Sarasota, Florida

December 18th through January 3rd, 2010

Friday, December 18th 34/27°, Cloudy

    We decided to attempt to leave for Florida a day early due to some ominous weather predictions, pushing our departure time up by about 12 hours. I got out of work four hours early today, so I spent the afternoon attempting to fit everything into the van and the little orange trailer while the kids were at school and Tara was at work Tara got out of work a little after 1:00pm and came home to help. I was hoping to be on the road shortly after the kids got off the bus, but of course that was never going to happen. We did manage to leave the house about 4:30pm, but we had to stop at the post office to try to have Dad & Mom’s mail forwarded to Sarasota, the van needed gas, we picked up some dinner from Wendy’s, and we had to stop by Dad & Mom’s house to get the mail out of their mailbox. We “officially” began our trip shortly after 5:30pm.

    We experienced nothing but clear driving all the way south today. Aside from our many trips to rest areas, we didn’t make any unnecessary stops. We pulled into the La Quinta Inn in Florence, Kentucky around 10:45pm to check in for a good night’s sleep. We had picked up a coupon book in Ohio and called a few places to stay, but this one had the best price thanks to the fact that they didn’t charge us for Tinkerbell. Before going to bed, we had a quick snack of pop and popcorn. Sometime between 11:30pm and midnight we dozed off for what we hoped would be a good night of rest.

Saturday, December 19th 41/31°, AM Snow Showers (Florence, Kentucky – AM)

    We were greeted by at least an inch of wet, heavy snow on the ground when we arose at 7:30am this morning. I can honestly say that the white blanket of snow did nothing to add to our motivation factor this morning. We were supposed to be driving away from this cold, snowy weather, after all. Tara, Drew, & I all managed to find the energy to take showers this morning before we all loaded our belongings in the van. After everything was packed away, we went back into the hotel to enjoy the complimentary deluxe continental breakfast. Tara and the kids feasted on danishes, cereal, sausage, fruit, and make your own waffles, while I stuck to a couple of hardboiled eggs (which were fairly gross – how is that even possible?)and a piece of sausage.

    We left the hotel shortly after 9:00am. It would have been a little earlier but Tyler left his blanket in our room and had to go back in and ask to get it. Thank goodness he realized this before we pulled out of our parking spot, because I am pretty sure that we wouldn’t have been turning around to go back and get it once we had hit the expressway!

    Even though the roads were wet from the snow throughout Kentucky and on into the northern half of Tennessee, we experienced nothing but smooth driving for the majority of our day. Our stops were pretty much limited to bathroom breaks and gas for the most part. It was around 11:00am that we had our first fill-up, and we made it until 1:00pm before we pulled off to use the restrooms and eat lunch. Tara & I ate the sandwiches that she was kind enough to make for us, and the kids had their choice of bologna or pizza Lunchables.

    The second half of Tennessee was snow free, but we did drive through rain. We managed to make it into Georgia a little before 3:00pm. We stopped at a McDonalds in Forsyth for dinner, sometime around 6:00pm. Our only real traffic hiccup of the day was a long back-up, compliments of a 6-car rear-ender, just a little south of Atlanta. It could have been us in the accident, so I won’t complain. Plus, we never actually came to a stop – we just had to slow to a crawl.

    Our next stop was for gas, this time at a Kroger station in Macon at around 6:45pm.

    We continued driving happily along until sometime around 10:00pm in Florida. We started to hear a strange noise coming from either the rear of the van or the trailer area. Tara was driving at the time, so she quickly pulled off onto the shoulder of the expressway. It didn’t take me long to figure out what the problem was – one look at the trailer tire on the passenger side clearly showed that it was flat. There was an agricultural inspection station right near where we stopped, so we limped along the shoulder to get to the station entrance. We stopped under a street light so that I could see a little better. I went about the business of getting the jack out of the van only to discover that the tire iron that is included doesn’t fit the nuts (actually, they are bolts on this trailer – there are no studs) on the trailer tires. Thank goodness I thought ahead enough to throw a tool kit in the van with me, because without it we would have been in deep trouble. It took a whole lot of grunting on my part to get the bolts to break loose, though. The trailer wasn’t heavy enough, even being fully loaded, to keep the tires from spinning as I tried to break the bolts free. Standing on the tire helped some, but only a little. Tara & I were joined by a state trooper about halfway through our ordeal, but he wasn’t the most helpful fella. He did aim a flashlight for me, which we had neglected to pack, but otherwise about all he did was complain about how cold it was (of course Tara & I were standing there in t-shirts thinking almost the exact opposite). He didn’t even stick around long enough for me to finish getting the spare and the flat tire mounted back on the trailer. Thanks, pal!

    After a little more than a half hour of time and a lot of frustration, we were back on the road. It was about this time that I was feeling pretty angry and tired, and I was seriously debating stopping for the night once again. Tara would have none of it, however, and we soldiered on.

    Since Dad & Mom had arrived earlier in the day, they had warned us that the turnpike to Orlando was under construction and down to one lane. They had taken a different route, US-27, across to Orlando. We opted to do the same, which added about a half-hour to our trip, according to the GPS. It was smooth sailing until we started to come into the city. The temperature gauge in the van started to creep way up, and unfortunately I am not talking about the outside temperature (which would have been a good thing). It wasn’t an issue as long as we were able to keep moving, but any time spent at a sent the needle towards the redline quickly. Turning the heater on did nothing to help, either.

    We managed to drive safely the rest of the way, arriving at the Tropical Palms RV Resort in Kissimmee at 2:30am. The kids had passed out long ago, so we carried them into the camper along, along with our pillows and some other bare necessities before climbing in bed and calling it a night (or in this case, early in the morning)

Sunday, December 20th 58/45°, Partly Cloudy

    We woke up around 9:00am this morning, not really by choice but by a combination of light, noise, and the kids stirring (they had slept in the van, after all, so it probably didn’t seem like such an early morning to them). We worked on taking turns getting everyone showered while cooking our breakfast. Today it was bacon and eggs (the bagged eggs/omelets that we learned about while camping at the state park over Labor Day last September). By the time we actually did eat, it was more of a brunch than a breakfast, though. After eating, the kids utilized their free time by riding their bikes and walking around the campground.

    Before we left the campground to spend the day shopping at Downtown Disney, we figured that we should let the kids in on a little secret. Since they were all asleep when we arrived at Dad & Mom’s trailer, they just assumed that they were in Sarasota. As they rode and walked around the park, they wondered why things weren’t as they remembered: the lack of a hot-tub; the much smaller swimming pool; etc. They were also confused by the fact that they couldn’t go visit Great-Grandma Parrott and Uncle Steve in the morning while we got ready (our excuse to them was that they weren’t home). We decided that it would be a good idea to give their kids their present from Grandpa and Grandma: two days at Walt Disney World! Not one of the kids expressed the excited reaction that I thought they would, though. Their reaction was more “ho-hum” than “gee-whiz.” They were more upset with us for letting them think they were in Sarasota when they were actually in Kissimmee. Where would the fun have been in telling them that, though? Tara & I also decided to give the kids one of our gifts to them as well, which was a $25 gift card that they could use to purchase any souvenir that they chose while at Disney.

    We left for a quick stop at Wal-Mart on our way to Downtown Disney between noon and 1:00pm on our quest to look for some souvenirs from our visit. Mom had been there and said that they had a wide selection of Disney merchandise. Despite finding a lot of neat shirts and other souvenir-type things, we decided to hold off on purchasing anything until we saw what Downtown Disney had to offer.

    At Downtown Disney we fought the gigantic crowds to wander through a long list of stores, but we were largely unsuccessful in finding any “must-have” items (that isn’t to say that we didn’t see anything we like – we definitely did). We toured the LEGO Imagination Center first, before stepping into the World of Disney store. Sam really wanted to get her hair done at the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique, but the price was a little more (ok, a LOT more) than we wanted to spend (plus we didn’t have an appointment scheduled). Next, Mom led everybody into the Ghirardelli Ice Cream & Chocolate Shop to try some free samples. We also visited Team Mickey Athletic Club, Tren-D and Once Upon A Toy. Tara & I bought a personalized ornament at the Disney’s Days of Christmas store, as well as a couple of other ornaments for our “Disney tree.” Unfortunately the personalized ornament wouldn’t be completed until December 25th, which meant either a special trip to pick it up while we were in Sarasota or a stop on our way home to get it (which was our choice). We also shopped at Disney’s Design-A-Tee and Disney’s Wonderful World of Memories before needing a break.

