Day 10: Easter!

The Easter Bunny managed to find us at my parent's house! YAY! Blake was wondering if the Easter Bunny is a man in a bunny suit or a real rabbit.  I told him it is a rabbit.  He wondered how a small rabbit could carry all that candy and stuff.  I had no answer.  But inside I was laughing.  Pretty hard.

Anyway, we were excited to see our goodies!  The kids got a bunch of candy (yum).  I got a little bit of candy (still in training mode).  Billy got lots of candy!  Lola got The Muppets and Blake got Treasure Buddies.  Apparently he's still into the talking dog movies!

We got dressed and rushed off to church!  My dad gave an EXCELLENT talk and my mom sang in the choir!  We had a lovely afternoon!  I will say it was lovely until we had to go pick up Billy's car from his office.  Yes, we were those people who left a vehicle while we were on vacation.  It made more sense to leave straight from Billy's office than it did to drive an hour out of our way to drop the car off.

Well apparently that hour of our time was probably worth it!  And of course this is our luck.  I wouldn't have expected anything different.  The back windshield was completely busted out.  The front window had giant holes smashed into it (all over).  And the back rear passenger window was also completely busted out.  Word.  We were pretty much speechless.  We decided, since it was Easter, we would head back home and Billy would file a police report when he arrived to work on Monday morning.

When he arrived to work on Monday morning, the car was gone.  We figured somebody stole it.  But then we found out it had been towed to the police impound lot.  We had to pay $125 to get it out.  That was also really cool.  Oh and when it was being towed, the muffler was jacked up.  Unfortunately for us, the amount of damage (over $1100) is about the same as we would have to pay for our deductible.  Totally awesome.

Despite all that, here are the pictures before we realized that things were gonna get CRAZY! 

Day 9: STILL On The Road!

We slept in a little on day 9, too.  But just a little.  We knew we'd hit traffic again (and we did).  CURSE YOU, ATLANTA (I say while raising an angry fist in the air).  I drove almost the whole day.  Until I felt like I was having a heart attack.  Probably just a minor panic attack at the end of a vacation.  You know....that's normal, right?  Anyway, we were headed back to "'Tucky," as the kids call it.  So we were pretty happy about that!

We went through Knoxville instead of Nashville for a change of scenery!  I'm glad we did.  Traffic wasn't that bad (once outside of Atlanta).  So we made okay time.  We were even able to stop off and see some wonderful friends in Georgetown.  We were passing right by to get from I-75 to I-64 so we thought it would be silly not to stop for a brief bit of time!  We love the Boltons! :)

After the visit to the Boltons, I had Billy drive.  That's when I started feeling weird.  Well apparently it wasn't anything Taco John's couldn't fix.  I can't pass by without stopping for some potato oles and sopapillas!  *mouth watering just thinking about it* YUM!

Then we were back to my parent's house.  I unloaded the car, started laundry, and did something different....got BACK in the car to get some last minute Easter things at my favorite (LEAST FAVORITE) store, Walmart!  And that was that!  Again....no photos!  BORING!!

Day 8....On The ROAD Again!

Universal was our last day in Florida.  We slept in a little (after being SERIOUSLY sleep deprived all week) and then we were off!  I didn't drive at all (again).  And this time the snack stash was way too tempting.  I think I ate just about everything that was left!  Oops.

The kids were wild and crazy (again).  It rained a little (again).  And we sat in lots of traffic (again).  The good news is that we arrived in Atlanta early enough to swim.  And I even ran a quick 5K on the treadmill at the hotel.  We were in bed early so we could finish up the rest of the long drive!

Best part of the day?  The Stache 'Tastic bumper sticker I saw.  I'm currently really into the moustache thing.  I even have a board of party ideas for my stache bash over on Pinterest.  So I giggled when I saw that AWESOME bumper sticker.  I wish I had one.

