Does it get any better? -- Part III of Florida

This is my last and final post, about our 10 day vacation down in sunny Florida!  For us, it was perfect weather, sunny and hot!  

From Orlando, we drove up to a place between Panama City and Destin.  My dad vacations at this spot every year, so we decided to stay in a condo close to him.  

(My dad and I on the first night)

Once again, I got a killer deal with where we stayed.  The place was split between two levels, with a bathroom/bedroom downstairs and upstairs a kitchen (fully equipped), another full bathroom, laundry room, dining area, family room and pull out bed, all for $60 a night!  Did I mention the dining room overlooked the ocean and the family room looked over the lagoon?  I love good deals!  The condo was directly on the beach, all we had to do was step outside and wa la, we were out on the beautiful turquoise waters!  The place also had a nice big pool overlooking the beach.  This was the best way to end the vacation.  After the busyness of Disney World, it was nice to just sit back, relax and get a little sun. 

Here's a picture of the condo on the right... 

Below Caleb looks exhausted, we kept him out for 4 hours straight in the sun that first day.  I am happy to report, that he did not get sun burned in the slightest-- the whole time we were at the beach!

The water was just beautiful...

We decided to explore one of the nights with flashlights.  

Caleb was a great help!

He was looking for...crabs!

 I think we traumatized the babe, little white crabs really were everywhere!  We were afraid we'd be pinched with every step we took!

  -John looks so tan-  

And the last day-- more beach fun of course!

All too soon, the sun was setting and it was time to get ready for the drive home. Sigh... The trip came to end so quickly! 

 Because of all the fun, we're already thinking where our vacation should be next year...

The Magic Continues! --Part II

Did you all figure out my hint?  We went to Disney World!  I locked in on the best deal.  We stayed at a time share place for 4 nights, 5 days, were given 4 adult passes to Disney World (any of the theme parks), 2 adult Disney water park tickets, were given free shuttle service to the parks, free breakfast every morning, all for the cost of------$283.00!!!  A steal!  Though we did have to go through a sales pitch with the place we were staying, it was definitely worth it!  The first day we decided to go to Typhoon Lagoon, the place was awesome!  It was a perfectly hot day of 95 degrees.   

The next Disney stop was Magic Kingdom.  It was hard to enjoy the place, when it was so incredibly hot that day.  We were all dying out in the scorching sunlight.  That would have to be my only complaint, no shade!

I think Caleb looks so little next to me in the roller coaster, what a trooper!

Love this picture of John and Caleb below.  I'm so happy I didn't drop the camera, I took this while we were flying through the air!

 

Because we only had one more day to choose of the different theme parks, we decided to visit Animal Kingdom, definitely a great choice!  This was my favorite out of all the Disney things we did.  Between all the animals (the Safari cruise is the coolest!), rides, games, shows, food ( I had the best BBQ sandwich...) and lots of trees (providing lots of shade!), how could it not be the best?!  At the end of the day, we went to a Lion King Show, a big production of costumes, acrobats and singing to all the Lion King songs, it was fantastic!  A great way to end the day.  

The huge glasses above, were part of an interactive movie called 'It's Tough to be a Bug'.  The movie was in 3D and they had all these cool special features that made it feel like you were really part of the show (water spraying everywhere, air shooting at you to feel like bugs, your seat feeling like bugs were crawling on it and huge spiders with mist coming from the ceiling--completely scaring Caleb!).

This is part two of a three part series on our trip to Florida, the next post involves a lot of sun and sand!

Yes, it gets better...Florida! --Part One

I know I've had a lot of fun crazy posts recently, but it seems like this always happens right before we move!  Two days after my sister returned back to Utah, we drove down to Florida to start our 10 day adventure, whew!  After a nice 15 1/2 hour drive, we finally made it to Gainesville, where John completed a dental CE course (this enabled us to get our transportation from Ohio to Gainesville paid for-- bonus!).  We then visited some old friends of John.   This place was awesome, on a lake, with a swimming pool and a hundred lizards running around, basically a kids paradise!  I think my favorite part was catching lizards.  For all of you who didn't know this about me, I was a complete tom boy growing up (until about high school) and have fun memories of catching lizards during those family vacations long ago, can you see the little lizard in the picture?  It's a little hard to see, we took this picture at night.  Dang, those things are fast!

And of course a few more pictures...

Having fun on the lake and at the pool in Gainesville, he was pretty tired after all the water fun! 

I love this picture of Caleb, it's a typical action shot of Caleb collecting his favorite thing:  sticks!  Stay tuned for part two of the Florida posts, I have to say it will be magical, hint- hint! :-)

Next stop---Washington D.C.!

Kristen and I took a girls trip to D.C., it was so amazing!  We drove up early Friday morning, and made it just in time for our tour of the capital building.

    

We then toured a few of the museums, walked around the area and visited China town for dinner.  By that time, we were exhausted.  We had driven the 6 1/2 hours over that morning and had only gotten 3 hours of sleep the night before, no wonder we were so tired!

 

On Saturday we were able to see more The Natural History Museum (where Night of the Museum was filmed), see all of the monuments (which were incredibly impressive!), the pentagon, national archives, WW II monuments, Vietnam Memorial Wall, and the American History Museum.  We walked soooooo much, my calves and thighs were burning!

 

(We were being rather silly in some of these pictures!)

On Sunday, we visited the Holocaust museum, a very somber exhibit.  I had taken a few history classes of the Holocaust and of the Jewish religion, it was good to be reminded of all that I had learned.  One part of the exhibition had on display, many of the shoes of the women, children and older men who were sent to the gas chambers.  It boggles my mind to think there are those who believe the Holocaust never happened, there is irrefutable evidence that it did. 

 

As if the Holocaust museum wasn't depressing enough, we then visited Arlington Cemetary and 'The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier'.  It was pouring rain that day, kind of fit the things we were seeing that day.  

It was a fantastic opportunity to see some of our nation's great monuments and take part of the excitement in D.C.!   I'd love to go back a second time, there is still so much to see!