    We ended up leaving Downtown Disney for a while so that we could get something to eat. The kids were tired and cranky from walking, and we were all getting pretty hungry. We drove up and down 192 (the main road between Disney and the park we stayed in – and the condos we have stayed in during past visits for that matter) looking for something to eat until we finally settled on an Outback Steakhouse (exotic, I know, but what can I say – Tara & I had a gift certificate to use!).

    We returned to Downtown Disney to do a little more shopping. It was during our return visit that Drew ordered a customized t-shirt from Disney’s Design-A-Tee shop with a cute, but very angry, Donald Duck on it. We had to wait a couple of days to pick it up, but Drew was very pleased with the way he used his Christmas gift card.

    At some point during our venturing in and out of the many stores at Downtown Disney, Sam purchased a charm bracelet with some of the money on her gift card. She found many charms that she would have liked to add to the bracelet as well, but money wouldn’t allow her to buy them all. She decided to save some of the money on her card in case there was something she wanted to buy while we were in the parks.

    After shopping for a little while longer, we headed back to the campground. After winding down for a bit, it ended up being close to 11:00pm before we finally settled in for the night.

Monday, December 21st 62/40°, Partly Cloudy

    Today was “Disney – Day One,” and we set our alarm to go off at 6:30am to ensure an early arrival. Unfortunately, thanks in large part to a couple of late nights in a row; we didn’t end up get out of bed until closer to 7:00am. For breakfast, we basically grazed on whatever we could find in the trailer. The kids all ate Toaster Strudel, while the adults had cereal, toast, or whatever else it was that they found appealing.

    We didn’t end up leaving the trailer until close to 9:30am, which was much later than I had hoped for. I was really thinking that we should arrive closer to the park opening time of 9:00am, but that wasn’t meant to be. We arrived at the Magic Kingdom parking lot and found a parking spot before riding the tram to the Ticket & Transportation Center. This is where Mom purchased the kid’s tickets. Tara & I had ordered ours online when we bought the gift certificates, and Dad & Mom had their own unexpired tickets, so the adults were all set. Once we had the tickets in hand, we headed to the Monorail for our ride to the Magic Kingdom! We opted for the Monorail for two reasons: first, the kids preferred this option, and second, we assumed it would have been quicker than waiting for the boat.

    Once we entered the Magic Kingdom, we went straight to Tomorrowland to get a Fastpass for Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin. With Fastpass in hand, we headed off to Mickey’s Toontown Fair. Drew and Jayden wanted to go through Minnie’s Country House and Mickey’s Country House, so those were our first stops. After walking through both houses, we headed over to the Toontown Hall of Fame Tent so that Samantha and Jay could see Princess Aurora, Cinderella, and Belle. All of the kids had their pictures taken with them in addition to getting their autographs. After saying cheese and getting the kid’s autograph books signed, we walked over to The Barnstormer at Goofy’s Wiseacre Farm. For their first time on a rollercoaster, Drew opted to ride with me while Jay chose Tara. Tyler and Sam rode together, since they were experienced riders. Dad & Mom chose to keep their feet firmly planted on the ground, keeping an eye on the stroller instead.

    After riding The Barnstormer, we left Toontown to head back to Tomorrowland for our turn on Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin. Our scores from this ride were close, but the winner was indeed the greatest Dad in the world – me! By now the kids were all getting hungry, so we headed over to Cosmic Ray’s Starlight Café for lunch. Everyone enjoyed their choice of a hot-dog or a hamburger. Feeding eight people, this turned out to be an expensive meal.

    After satisfying our appetites, we decided to split up for our next ride. Tara, Tyler, Sam, and I all headed over to Stitch’s Great Escape. Although this show/ride hasn’t changed much since the last time Tara & I saw it (before Stitch replaced the original alien character), it didn’t seem as good this time around. Sam was completely freaked out, however. She wasn’t anxious to go back and see it again, that is for sure!

    While we were off getting spit on by Stitch, Dad & Mom took Drew and Jay to ride the Tomorrowland Speedway. Each of the kids got to drive, with a little help reaching the gas pedal, of course. We met back up just as the ride on the Speedway was winding down.

We then meandered through the park for a bit to figure out what it was that we wanted to do next. While doing so, Tara ran into a friend from high-school, Adam, and his wife. Funny how things like that happen (to other people, it has never happened to me). While Tara took a moment to socialize, I took the kids over to Pooh's Playful Spot (a playground-type of area) so that they could run around for a while. It did them good to burn off a least a little bit of their extra energy from standing in lines all day!

    Tara & I decided to stand in line with the kids to see Ariel in Ariel’s Grotto. Dad & Mom chose to go to The Hall of Presidents to watch the show there. We managed to get some pictures with Ariel and added an autograph to the kids’ collection before we headed to Liberty Square to meet up with Dad & Mom.

    Once we were all back together again, we walked back to Fantasyland. Our first ride there was on “it’s a small world.” Proving that the name of the attraction is true, Dad & Mom saw someone that they knew (their insurance agent, of all people) while standing in line! After our boat ride around the world concluded, it was off to Neverland on Peter Pan’s Flight. All of the other rides in Fantasyland were too lined up, so we opted to move on to Liberty Square. While we were back here we all went in to The Hall of Presidents to see our leaders tell us the history of this great nation.

    After the closing remarks from Barack Obama, we went to the Columbia Harbor House for dinner. Most of us opted for fish baskets here, although there was some chicken mixed in our group as well.

    After eating, we walked over to Frontierland. Tara, Tyler, Sam, and I rode down Splash Mountain. We couldn’t convince Drew to go with us, and Jay would probably have been too scared, so we didn’t even try to convince her. Tyler and I sat together and we got the wettest, of course. Somehow Tara and Sam managed to stay relatively dry.

    Dad & Mom had picked up a Fastpass for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad earlier (while we were waiting in line to see Ariel), but it wasn’t quite the time for us to use them yet. While waiting for our allotted Fastpass hour, we headed over to see the Country Bear Jamboree. Once all of the bears had sung their song Tara, Tyler, Sam, & I went to ride the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad while Dad, Mom, Drew, and Jay stood and watched the 9:00pm showing of the SpectroMagic Parade. We had a couple of extra Fastpass tickets left over, so Tara and Tyler got right back on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad again.

    Since Tara and Tyler were busy with their ride, Sam and I checked out the line for Splash Mountain. Since it was a minimal wait (we practically walked right on) we decided to ride it again. Once we finished our ride, the cast members working it asked everyone in our log if we would like to go again. Everybody in our log eagerly said yes, so off we were once more, without even having to stand in line – we just stayed seated in our log for round two. Just as we were leaving, Tara and Tyler walked in. They ended up two logs behind us.

    After our second ride, Sam and I headed over to find Dad, Mom, Drew, and Jayden. We stood near the Splash Mountain entrance and watched the Wishes fireworks show at 10:00pm. Sam and I had actually seen a few of the fireworks from the ride, and we decided to finish them on the ground. Plus, we were getting a little chilly from getting wet. Tara and Tyler, on the other hand, hadn’t had enough yet. They ended up riding Splash Mountain three times during the fireworks show, even taking a bathroom break between trips two and three!

    By the time those two finally had enough, the fireworks show was over. We began making our way towards the front of the park. Before we left, Tara wanted to make one last stop, this one at the Main Street Bakery. We bought some freshly baked cookies and a drink before leaving the park for the night.

    After a quick boat ride back to the Ticket and Transportation Center followed by a tram ride back to the van, we were off to the resort and the comfort of the trailer. We ended up making it home around midnight, and as you could imagine after a day as busy as ours, we headed straight to bed for the night.

Tuesday, December 22nd 66/45°, Partly Cloudy

    We got off to another late start this morning, thanks in large part to the late night last night. We woke up around 8:00am this morning, and we worked on taking turns showering and eating whatever was available for breakfast.

    Once everyone was up, showered, and dressed we climbed into the van and headed out for Disney’s Hollywood Studios. We arrived a little before 11:00am, and made an attempt to get a Fastpass for either Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith or The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, but both were already unavailable for the remainder of the remainder of the day. Since the line for The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror was the shorter of the two, Tara, Tyler, and I opted to get in line for that one. Try as we might, we couldn’t convince Samantha to join us, so she went with Dad, Mom, Drew, and Jayden to see Playhouse Disney – Live on Stage!

    Tara, Tyler, and I walked over to get in the line for the Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster, but it was 80 minutes long – much longer than any of us wanted to wait for a ride today. We headed off to meet the others in the Animation Courtyard with the plan of seeing the Voyage of The Little Mermaid show. While we were en route a nice lade gave Mom several Fastpass tickets to Toy Story Midway Mania, so the kids chose to do that instead. Tara rode with Drew, Tyler and Sam were together, and I went by myself (there were only five passes, but I think I could have carried Jay in with no problems – of course I didn’t realize this until after the fact). Dad, Mom, and Jay found a bench outside and patiently waited for us.

