WOW!! The last time I talked to you all we were on our way to Disney World and had just made it to Orlando. We arrived at the same time as the first tropical depression of the season and it started raining approximately 5 hours and 22 minutes after we entered the park and didn't stop until some time after we left town. Yes people, we experienced Disney in a monsoon. It can be done. All the locals there seemed to think it would console all of us who had spent our blood, sweat and tears to make a trip to the SUNSHINE STATE if they informed us all that leading up to this torrential down pour they had been in a 5 week drought. However by the end of the week even the locals were cursing the rain. One of my good friends told me that they had started the week tracking our weather as a means of keeping up with us, but by mid-week the national news was reporting on Orlando weather and she no longer had to track it......There is an upside...... God always orders things perfectly now doesn't he? We did not have to wait in line for much of anything. People kept trying to avoid the rain so we would brave it and yank on our Mickey ponchos and grab our Mickey umbrellas and head out. There were only two rides we missed out on, one was inoperable in the rain and even though we returned to Epcot on three different occasions it was always too wet to ride it and that was Test Track. The other was The Flight of Peter Pan. We missed this because.....I forgot about it.....we made a couple of trips to Magic Kingdom and we stumbled upon it the last time, but it did have a wait and we had reservations for dinner so we had to miss that one. Another positive about the rain is that it kept the temps down and the kiddos didn't get hot. It's so hard for them to be hot and walk all that way. At 5 and 7 our girls walked each park from 9:30 each morning until closing time each day WITHOUT the aid of a stroller. We brought one but they didn't use it the first couple of days and it was a pain in the rain so we quit bringing it. Had it been 85 and sunny I don't think they could've done that.

So, I have no complaints about the weather. I think that it was just the way it was supposed to be. I'll admit I was bummed about it until the last day for two reasons, one, we had spent additional money for water park tickets that we obviously had not been able to use, and two, we had not been able to take pictures the way I had hoped. The picture possibilities at Disney are limitless....did I mention I scrapbook??? So, of course, you know I wanted to have a ton of photos, but with the rain, getting the camera out was not a lot of fun, not to mention the kids were wearing the same outfit in every picture....a wet poncho and wet hair plastered to their little melons. After Tuesday Tracy said no more ponchos, so every time we saw a character or had a photo op with no BIG raindrops we took off the ponchos and tried to fluff the hair. That helped a little. Then on the last evening we heard from Angie, the lady who got our tickets for us, that Disney was going to give us a credit for our water park tickets since we had not used them and the weather had been so bad. That was an answer to prayer. Then the last morning we woke up and it was not raining we headed straight to Epcot to get some pics and maybe a chance at Test Track before it started to pour again but it was still down from the storm earlier in the morning. We did however get some wonderful pic's in the hour we were there before the bottom fell out and we decided to head for higher ground, literally. So we got in our car and headed north to Alabama. The Lord answered all of our prayers.

I'm gonna post a few pictures that we took on here. One of my faves was one of the whole family at Chef Mickey's but I don't have it. I was surprised it turned out to be worth anything. It was one of those days where we had been in the rain all day, our reservation was at 8:40 and we had come straight from the park. I hadn't seen a mirror since 8 a.m. so you can only imagine. When they told the whole family to gather for a photo I asked Tracy "how to I look?" he gave his usual pat reply, "fine"....why do I ask...I asked the girls, "maybe just the two of you should go, does Mommy look okay for a picture?"...Elly said I looked fine, but my hair looked tired, to which Sydney added that I smelled like wet trash. ????? The woman taking the photo found it all quite funny, but not as funny as I found it twenty minutes later when they brought the picture to my table and wanted $39 for it. Yeah, I don't think so!

I cried many happy tears when they saw their first parade there, when they saw their first princess there, when they cried because they had to leave and said that Disney World really is magical.......here are a few of our pics to share with you.....this is just a few, I'll do a slideshow later.....

Quick update

We have made it to Orlando. Thank you Jesus!! I thought I was gonna have to be dropped off on the FL Turnpike many times. When I finally got one child to sleep and the other one to quit asking how many more minutes away we were from Disney World I thought I was gonna get a break. Then it started to storm. Ya'll know I don't like to drive, and when it's stormin' I don't even like to RIDE. It terrifies me. I looked at Tracy and said, "I need a nerve pill," I didn't think I was gonna make it. He was laughing at me so hard that I don't know how he could see to drive and that made it even worse.