Something else I observed?  The ridiculous amounts of anti abortion billboards through Florida and Georgia.  And to contrast with those, there were also PLENTY of "adult" advertising, as well.  What the hay?  Kids can READ.  I felt like I had to keep distracting Blake so he wouldn't look out his window.  Yeah.  It was that bad.  The scenery was beautiful and then every ten seconds, I'd have to look at a XXX billboard.  Thanks for that (sarcasm).

Anyway, that was our relatively non eventful day 8!  And guess what? I don't think I have a single picture!  I know you're in shock! :)

Day 7 of Universal Awesomeness!

Can we just say HARRY POTTER?!?  Can we say that JK Rowling is a genius beyond all geniuses?  I know I'm a recent convert to all things Harry Potter.  But I can't help it.  Everything in the Harry Potter land at Universal was INCREDIBLE!  I was in awe.  I was also irritated with the 80 billion people around us.  There were so many people that I couldn't even move the stroller without clipping a few ankles (sorry if any of those ankles were yours...)!  However, the good DEFINITELY outweighed the bad!

I should side note in here that Billy's Uncle Casey (who I mentioned in an earlier post) is the master planner for Universal.  Yes it was him and his genius team who put together the entire land of Potter.  He's also a genius beyond all geniuses (perhaps he and Ms. Rowling should collaborate...)!  So Uncle Casey brought us into the park as his VIP guests.  We didn't have to wait in any lines.  We got all the back stories on the building of the projects!  And he also spoiled us with many gifts from the shops by Hogwarts.  Yes, Billy and Blake got wands.  Blake also got a quidditch jersey, a snitch, and a broom.  I, of course, had to have my tri-wizard cup and Hedwig, the owl.  Now I can send Billy all kinds of owl post...when I just get tired of texting or calling, that is!

Okay back to the day at Universal.  We immediately got in line for a ride called Forbidden Journey.  I didn't research anything.  I just saw that the line was massive.  So I figured it had to be pretty fantastic.  I forced Blake to ride it with me.  A million apologies now go out to my son.  I thought I was sick after the Star Wars ride?  I'm serious that the only thing I thought of while sitting on the ride was what would happen to my vomit.....I just knew I was gonna throw up.  Oh my land.  If anybody needs to know of a way to torture me to get me to talk?  That's it.  Stick me on that ride and my life will become an open book!  Blake closed his eyes the whole time and I eventually had to do the same.  I guess I wouldn't survive as a wizard because flying around on a broom was NOT my cup of tea!

After being nauseous for about an hour after that ride, I was finally somewhat back to normal!  We were able to drink some butterbeer.  It was kinda like glorified cream soda.  But what a glorified cream soda it was.  YUM!  We also made our way to Dr. Seuss Landing.  Lola had a blast.  And so did I.  Apparently the kiddie rides are about all I can handle.  And probably not even all of those....Man I'm old. 

Billy rode the Hulk.  Blake wouldn't go with me so I didn't get the chance.  But I made Blake (again...I'm usually not so forceful) ride the Jurassic Park splash ride.  We were drenched.  He closed his eyes the whole time (again).  I guess he didn't dig the huge TRex head attempting to eat our "boat."  Hmmm.....

But after that, Blake decided he would dabble in lots of extreme roller coaster riding. He rode the Dragon Challenge THREE times.  It had lots of loops and scary things.  He rode the Dr. Doom Free Fall.  Which is basically like the Tower of Terror that he refused to go on at Disney World.  Go figure.  He rode Spider Man.  And our favorite ride?  The Flight of the Hippogriff.  Lola rode it  twice.  She didn't love it either time.  I am actually quite surprised she was tall enough to go on it!  But it was pretty fun!

We are so thankful that we were able to spend time with Uncle Casey.  We're thankful for his generosity and his kindness!  We definitely recommend Universal!  We had a BLAST and can't wait to go back!  And once again, I apologize for mass amounts of photos.  What's a girl to do???  ;)