    Although the kids would have gotten right back on the ride if they could have, the line was much too long for that. It turned out that we were right across the street from a Character Greeting spot for Buzz & Woody, my two favorite Disney-Pixar characters. We waited in a short line (one that had lots of cool photo opportunities from scenes in the movies) to see them and get their autographs. Everyone except Jayden, that is. She had fallen asleep while waiting for us to finish riding Toy Story Mania, so Dad & Mom stayed behind to keep an eye on her in the stroller.

    With autographs in hand it was time to get some lunch, since we were all getting pretty hungry. We ate lunch at the Studio Catering Co. The kids ate Lunchables (although very reluctantly) while the adults sampled a wide variety of the eateries choices. Dad and I ate chili dogs sans chili (in other words, a hot dog, but technically they only sold chili dogs here) with potato chips, Tara had a chicken wrap, and Mom ate grilled chicken with beans and rice. After lunch we stumbled upon the Character Greeting station for Lightning McQueen and Mater, who happen to be the stars of Drew’s favorite movie, Cars. We waited in line for 5-10 minutes to see them, but we didn’t move very far. Since we were planning on seeing the day’s final showing of the Lights, Motors, Action! Extreme Stunt Show, we opted to get out of line with the promise to the kids that we would come back later.

    The Lights, Motors, Action! Extreme Stunt Show is a new addition since the last time that we have gone to the park, so it was something that we wanted to see. In addition, Dad & Mom really wanted us to see it, as they had seen it during one of their priors visit to the park and thought that the kids and I would really enjoy it. The show itself is primarily a bunch of cars driving in really close proximity to each other, doing lots of burnouts and slides, with a few jumps tossed in for good measure. Being the manly-man family that we are, we all enjoyed it. When people ask me what I want to do for a living now that I have earned my degree, I usually say that I have no idea. I must admit, however, that getting paid to drive cars like they do in this show would be pretty gosh-darn sweet!

    At the conclusion of the show we headed back to the Character Greeting station to get pictures of the kids with Lightning McQueen & Mater. Although it is really cool that you can have your picture taken with incredibly detailed real life versions of the movie characters, I am a little disappointed that there was no method of collecting an “autograph” from them. It would have been cool to hand the autograph book to a cast member who could stamp a tire track into the book or something. It isn’t as though other characters don’t use stamps for autographs – Buzz Lightyear, for example.

    Tyler wanted to go on The Great Movie Ride, so that is where we headed next. We had attempted to do this ride earlier, but the wait was around 100 minutes – much too long for this ride, in my opinion. This time the wait was only 15 minutes, which is a much more reasonable time. Although there were some minor changes to the ride, it was pretty much as Tara & I remembered it from our first visit, on our honeymoon, in 1997.

    We were intending on leaving the park at this time, but we got sidetracked by a group of cast members and park guests singing a humorous version of the 12 Days of Christmas. Each person was able to make up something that they wanted for Christmas, and it tended to change or get added to each time it was their turn to say the verse. The twelfth day belonged to a girl whose request started out innocent enough, but as she began adding things she wound up wanting starring roles in movies and TV shows – all-around entertainment domination. Me, being the smart aleck that I am, couldn’t help but ask (rather loudly): “What does she want to be, Oprah?” Needless to say we all got a kick out of this, as did several other guests standing near us. Tara found the comment extremely amusing, as she chuckled for quite some time afterwards.

    Since it was close to the 6:00pm timeframe that was considered dusk, Dad really wanted to go to The Streets of America to see “The Osborne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights.” Since he and Mom paid for a majority of the tickets in our group and he hadn’t really requested to see any specific shows or go on any rides, I felt as if that was the least we could do. We wandered around the streets for about a half hour, looking at all of the lights (in reality, it is way too many, but for the overwhelming “wow” factor, it was just about right). It even snowed! Granted, it wasn’t real snow (the snow was some sort of bubbles, I believe), but it was falling from the sky and it looked like snow.

    We finally managed to leave Disney’s Hollywood Studios somewhere between 6:30-7:00pm, taking the tram back to the van. We then drove to the Ticket and Transportation center to take the monorail ride back to the Magic Kingdom. I inquired about sitting in the front car of the Monorail with the driver, but we were told that they no longer do that. I was pretty bummed, because I think that the boys would have really enjoyed this special treat.

    Once we were back in the Magic Kingdom, we attempted once again to take Tyler and Sam on Space Mountain. Like last time, however, we were denied by the wait time of well over an hour. With such a compressed two day visit to the parks, standing in such a long line just didn’t make sense to us. We already struggled to fit in everything that we wanted to do, and waiting this long for one ride would have meant skipping two or three others.

    With Space Mountain out, we headed off to ride on the Jungle Cruise. This was the first time in my many visits that I have ever ridden this ride in the dark. I didn’t really notice much of a difference from the daytime rides, except that it is more difficult to see some of the peripheral visual effects. As a kid, though, I could imagine that this ride would be much scarier at night, as the animals seem to appear out of nowhere without any advanced warning. All of our kids managed to do OK, however. Drew definitely kept his eyes peeled, making sure nothing got too close. Jay just seemed to roll with the punches, taking in as much as she could.

    The next stop on our evening schedule was the redone Pirates of the Caribbean ride (redone since our last visit, anyway). With the addition of characters from the Pirates of the Caribbean movie series, the ride didn’t really seem as good to me. I can’t exactly pinpoint why, though. I do really enjoy the movies, so that isn’t the factor. Everybody else seemed to enjoy the ride, however, and that is the entire reason that we are here!

    Our next stop was at The Enchanted Tiki Room Under New Management. This has been a show that the kids have always seemed to enjoy, even though the tiki god has tended to scare both Tyler and Sammy in the past. That didn’t happen this time, as all of the kids were riveted by the singing birds, totem poles, and other special effects.

    We followed up the tiki birds with The Magic Carpets of Aladdin. Everybody rode the carpets high into the night sky with the exception of Dad, who stayed at ground level while he doing some backtracking to round up the stroller. Once the ride was over and we had taken the requisite number of spins we made a quick pit-stop at Aloha Isle to buy the kids some ice-cream. What started out as a stop to ease the starvation of the older two quickly turned into a treat for each of them. I’m not sure how she planned on pulling it off, but somehow Tara was under the impression that buying ice cream for only two of the four kids was somehow going to be OK with the other two. It turns out it wasn’t, and we had to go back to get Drew and Jay some as well. In the end everybody was happy.

    With ice cream in hand (well, in the kid’s hands) we headed off to the front of Cinderella’s Castle to watch the Wishes fireworks show once again. By now the adults were fairly hungry as well, so Tara weaved her way through the crowds to a popcorn stand to buy a couple of tubs of popcorn and some drinks. Once Tinkerbell flew from the castle to start the fireworks show, we were able to take turns snacking on the popcorn (of course the kids had their share too, heaven forbid that they miss out on a bite of a food item). The show is certainly more impressive from the castle area than it is from the back of the park.

    When the last firework exploded in the sky over the castle, we decided to make our way to the front of the park for our exit. The amount of people who had the same thing in mind slowed our progress, however, so we just stood and people watched for a bit while the crowds passed. Once things cleared out enough to move without tripping on other people’s toes, we made our way through a few of the shops on Main Street. We didn’t buy anything tonight, as our overall lack of sleep began to catch up to us and crankiness started to set in. Despite the park being open for another hour, by 11:00pm we were completely wore out and we made our way to the exits.

    We took the boat back to the Ticket and Transportation Center once again tonight. It was much more crowded on the boat than it was yesterday – half of us ended up standing upstairs while the rest stayed downstairs with the stroller. Despite a short wait (those of us who were upstairs were at the front of the boat, the downstairs group was at the rear and were among the last to exit the boat), we managed to find each other once again. Thankfully Disney was thoughtful enough to leave some chalk on the ground outside the boat area, and Tyler passed the time by leaving our name on the ground, as well as “2009” for the year of our visit.

    After the short drive back to the campground, we headed straight to bed. We definitely need a little recharging for tomorrow’s activities!

Wednesday, December 23rd 72/49°, Partly Cloudy

    Because we had to check out of the resort at 11:00am today, we needed to get up and get packing fairly early this morning. That meant an 8:00am wakeup call to make sure that we got everything done in time. With little time to go before we had to leave, we ate only small snacks for breakfast in the trailer today. Plus, we had to save room for our real breakfast a little after noon!