I know I asked you all to pray for my kidneys and knees. My knees have been tight the last couple of days partly due to the fact that I'be baked them, and partly due to the fact they've been stuck in a car seat for 8 hours...hmmmm. The kidney/bladder issue was a surprise to me this week. I went to the doctor for a headache and stomach problem last week and they did a urine test to check on an existing kidney stone....they just said things looked fine other than the fact that I had some blood in my urine.....not so fine to me, but okay, they gave me something for the headache and the stomach so two out of three.....until we had been here for about 23 and half hours and I started having bladder spasms....only me, I know. Anyway the doctor called in some meds yesterday and they have started to help a bit. One of the side effects of one is that is seems to make my joints a little more stiff, and a side effect of the other is that it makes my urine green. No really, it does, neon green. I thought after the car ride today my khaki Dockers were gonna have a neon green stain all the way down the leg.

We stopped at a Wal-Mart in a town called Defuniak Springs today. If you ever think you've lived in a red neck town, I encourage you to visit this place. I thought I had grown up in such an area until today, but this place made the Wal-Mart where I'm from look like a debutaunt ball. More on that later, but for now, I gotta get some sleep.....we're on Mickey's time zone now!!

Love ya!

Catchin' ya up! Thought I would take a minute to catch you up before we head tomorrow. We have had a WONDERFUL week. I am fried to a crispy shade of lobster red. As we speak I am basted in aloe vera gel and white vinegar. I'm not stinging too badly at the moment. Elly is already a nice shade of brown and no longer looks like one of us with her sun bleached hair and brown skin. She is a beach beauty for sure.

Last night we took the girls to hunt for sand crabs on the beach and they had a blast. Elly would spot light the crabs and scream "hewe, hewe" in her best southern drawl while Syd would come running with the net. They caught eight in all. They were sad when we had to release them but I would be sad when I smelled dead crabs in a couple days, so out they went.

I hate to make this short, but it's late, really late, and the light of the computer is keeping little eyes open....and we are leaving in the morning for.....DISNEY!!!!! Doubt I'll blog from there but I'll try to post pics and catch up when we get back.....edit button is not working so have patience with me....love all of ya...send up some prayers for my knees and kidneys.....thanks!!

Vacation Day 2

So I am just gonna completely bore you to tears with all of the little details of our vacation, but I don't care, if you don't want to hear it you can just say blah, blah, blah, and hit return, return, return, and read the last line. You may do that anyway for all I know.
Anyhow after I talked to you yesterday we spent an hour or three at the pool and then went to grab a bite to eat. We spent the remainder of the evening at a bridge known locally as "the pass" where hubs likes to fish. It is a neat place because you meet all manner of people there, and I could tell you stories that would make you laugh until you spit that Dr. Pepper/Diet Coke, yeah, you know who I'm talkin' to, all over your screen, but I'll save those for another post. Last night we met a young man from Russia. He has been here for 14 years. He caught an eel and showed it to my girls. They were so impressed with it that he then spent the rest of his time trying to find another creature to impress us with, so we got to see and pet a baby sting ray and a baby eel and a really weird fish that looked like it had butterfly wings. He caught all of this with a net. We were actually learning something much to the chagrin of all those people who keep asking us why we aren't in school!!

Today we spent some time at the outlet mall, and visiting with family. This evening we did our time at the pool for the girls and went to a local park, then made our way to one of our favorite places to eat, The Shrimp Basket, and had all you can eat fried fish.Is there any other way to eat it? Not sure what we are gonna do tomorrow, but I know we have to be back here in time for American Idol! See ya then!

We Are HERE!!

Sorry it has taken me so long to get back on the blog but you know had I had important thing to do....like you know, get ready for vacation!!!!

After the 5 hour drive that took 8 hours, we are finally here and set up. As I type this I am sitting at the dining table in the camper watching my two little girls play on the playground about 50 feet outside my window. We are on VACATION people!! We just finished getting everything set up for the most part. We are going to be here at this park for a week, then leave for Disney World for a week and then head back here for two weeks more. We spent a couple of hours at the pool this afternoon. It is about 80 degrees with beautiful, clear skies which is great after the two or three weeks of clouds and rain we came from at our house. There will be a full moon tonight so hubs is looking forward to some moonlight beach fishing, and the girls and I love to watch!!
I will be back on here as often as I can to update and tell stories. Hope I don't bore you to tears!!