel and went to the arcade since it was raining and couldn’t do much anyway, we all played some pool and just a word of advise, do not play DDR with a broken toe. Jana, Greg, and Julie had never watched The Ring so we stayed up late watching it after the children were put to bed.
-- Ben woke the whole room up at 7 because he wanted to check out the pool complete with a four story waterslide, volleyball net, and a lazy river. We swam until we had to check out and walked to the beach and got a couple of hours in with the killer waves (!!!) before the afternoon storms hit again and we left and went back to Jana's house. She has an awesome car, it was a Mazda Tribute with leather seats, a GPS and DVD system so Lindsay wanted to watch Spirit, cute movie by the way.
-- We ended up staying the night at Jana's that night since the electricy was still out at my grandparent's. We played Catch Phrase most of the evening while we drank her famous Carribean punch. That is some good stuff! Her house is amazing. My uncle is a doctor so they are well off, but this new house of theirs is huge and it is like looking through a magazine from Pottery Barn when you walk through it. It's gorgeous and must have cost a fortune! I took a shower in her steam shower, I need one of those! Though I turned it on too high and I started having difficulty breathing in there, but I felt so relaxed when I got out! Later, the kids wanted to watch Brother Bear (kids are a great excuse to watch all the Disney videos that no one else ever wants to see!) They went to bed and Jana brought out this game that shocks you. You have the press the button fast when the light changes green and the slowest one gets the shock. We played with Island Pinapple jello shots. I do believe that I got a little tipsy. Haha it was all in good fun!
-- Monday we made it back to Haines City, the electrity was still off but we had to get packed to go. We made it to the airport (in yet another strong thunderstorm) dropped off the rental car, checked our bags, and did more shopping in the Disney shops in the airport. As if we didn’t get enough of that already. We spotted a Chili's and ate an early dinner and ran through security to catch our flight. Now, I don't know if you have ever been to the Orlando airport, but the terminals are a couple of miles away from the check-in and security so you have to take a shuttle over to the gates, but they were temporarily broken due to some water from the storm that had gotten inside the electrical units of the trains. After about 20 minutes they got them dry enough to where they were safe enough and got to the gate were we found another line of upset passengers. Evidentally, due to Charlie there was some structural damage to the roof, and the storm outside made it collapse. We had to wait another 30 minutes to get a walkway cleared so we go get through. It was crazy walking through it, it looked like it had been bombed (don’t worry, I got pictures of it, to cure your fasicination!) We made it into Dallas around 10, only 40 minutes late, I figured it would be a lot more than that. But I hit the pillow hard when I got home.
-- I gained a lot of weight this summer (I'm not going to mention how much. . . ) but this means, no more chocolate (or snacking between meals for that matter) and starting working out again. I swam some laps today for a start, but when I get back to school its going to mean running around the track again.
-- Colleen, Nicole, and me went and saw the Princess Diaries 2 last night. Very cute movie! We all throuhgly enjoyed it. And just as a sidenote, tthe intern security guy was hot. Nicole also gave me my Nemo and Dory stuff animals and a Dory T-shirt. I love you Nicole, my friend in high places!
-- My car is "deader than a doornail" as my dad says. He is coming home early from work today and me and my mom have developed a plan that we have to run by him first. I want to buy a new car, but that means insurance will go up almost double what we are paying now. So, if I buy the car with my own money, we are thinking he will pay the extra $400 a year for the next 2 and a half years until I graduate and start recieveing a steady income. We'll see. Right now, if I had to get one today, I am looking at a 2005 Toyota Corolla. Time to work my charm!
-- I leave for school a week from yesterday. I guess I need to go get my stuff out of storage AKA my granparent's closet and get going to Target for some extra supplies. Time to start packing. I'm ready to go back and I'm ready to get this year started right. GO JACKS!
So you know me and my camera, several pictures are already posted. Click to the left.
Oh, and thanks for the lovely comments on my last entry (most of you). I love you guys!
XOXO