    Once we managed to pack up everything into our respective trailers, Tara & I took off with the kids to head to the local Wal-Mart (my least favorite store, but I knew that they had what I needed and where it was, which is key when you are in a fairly unfamiliar city) to pick up a spare tire to replace the flat from our way down. Dad & Mom headed straight to the Contemporary Resort to check in for our character breakfast at “Chef Mickey’s.” Tara, the kids, and I joined them just before our scheduled 12:20 reservation. We had our group picture taken before we were seated at the table. While at our table, we were greeted by Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, and Pluto throughout the course of our breakfast. Tara & I were a little disappointed that Chip and Dale didn’t make an appearance, like they had done in the past.

    With our bellies full (probably more full than they should have been) we headed outside to take our pictures beside/on a steel Mickey Mouse sculpture. Once everyone had taken their turns smiling, Dad & Mom headed off to Sarasota to get the camper set up on their site. Tara & I took the kids shopping inside the the Contemporary Resort. It was here where Jayden bought her Minnie Mouse purse and brush with her Christmas gift card.

    We drove back to Downtown Disney next, with the goal of completing our shopping. On our way to pick up the t-shirt that Drew ordered, we passed by the World of Disney store, where a statue of Stitch was spitting water to the sidewalk at random intervals. This must be a warm weather thing, since the temperature was decent today, and it wasn’t doing so during our earlier visit. The kids each had to take a turn standing on the sidewalk below, trying to get spit on and avoiding it at the same time.

    The first store we visited was the Ghirardelli Ice Cream & Chocolate Shop. Drew wanted to go in again because he enjoyed the free samples from our stop on Sunday. The next thing we did was stop by the Photopass office to see if we could recover some pictures that were associated with a Photopass card that I misplaced (lost). Sure enough, after sifting through a ton of pictures, we were able to find them and have them added to our replacement card. Thanks, Disney!

    While Tara was taking care of the photos, I took the kids into the Team Mickey Athletic Club to see if there was anything worth buying (plus, I was able to get them out of Tara’s hair while she was busy in the office next door).

    With the photo issue taken care of, our next stop was at the Disney Design-A-Tee shop to pick up the t-shirt that Drew used his gift card on. While the kids and I did this, Tara snuck off to go to Mickey’s Pantry to look into a plate set that she would like to use when we repaint the kitchen (sometime in the distant future).

    Once we all met back up, Tyler, Samantha, & Jayden took a spin on the carousel (quite literally for Tyler – instead of a horse he got one of the spinning chairs, like the teacups at the Magic Kingdom). Drew opted to skip the carousel and instead went for a ride on the train. This fulfilled a promise we had made to the kids for exhibiting good behavior while we took care of our shopping and errands.

    Next up was Once Upon A Toy, where Tyler picked out the snow globe that he had been eyeing and made a double-sided light saber. He purchased these items with his Christmas gift card. We then moved on to World of Disney, where both Tara & I were able to find sweatshirts that we really liked, but of course they were sold out of the sizes we need. We opted to leave with no souvenir rather than settle for something that we weren’t 100% satisfied with. Besides, we knew that we had to come back to pick up our ornament at some point – maybe we would have better luck then!

    By the time we left for Sarasota, it was close to 6:00pm. We made one quick stop on our way home, to pick up some french-fries and pop for a snack. We ended up making it to Sarasota at around 8:00pm. We had another snack, shakes & popcorn, with Dad & Mom before we decided to call it a night. By 10:00pm, we were all beat. Three days of early mornings and late nights was taking its toll!

Thursday, December 24th 78/57°, Partly Cloudy/Wind

    Happy birthday, Erica!

    We woke up around 9:00am this morning, although it wouldn’t have hurt my feelings to get a little bit more sleep. Tara had some errands that needed to get done this morning, so she & I cleaned ourselves up a little bit and headed out the door, leaving the kids to hang out with Dad & Mom for a while. They feasted on Toaster Strudel for breakfast and spent the morning relaxing in the trailer and visiting Great Grandma Parrott.

    Tara & I headed to Old Navy, although getting there turned out to be a lot more difficult than we had planned. We plugged “Old Navy” into the handy-dandy new GPS that Tara got for Christmas, and it quickly located one on Tamiami Trail, just like I had found when I looked on the internet before we left. Unfortunately, when we reached our supposed destination, there was no Old Navy to be found. The GPS was kind enough to provide a phone number to the store, so we gave it a call. Sure enough, we were on the right road but in the wrong location (duh!). The problem is that they gave us a major intersection to drive to, but neither of us new whether that intersection was north or south of our current location. Thankfully I managed to remember the street address from the internet (one of the few times in my life that I remembered a number when I needed to!) and was able to plug that into the GPS. We were heading north at the time, and the GPS prompted us to “make a u-turn when possible,” which of course we did. Then the GPS directed us to “make a u-turn when possible,” which of course we did not. By this point in time I was losing my cool, so I don’t remember exactly how we managed to find the store, but somehow we did. It was even a successful trip, shopping wise. Tara was able to use the coupon that was to expire that day by getting some clothes for herself and Drew, and a pair of flip-flops each for Samantha and Jayden.

    We left Old Navy and headed to Sam’s Club to pick up a few food items that we would need during the course of our stay, in addition to items for the Christmas Eve and Christmas Day gatherings. After leaving Sam’s Club, we headed off to Target to purchase a couple more gifts for the white elephant gift exchange that was going to take place later in the evening. We bought an outdoor light set for an adult gift and a basketball hoop/small Lego set for a child gift (intending for it to go to Tyler, but with no guarantee that he would actually end up with it).

    At this point it was getting way past lunch time, and the kids had already eaten grilled cheese sandwiches at Great Grandma’s. Tara & I headed back to Dad & Mom’s trailer to put the groceries away. Since neither one of us was in the mood for grilled cheese, we opted to make lunch here instead. I fried up some Spam and ate that, while Tara chose to have a tuna sandwich. Tara also worked on making her Oreo balls to take to tonight’s Christmas Eve gathering with family and friends.

    After eating, Tara went to the pool to meet up with the kids for a swim. Dad & Mom stayed at Great-Grandma’s to help get things ready for the party. I stayed behind to get a shower and wrap presents to take for the gift exchange later in the evening.

    We left for Great-Grandma’s house at 6:00pm for an evening of hors d’oeuvres (no big dinner tonight – because of this I am glad I had a late lunch, although I still ate plenty of junk food here!). After Chris & Gina arrived at 7:00pm (stragglers!) we did the white-elephant gift exchange. This year it was new items, with a $15-20 limit. Drew and Jay opted to not participate, so we just gave them the gifts that we had purchased for them (with the intention that they wind up with them anyway). They seemed pleased with what they got – Drew got a big coloring book and a box of crayons and Jayden got a Dora Christmas DVD. After some swapping of gifts (not as much as the last time we were down at Christmas, however) everyone seemed to be happy with what they got. I ended up with a musical twister game that we intended for Sam, but she got a purse with bath salts, soaps, and lotions in it. She was probably happier with the purse than she would have been with the game anyway. Tyler ended up with the basketball set and Lego’s (after stealing it from me). Tara chose a toe-tapping Santa Clause and Snowman set that she herself had purchased from the Hallmark store in Michigan. Yes, we had to haul it all the way down only to haul it all the way back. After the gift exchange was complete, Tyler and Sam went to the basketball court to shoot some hoops with Nicholas, who is the 11-year old son of Meghan’s boyfriend, Mo.

    We finally went home around 11:00pm (although in two shifts – Great Grandma’s golf cart isn’t quite big enough for the 8 of us!). We spent some time watching “A Christmas Story” while lying in bed before calling it a night.

Friday, December 25th 75/60°, AM Light Rain/Wind

    We woke up this morning somewhere between 8:30 & 9:00am. The kids were thrilled to see that Santa had brought a few more gifts for them, despite the fact that I had forgotten our stockings and Santa’s special key that opens any door where we are staying (and the tree that I had bought to take with us – boy, was I on a roll or what?). We really thought that Santa was done with us after he had made a special delivery of presents to us in Michigan before we left!

    The kids started out by opening their gifts from Santa first. They all seemed pretty happy with what they got – PEZ dispensers and extra candy as a sort of stocking stuffer without the stocking, Lego’s for Tyler and Drew, an American Girl doll for Samantha, and a Bitty-Baby for Jayden. Each of the girls got some extra outfits for their dolls as well.

    Next up on their schedule was the presents from Grandpa & Grandma (which they didn’t have to do since they had already taken them to Walt Disney World for two whole days). The girls each got a makeup kit, while the boys got some more Lego’s. They all got a new pair of pajamas as well.

    After opening the rest of the presents, we ate breakfast and took turns getting our showers. We also watched more of “A Christmas Story” before switching over to the Disney Christmas Parade. The kids, especially Drew & Jay, thought it was cool to see stuff on TV that they had just seen in person days earlier.

    We headed to Great Grandma Parrott’s house around 12:30pm for Christmas dinner – turkey (both oven roasted and deep fried!), ham, potatoes, and other fixin’s. Everything that I ate tasted good, but that is where the problem is: I ate too much of everything that tasted good!

    I’m not normally much of a nap-taker, but I had to do it today. I headed back to Dad & Mom’s camper at 4:30pm to lay down to refresh. While I was away, the kids spent time playing UNO, greedy dice (a dice game that I had never heard of but is apparently popular in the park), and basketball.

    I went back to Great-Grandma’s after my nap to… you guessed it… eat some more. This time it was leftovers for dinner. Mmm… turkey sandwich on a homemade roll! The rest of our evening was spent talking with family, playing various card and dice games, and watching sports on TV. We headed back to Dad & Mom’s sometime around 11:00pm to head for bed.

Saturday, December 26th 63/53°, AM Clouds/PM Sun

    Today started out with yet another 9:00am wakeup time. I am not sure what it is about that time, but it sure does seem popular with the kids (I could sleep more without any problem, that is for sure). It was also another morning of “find your own” breakfast. Toaster Strudel remains the popular choice for the kids.

    Tara & I worked on packing the van with all of our stuff to prepare for our week in the condo. Since we were hoping to leave the little orange trailer at the park (there really isn’t any place to park it at the condo), we pretty much filled the van from top to bottom, front to back. Tara & I drove to the condo to check in around 12:30pm while the kids stayed behind with Dad & Mom to eat PB&J on rolls at Great-Grandma Parrott’s house for lunch. Once we got to the condo we learned that our unit wasn’t quite ready yet and that we couldn’t check in until after 3:00pm.

    With checking in to the condo out of the question for a couple more hours, Tara & I headed to Winn-Dixie to pick up some items for tonight’s dinner (tacos!). Winn-Dixie utilizes one of those card systems where you get one price with the card and a higher price without, and Tara assured me we had one from a trip to Florida years ago. Of course she couldn’t find it when we got to the checkout line, but they were able to use our phone number to give us the lower price. After the number was entered, he told us that we could have used our Kroger card (the lady in front of us apparently had)! Who’d a thunk it? That would have been nice to know in advance, though, because we could have racked up a few points for our gas rewards. Oh well, something to keep in mind for the future. [Note 01-15-2010: A call to Kroger’s customer service tells us that this is not possible. Who knows what the correct answer is. Maybe that lady’s points went to some other Winn-Dixie customer’s card.]

    While we were gone, the kids passed the time by taking Tinkerbell to the dog park to play and exercise. They were excited by the fact that there was another (much bigger) bulldog there for her to play with. From what I was told, they got along well.

    We returned to the condo at 3:30pm to pick up the keys to our unit. We went about the business of unloading the van and putting away the refrigerator items. Most of our stuff was left in bags for now, however, as we had to head back to Sun-N-Fun to make tacos for dinner. Tara & I had been craving tacos for a few days now, so this meal really hit the spot (especially considering the amount of fast food and park food that we have already eaten this week). Tonight we ate with Dad & Mom, Great Grandma Parrott, Steve, Peb, and Dory.

    Once we finished eating dinner and cleaning up the dishes, we all loaded into two different vans to go for a drive to look at various Christmas light displays. We saw some interesting and creative displays in people’s yards, displays that took up whole subdivision blocks, and a gigantic display at a church (one that we believe was in somebody’s yard the last time we were in Florida at Christmas).

    When we left our last light display, the six of us headed off to the condo while everyone else returned to their homes at Sun-N-Fun. We arrived at the condo sometime between 9:30-9:45pm, and Drew & Jay were in a very deep state of sleep. Tara carried Jay in, but Drew was in the back of the van. I asked him to unbuckle his seatbelt, but I couldn’t pull him out of his seat. It turns out that in his sleepy state all he had done was tuck the shoulder strap behind him. I was pulling on him with the buckle still around his waist! After figuring this out, I was able to unbuckle him and then deftly pull him out of the van, legs dragging across the middle-row seat and all.

    We put Drew in the chair and Jay on the couch while the rest of us went about the process of putting clothes, Christmas presents, and everything else that we had brought with us away. Once we finished this task, we inflated our new inflatable mattress and laid Drew and Jay down on it for the night at the foot of our bed.

    With the younger two kids down for the count, the rest of us relaxed in the living room watching TV and working on making more Oreo balls to take to Chris & Gina’s house tomorrow afternoon. They were kind enough to invite the family up to see their new house. By the time we finished with the first step of making the Oreo balls, it was close to midnight. Well past our bedtime, for sure. We chose to put the Oreo stuff away to finish tomorrow and crawl into our nice warm beds.

Sunday, December 27th 61/49°, Mostly Cloudy

    We had to set the alarm for 8:30am this morning so that we could all take turns showering and finish the Oreo balls before we had to leave for Chris & Gina’s family gathering. Since we weren’t technically going to be getting a lunch, the first thing that we did today was opt for a big breakfast in the condo instead. This morning we dined on pancakes, bacon, and eggs.

    Once our bellies were full, Tara went to work finishing the Oreo balls while the rest of us went about taking turns showering. Tara took her turn after placing the finished Oreo balls in the freezer. It was close to noon by the time we had all gotten cleaned up and dressed to leave for Chris & Gina’s house.

    We had a smooth drive north to Safety Harbor, crossing the Sunshine Skyway Bridge on the way. I had plugged the address into the GPS before we left and things were looking good until Mom called to tell me that I had given her the wrong address. That meant that we had the wrong address too. She had gotten in touch with Chris and had the new address, so I plugged it in and we adjusted our driving plan accordingly. Thankfully we hadn’t passed any of our turns yet! We arrived at Chris & Gina’s about 1:30pm.

    We enjoyed a wonderful afternoon with family that we don’t get to see too often – Denny & Karen, Justin, Tim & Sherry, Tim, Lois & Dick, Julie, Terry, Dana, Dad & Mom, Grandma, Steve, Lee & Lucy (Gina’s parents), and of course Chris & Gina. Most of our time was spent eating and talking, but there was also some Wii playing by the kids. Drew was feeling a little bored, so he & I took a short walk around the neighborhood to check out the variety of houses (and to see if there were any for sale).

    We left Chris & Gina’s house sometime between 5:30-6:00pm, taking I-75 home. We made a quick stop at Dad & Mom’s trailer to pick up a few items before we made the trip back out to the condo. We also made a pit-stop at Winn-Dixie to try to get Tara some green-apple vodka. Unfortunately grocery stores in Florida don’t sell liquor (just beer and wine). Winn-Dixie has a separate liquor store, but it closes at 8:00pm, and of course it was past that by now.

    Since we hadn’t yet realized that the stores here didn’t sell liquor, we drove across the road to Publix to try and get the vodka and something for dinner. Obviously we had no luck with the vodka, so we bought our groceries and headed out to the condo. Once we were back there, we worked on getting ourselves something to eat. Since we couldn’t agree on what to eat tonight, we had a hodgepodge meal tonight. I made and ate tacos again, while Tara made some egg rolls. Tyler had fallen in love with the chicken wings that he ate at Chris & Gina’s, so we bought some chicken tenders for the kids to eat.

    No one was quite ready for bed after eating, so we gathered in the living room to relax. The kids played with their Christmas presents while watching TV. Tara & I caught up on our computing activities (email, Facebook, downloading pictures from the camera, etc.). By 11:30pm we were all starting to feel pretty drowsy, so we chose to call it a night.

Monday, December 28th 69/50°, Mostly Cloudy

    Even though we didn’t really have anything major on our agenda today, we were still woken up by Tara’s alarm clock going off again and again, despite the fact that she had assured me that she shut it off yesterday. After what seemed like 50 presses of the snooze button, I was able to squeeze in another half hour or so of sleep before crawling out of bed. The kids all were up and stirring around 8:30am, I manage to stay in bed until 9:00am, while Tara somehow made it to 9:30am before coming out of the bedroom.

    After eating a big breakfast yesterday, we returned to our more normal eating habits today. The kids ate toaster strudels and pop-tarts, while Tara & I opted for bagels.

    After eating, Tara gave Drew and I a haircut (thanks Julie for lending us your clippers, you know, since I forgot to pack ours!). While the hair was flying, Tyler, Samantha, & Jayden got dressed and went out to the “recreation area” of the condo complex to play some ping-pong. The recreation area consists of pool and ping-pong tables under a roof along with a small playground area, which is new since our last stay here. After my haircut I quickly jumped in the shower, and Drew took his turn after me once his haircut was finished. Tara took her shower after we were both done.

    It was after noon by the time we were all showered and dressed, so we started making lunch for the day. We had planned on making hot dogs, but we realized that we lacked the required ketchup and mustard (we had bought buns and everything, but Mom had told us not to buy the condiments since we could use hers – the problem was that we didn’t have them at the condo, so it was a little hard to use them). We chose instead to just eat the macaroni & cheese that we usually have with hot dogs. Sam and Drew added a PB&J sandwich to their lunch.

    After we had eaten our lunch, the kids put on their swimsuits. We then walked out to the beach so that the kids could take a dip in the Gulf of Mexico. Unfortunately it was too cold to stay there for very long – too cold in the water and too cold in the air (especially so considering the wind!). Sam was the bravest of the bunch, wading out in the water to her waist. Tyler ran in but then ran right back out. Drew and Jay both walked around for a while in the knee-deep water range, but they wouldn’t venture out any further. Tara & I, both fully clothed (we weren’t crazy enough to swim today!), were freezing too, so I don’t know how the kids were able to brave it!

    We chose to move to pool so that the kids could swim there for a while, out of the wind. The kids found some goggles and other swim toys laying on the edge of the pool, so they decided to use them as long as nobody was around to claim them. Although the water temperature in the pool was warmer, the air temperature didn’t feel any better improve much – even with being out of the wind. Jay didn’t end up staying in the pool for long (we didn’t have any swimmies for her, and she couldn’t touch bottom). The other three would have swam all afternoon if they could have, but after being outside for about 45 minutes total, Tara & I were getting chilled to the bone. We hauled the kids out of the pool and headed back to our condo unit to change and warm up.

    Since it was too cold to play outside any longer, we broke out the Simpsons Scene It game that I had gotten for Christmas. Although I think everyone enjoyed the game, it is probably a little too old for the kids. It would have been nice if there were cards included for younger fans of the show. As it was, we tried to read the cards for easier questions that the kids would be able to answer. Since I am the biggest Simpsons fan in the family, it came as no surprise that I won the game. We had some free time after the game before we had to leave for our dinner out, so Tyler put together the Lego farm that he got from Santa. Drew played with his Lego’s and watched Tyler while the girls played with their new dolls.

    Around 5:40pm, we headed out for dinner at the Anna Maria Oyster Bar. We arrived at 6:00pm, meeting up with Dad & Mom, Grandma, Steve, Tim & Sherry, Julie and her boyfriend Terry, Dana, Uncle Dick & Aunt Lois and their daughter Kathy. Although I didn’t really know it until the end of the meal, this ended up being my graduation dinner (for finally finishing up my degree work). Thanks, everybody!

    The draw to this particular oyster bar, aside from the seafood, was that the kids get to eat for a penny an inch. For us, Tyler’s fish & chips meal only cost us 59¢, Sam’s pizza was 53¢, Drew’s pizza was only 47¢, and Jayden’s cost for macaroni-n-cheese (sense a trend with her yet?) was 35¢. Sum total of four kid’s meals: $1.94. Tara & I chose to have the Monday special: all you can eat fish & chips (Pollock) for $6.99. Tara even ventured out and had both a Tequila Sunrise and a margarita with her meal, which only cost us a combined $5.50. Our bill for the night was less than $22.00!

    On our way back to the condo after dinner, we made a quick stop at Publix to pick up some vanilla ice cream. We had told the kids that we would make root beer floats with the bogo pop that we had in the fridge. For those unfamiliar with bogo pop, it is the kids name for the pop that was on sale – Buy One, Get One free. We bought a 7-Up and a Root Beer, but the kids continued to call both of them bogo pop (as opposed to their correct name) for the remainder of our trip.

    Once we were back safely in the condo, we made the root beer floats and some chocolate chip cookies. While eating, we watched Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, which we had gotten for Christmas this year. Drew and Jay both admitted to being too tired to stay up, so we put them to bed about 15 minutes into the show. It was around midnight when the movie ended, so we turned off the TV and headed to bed (too late, once again).

Tuesday, December 29th 63/37°, Sunny

    I was woken up at 8:30am once again this morning by the kids. Somehow Tara managed to sleep in a little longer, though. I am not sure how she slept through our noise, although we did try our best to keep things quiet. We took it easy this morning, relaxing inside the condo in between taking showers and eating breakfast.

    Around noon we climbed into the van and headed north, with the destination being the Tampa Electric Manatee Viewing area, in Apollo Beach. Once there, we parked along the road with the other cars before we realized that there was an actual parking lot that we could have used. It didn’t matter though, as the walk was about the same either way. Once we made our way to the viewing platform, we were greeted with what I estimate to be between 50 and 100 manatee floating gently in the water near the power plant. We stood and watched their tails and noses poke above the water at random intervals for quite some time. Once we had seen enough nostrils to last us throughout the rest of the day, we headed inside the small “museum” to learn about manatees. After our museum sidetrip ended, we walked out onto an observation pier, which juts out 900 feet from land. It was out on this pier where Tara was the first to see a couple of rays swimming gracefully. They were fairly hard to see, but they did come close enough to the pier to be able to make out what they were. Looking at a pamphlet that was provided by the electric company, I believe that they were “spotted eagle rays,” and that we had a seen a couple of them jumping out of the water near the manatee earlier.

    After a little over an hour at the manatee viewing center, we headed back to Sarasota along I-75. It was a longer than expected trip, thanks to a camper trailer that had rolled onto its side. It was still attached to a Toyota SUV, rear wheels in the air and all, when we passed. All I can say is this: “What a crappy way to start a vacation!” Oh, and “I’m glad it wasn’t us…”

    Once we returned to Sun-N-Fun, Tara and Mom worked on doing some laundry at Great-Grandma’s house. With a load in each machine (washer and dryer, not two of one or the other), Tara headed out to buy some dog food and to pick up the swim goggles and swimmies that we had forgotten to grab on our way out of the condo this morning. Finding a pet store that sold Tinkerbell’s brand of food turned out to be a major chore involving stops at several pet stores. Thankfully, I stayed behind with the kids to feed them lunch. I am sure I wouldn’t have been in a pleasant mood if I chased around as long as Tara did for dog food.

    The plan for tonight’s dinner was to make pizza, and that is much easier to make in Great-Grandma’s full sized oven compared to the small oven in a camper. Mom and I worked on making pizza while waiting for Tara to return from her errands. She arrived in time for us to sit down to eat around 6:00pm.

    Once we finished eating, Tara headed off to Woodland Hall to play bingo with Great-Grandma, Peb, and Dory. Unfortunately, Tara wasn’t able to win any money tonight.

    While the hotly contested bingo games were occurring, Mom took the rest of us on a walk, hoping to see some of the owls that frequent the park. We were apparently there on the wrong night, as we were unable to locate any in the trees that they usually hang out in (no pun intended).

    Since we were unable to locate any owls, we made our way back to Dad & Mom’s trailer. We had heard a rumor that Tara and the kids on the Sun-N-Fun channel in a slideshow about the park, so we turned on the TV to check it out. They had their pictures when they were at the swimming pool on Christmas Eve, and now they were TV stars! Kids, being what they are, can’t sit still and watch TV for 5 minutes with wanting something to eat, so Mom obliged them with a bowl of ice cream.

    The kids decided that they wanted to spend the night with Dad & Mom so that they could take advantage of a few of the park’s amenities in the morning. Tara & I ended up heading back to the condo by ourselves tonight. While we were there, Tara worked on putting the newly cleaned clothes away while I took care of vacation pictures on the computer while watching one of the hundreds of bowl games on TV.

    Once we finished with our “chores,” we sat down together to watch “Ghosts of Girlfriends Past.” We hadn’t been able to watch a movie together in quite some time, as this one was on loan from Blockbuster for well over a month now! When the movie ended, it was past midnight once again, so we called it a night.

Wednesday, December 30th 74/43°, Partly Cloudy

    Without the kids around, Tara and I actually managed to sleep in until shortly after 10:00am this morning. I did have to get up once to shut the bedroom door, however. Without the kids in the other room (or at the foot of our bed) we left the bedroom door open all night, and by morning the sun was shining brightly throughout the whole condo. This occurred even though both sets of curtains in the front window were closed. This little tidbit of information certainly goes a long way towards explaining their consistently early waking time!

    Neither Tara nor I were very active this morning. We took our time getting showered before sitting down to eat leftovers for lunch. We took a brief walk around the condo to take pictures of the beach and by the pool. After I took all the pictures that I felt that we needed, we headed in to Sun-N-Fun to meet up with the rest of the family. Before we arrived, the kids had spent their morning at Sun-N-Fun playing putt-putt golf and eating PB&J for lunch. We got to Dad & Mom’s trailer just as they were heading off to the pool. Tara & I changed into our suits and joined them on their walk.

    At the pool area, we headed straight to the “Hippo Slide” after putting down our towels and taking off our shoes. The Hippo Slide is a giant inflatable slide that the park operates for a few hours each day. We all thought that it was more of a water slide, but it turned out that the water was provided by a person spraying a water hose at the top. It is kind of like a giant slip-n-slide, but on an angle. Tyler and Samantha each took a couple of turns going down the slide. I went down with Drew once because he wouldn’t go on his own, and that one time was more than enough for him (I, on the other hand, thought it was fairly fun). Jayden even braved the slide twice, with Grandma Terry the first time and with Tara the second. Tara wasn’t really excited about going down the slide, but her collision with the wall at the end of the slide made it more than worth it for the rest of us. Too bad I didn’t video tape it – YouTube was definitely calling for this one!

    After everyone who wanted too had taken their turns on the slide, we moved over to the big pool to take a dip. We spent a lot of time swimming, trying to get Drew & Jay more comfortable in the water. Tyler and Sam were swimming around like crazy, as long as they could touch bottom. Of course they wouldn’t do much of anything without their goggles on. Dana, Great-Grandma, and Uncle Steve came up to the pool area to visit with us while we swam. Uncle Steve even joined us in the water for a while.

    When the smell of french-fries from the poolside bar started to get our attention, we knew it was time to start thinking about dinner. We decided to dine at the Ale House restaurant to celebrate Dana’s 21st birthday as well as Drew’s 5th. We made our way out of the pool and back to Dad & Mom’s trailer to get dressed.

    We made it to the restaurant around 6:00pm, and were seated (in two separate booths, which was a little inconvenient) by 6:30pm. The hit of the evening, at least drink wise, was the $1 whiskey sours. Great-Grandma, Dana, and Tara each ordered two (although their second drink was technically ordered after 7:00pm, when the special ended – Dana argued about it and got the price reduced). To eat, Tara splurged on the lobster while I had the fish and chips once again.

    We made a short stop at Dad & Mom’s after dinner, and the kids decided to spend the night here once again. Tara & I made the return trip to the condo on our own. Once there, Tara went about checking out a variety of driving information for our trip home (such as weather predictions and hotel locations). I worked on packing up the kid’s Christmas gifts (putting away Lego’s, making sure the dolls had all their clothes, etc). We headed to bed around midnight once again.

Thursday, December 31st 76/54°, Partly Cloudy

    Because we had a million things to do on our last full day in Florida, Tara set the alarm to go off at 8:00am. It took a few pushes of the snooze button, but we managed to drag ourselves out of bed by 8:15am. After showering and getting ready, we managed to leave for Sun-N-Fun by 9:30am. Not everyone was ready to go when we got to Dad & Mom’s, so we waited while Samantha, Jayden, and Dad ate their breakfast.

    The first thing on our to-do list was a stop at Mixon Fruit Farm in Bradenton. We bought some oranges and grapefruit to take back to Michigan, as well as some orange and grapefruit juice. The kids also tried plenty of samples – of both fruit and juices. No stop at Mixon’s would be complete without an orange flavored ice-cream cone (the ice-cream, not the cone) and everybody had one – except for Jay, who stuck with plain vanilla.

    On our way back to the camper from Mixon’s we stopped at a Verizon Wireless store to try to replace the case for my phone (the clip broke off), but this store had very little in the way of accessories. They had very little in the way of anything, in reality. It may have been the sparsest store I have ever been in – almost as if inspired by Apple. Needless to say, I had no luck getting a clip.

    Once we got back to the trailer we feasted on leftovers for lunch. I ate some of the pizza from the other night, while Tara had the last two hot dogs. The kids all had PB&J, except for Tyler, who made a grilled cheese sandwich.

    After lunch we all walked up to the pool once again. Tyler and Sammie each took a couple more turns going down the Hippo Slide, but Drew refused to go even once. I was able to convince Jay to go down the slide with me one more time, but that was it for her as well. We swam in the pool for quite a while before we decided that it was time to head back to the trailer to get dressed.

    Back at the camper, Mom got a phone call from one of her friends alerting her to the presence of the owls where we had checked before. We drove the van over to see them, but by the time we got there they had moved on. Since we had parked in their driveway, we went inside Peb & Dory’s house to tell them goodbye. They were kind enough to offer us the use of their driveway if we ever make it near their home in Pennsylvania (they have water and electrical hookups for a camper). Maybe a trip to Hershey, Pennsylvania, is in our future!

    We were originally planning on joining a bunch of the park residents for a New Year’s Eve dinner, but none of us were particularly excited about doing so. We opted to have a special dinner, instead – Kentucky Fried Chicken, sides, homemade twice baked potatoes, and potato skins! You just can’t top that!

    After dinner, Tara & I took Tyler, Sam, and Drew to play a rousing game of shuffleboard. We had promised the kids that we would do so, and we were quickly running out of time to actually do so. I am 99.9% positive that we didn’t play anywhere near the correct rules, but the kids had fun, so in the end it was a successful adventure. After playing for about 30 minutes or so we headed back to the trailer.

    Although we would have liked to ring in the new year with the kids, Tara & I convinced them to spend one last night with Grandpa & Grandma. Since we had loaded all of our stuff into the van to take it out to the condo, we were going to have to do the same in order to get it back to load it into our trailer. With the kids with us we would have had to make two trips to get everything from the condo to Sun-N-Fun in the morning.

    Once we were back in the condo, Tara & I went about packing up all of our stuff. Do we know how to celebrate New Year’s, or what? We did get to welcome in 2010 with a bang though, thanks to all of the fireworks being set off up and down the beach. We didn’t make it much past 12:30am before climbing in bed. We have a long day of driving ahead of us tomorrow, after all.

Friday, January 1st 69/53°, AM Rain/Wind

    In an effort to get a decent start to our last morning in Florida, we set the alarm for 7:30am this morning. With it being New Years last night, however, we couldn’t force ourselves to crawl out of bed until closer to 8:00am. We took turns showering and packing the van, moving quickly enough to check out of the condo at 9:00am – just as office was opening for the day.

    We drove to Sun-N-Fun to transfer our stuff from the van to the trailer, but the hard rain failed to provide us with much of an opportunity to actually do so. We ended up moving the trailer under the awning and backing the van up so that the open hatch would be under it as well. Using an umbrella we were able to transfer what we needed from the van to the trailer.

    After we finally managed to get everything packed (well, almost everything – we did leave a few things behind), we headed to the Cracker Barrel in Bradenton for breakfast. We met up with Sherry, and Dad & Mom rode up with Great-Grandma and Steve. By the time we finally arrived it was really more of a lunch/breakfast combo, as it was much later than anyone had realized. After eating it was around 1:45pm before we got back on to I-75 for the start of our trip home. This was at least two hours later than we had hoped to leave.

    On our way home we stopped back at Downtown Disney to pick up the personalized Christmas ornament that we had bought. Unfortunately, Downtown Disney was totally packed today. We drove through every parking lot, but the only one with enough room to park the van and the trailer was the lot near the Cirque Du Soleil building. This was at the opposite end of Downtown Disney from where we needed to be. We chose to walk through the West End and Pleasure Island in order to get to the Marketplace. After picking up our ornament, we went back to the World of Disney to see if they had either of the sweatshirts that Tara & I had picked out before, but in the sizes we needed this time. Luckily enough we managed to find both, although Tara found several others that she liked in addition to the one she first picked out. After asking the kids their preferences (they each picked a different one, so no help there) she finally settled on her original choice. Since we had a little bit of money left over from our gift from Dad & Mom, we also picked out a photo frame to help us remember our trip.

    While we were here, we stopped by the Once Upon A Toy store once again, this time to pick up some Mr. Potato Head pieces at the request of our friend Becky, who is a big fan of the potato with multiple personalities. We made our best attempt at cramming as many pieces as possible inside the box, carefully trying to fill every nook and cranny. Looking at the box, though, I see a few missed opportunities for part placement.

    We headed out of Downtown Disney sometime around 6:00pm, and attempted to find US-27 – the road we took coming into town – to avoid taking the toll road. We couldn’t find 27, and instead ended up who-knows-where in Orlando. I tried plugging a detour of the turnpike into the GPS, but it told us to drive all the way over to Jacksonville, which was WAY out of our way. We even tried stopping in a Wal-Mart to buy a map, but it was $4.95 and the lines were so incredibly long that I refused to wait. It was just as well, because the toll ended up costing us $5.75, less than which we probably wasted in gas driving around trying to find our around town.

    Once we finally made our way to the turnpike and the expressway, we had smooth driving. It was very windy throughout Florida, but it wasn’t enough to slow us down. We were too late leaving for that!

    We wound up stopping in Valdosta, Georgia for the night around 11:00pm. The kids were in need of a restroom break and Tara & I were getting tired anyway. We would have really liked to have driven for a couple hours more, but our late start pretty much doomed that plan. We spent the night in a “Super 8” motel, which was nowhere near as nice as the La Quinta we stayed at on the way down, but the Super 8 offered a coupon in Georgia while the La Quinta did not. We certainly couldn’t justify spending over $100 for a room when this one was so much cheaper. After a quick snack, it was lights out at 11:40pm.

Saturday, January 2nd 50/30°, Sunny (Valdosta, Georgia – AM)

    In an effort to make up some time, we set our alarm for 6:45am. Tara & I forced ourselves out of bed, as much as we didn’t want to, a little before 7:00am to take our showers. We managed to get the kids up and moving in enough time that we actually managed to leave the room a little after 8:00am, which was only a few minutes later than we hoped (and much better than our trip home, which was after 9:00am). We even had a continental breakfast in the lobby, which consisted of bagels, dry cereal, and apple juice for the kids and a muffin for Tara. We chose to take our food with us in an effort to save a little time.

    Before hitting the expressway, we stopped at the McDonalds across the street from the motel to get some hash browns for me to eat for breakfast (I had survived on bagels for breakfast while we were in Sarasota and wasn’t really in the mood for another). We made it onto I-75 for our drive north around 8:30am.

    We made our first stop at 11:30am for gas and lunch, but we couldn’t find the Taco Bell that the GPS told us existed at this exit. We followed its directions, but ended up on a wild goose chase through a residential area before we finally gave up and continued on. We looked once again for a Taco Bell, and found one just north of Atlanta about an hour later. Tara, Tyler, and I ate here for lunch, while the other three kids chose to eat at McDonalds.

    It was around 7:30pm when we had to stop once again for gas, so we decided to eat dinner as well. There was supposed to be a Little Caesars at the exit we stopped at, but although the GPS took us to the building, there was a nice sign telling us that it moved. We plugged the new address into the GPS, and once again ended up at a location that housed no pizza places. I’m really starting to doubt the “Points of Interest” accuracy on this GPS.

    We settled for eating at Pizza Hut (anything but another burger) despite my desire to keep driving. Besides, I wasn’t even sure that we were supposed to be dining in – the chairs were up on the tables already! We were the only people eating in the dining room, although a couple of people came in to pick up pizzas while we were waiting to eat. The only person working out front was the lady at the cash register. She was the hostess, waitress, take-out server, and cashier all in one. One of the guys from the back was nice enough to give us free breadsticks, but that was about the highlight of our meal. Looking back at it I wondered if they spit on them or something and then made a bet with each other over whether we’d eat them or not. I sure hope that isn’t the case, though. One customer came in and complained about not being able to get through on the phone for a pick up order and having to wait for so long. He ended up refusing to pay for his meal. Tara found out from another take-out customer who was friendly with the owner that the guys in the back of the store were answering the phone and hanging up immediately. Nice way to run a business, fellas. We didn’t end up leaving a tip, which we justified by not really having a waitress. We had to get up to ask for refills on our drinks, we had to get up to get a box for the leftovers, and we had to get up to get our bill (not to pay it, just to get it!). Thankfully I don’t remember what town this particular Pizza Hut was in, because we certainly won’t be making any extra effort to eat there again on future drives to or from Florida. We managed to get back on the road again by 8:30pm.

    We had more smooth driving until we crossed the bridge into Ohio. We started hearing louder than usual noises coming from the trailer every time we hit a bump in the road (the trailer is always noisy, when the bikes are hanging off the back there isn’t much weight on the tongue). We finally managed to stop at the Ohio Welcome Center, which is a long way into Ohio, to check out what the noise was. Thank goodness that we stopped when we did, because the bike rack had broken and we were in serious danger of having Tyler and Samantha’s bikes dragging behind us on the expressway (that would have been quite a site – all those sparks lighting up the roadway behind us in the dark). Tara & I went about the business of unhooking the bikes and tying all three of them on to the top of the trailer. This was at 10:30pm in 12° weather. No big deal, you might be thinking to yourself. We, however, didn’t bring any winter coats, hats, or gloves with us. Well, Tara did have one pair, but they weren’t nearly enough to keep both of us warm!

    The only other problem we encountered during our drive was one stretch of road where snow was blowing across the road. Tara was having a hard time seeing and asked me for some help (I was nodding off every once in a while at this point; me sleeping in the van is how you know that I am really tired). We even saw one car in the southbound ditch.

    Our only other stops during the day were for potty breaks (thankfully).

Sunday, January 3rd 20/0°, Mostly Cloudy

    We managed to finish the remainder of the drive home without any further incident, arriving at home at 3:00am. We only unloaded the necessities from the van for the night – pillows & blankets, all of our electronic equipment, and the grapefruits & oranges. We were much too tired to do any more. We managed to climb in bed around 3:30am.

    I got out of bed around 10:00am, and after watching TV for a while to wake myself up further I went about the business of unloading all of our stuff. The kids woke up between 11:00am and noon, as did Tara. We attempted to put away as much as possible, but it was certainly hard to get motivated enough to get it all done knowing that work and school awaits us tomorrow.

Trip Summary

    Have you ever had one of those vacations where you try to do so many things that it no longer feels like a vacation? That pretty much sums up this trip for me. Although we did a lot of really fun things, I just never really felt like I had a moment to unwind. The allure of the sunshine is more than likely enough to cause us to do it again sometime, though!

    I will attempt to keep my summary brief, as I have pretty much summed up everything already.

    I’ll start out with our time in Kissimmee. I don’t really have much to say about the Tropical Palms Resort as we didn’t spend enough time there to determine whether or not it was a nice park or not. We basically were there long enough to sleep and eat breakfast before leaving for the day. We were apparently on a premium pull-thru site, as it cost $75 night for the additional night that Dad & Mom added. Guests at Sun-N-Fun were awarded three nights free last fall when Sun-N-Fun bought this park, so that covered the remainder of our stay.

    Our time at Disney was enjoyable, despite the gigantic crowds. We missed a few rides that Tara & I wanted to get the older kids on, but for the most part we hit most of what we really wanted to at the Magic Kingdom. We didn’t take the time to sit and watch any of the parades, since our schedule was fairly compressed. There were a few rides and shows that I feel like we would have enjoyed while we were at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, but they will have to wait until our next visit. We didn’t even attempt to visit Animal Kingdom or EPCOT this trip, either.

    I do know that in the future we will make every attempt to avoid Walt Disney World at a holiday time or a major school break. I assume the same can be said for just about any amusement park, particularly those in and around Orlando. Although the parks are beautifully decorated, the crowds are almost unbearable. Even Downtown Disney, which I half expected to be fairly crowd-free, was jam-packed on two of our three stops there. We would like to go back again in a year or so, but this time it would be during one of their “value seasons.”

    I sometimes wonder if our next trip may actually be our last, as Tyler and Samantha seem to be outgrowing this park for now. Maybe if we could have ridden a few of the more exciting rides (such as the roller coasters) they would have been a little more interested. Sam did actually show moments where she was really into things, but Tyler seemed bored throughout most of our two days in the parks.

    The next time that we go to Sarasota, I think that we will have to consider either taking our own camper to stay in at Sun-N-Fun or look into renting a park model during our stay. Staying at the condo is very nice, but because so much of what we do occurs at the park, we wind up spending a lot of time on the road driving back and forth. Maybe if the weather had been a little warmer we would have spent a day or two at the beach, which would have made our time at the condo more enjoyable. The pool at Sun-N-Fun is also much larger than the one at the condo, which makes it better for the kids to play in (the shallow end at the condo is fairly small). Plus, Sun-N-Fun has the Hippo Slide for us to ride down! I know Tara was especially fond of that one…

    I think that we have gone to the Mixon Fruit Farm on virtually every one of our visits to Florida, dating back to my time as a kid, and it continues to be a favorite of ours. There is something about that orange flavored ice cream that continues to draw us back.

    The best part of a trip to Florida is the opportunity to spend time with family and friends that we get to see only on rare occasions. These are the moments that we will all remember in the future, and the ones that we treasure the most now.

    I do want to take a moment to express to Tyler and Samantha how proud I am of them for displaying their helpful and caring attitude towards Drew and Jayden during this trip. At Disney, they showed a lot of patience while we participated in events that were geared towards the younger two. Outside of the parks they helped the little ones buckle their seatbelts and help take them to the bathroom when Tara & I were unable to do so. I don’t know how or why, by Tara & I are truly blessed with some great kids.

    I also want to thank Tara for being such a big part in making this entire trip possible. I love you, dear! Always. Forever. Completely.