Heading Home

Friday

April 17, 2009

Up early today...we are heading home.

It has been a great week and I am sad to be going home. But we now know that we can do these long trips. We are doing good, and Donny did great. He talks about everything that he did and how much he loved it!

We had a lot of fun...spent way too much money and we made a lot of memories that will last a lifetime.

On the way home we stopped in Kentucky at the original KFC. It was really neat as we have only drivin past it and never gone in. It is a meusum inside and everything is there that would have been there with the Col. Sanders. Very awesome to see! And the food was pretty good too.

I wanted to get a picture of Donny with Col. Sanders...and this turned out really cute. But it looks as though my son is moving away from him. He didn't understand that he was not real and that he wasn't going to get him.

On the road again. Seeing a lot of beautiful scenery. Not a terrible drive..really didn't get into any bad traffic jams this whole trip. That was kind of nice.

We got back into Michigan and stopped in Coldwater to eat at Ponderosa. That is where Donny wanted to eat. By 9:30 we were on the road towards home.

We got home around 10 pm and Donny was wide awake. Of course he had to show Grandma and Grandpa all of his new toys. I don't think that he went to sleep until after midnight.

This was a great trip and we can't wait for the next one.

We are already planning on going to Florida again in the spring and we can't wait!

Race Day

Thursday

April 16, 2009

So today we are headed towards Atlanta Dragway. We decided that we would do this instead of doing something extra in Florida. It was a beautiful day and we couldn't wait. We didn't know what we were going to see, but we were ready.

We got up to a beautiful sunrise today. I couldn't help but take some pictures in front of our window of Downtown. It still amazes me...how high we were. I love our family picture. And yes, we all wore blue that day...but not on purpose.

We got to the dragway around 11:30am or so and we were there until about 3pm. It was soooo awesome! We finally got to this track that is in the middle of nowhere and there were quite a few people there. Today was only the non-pro's racing, but we could still walk thru the pits and see all of the cars and pick up all of the free pictures. Didn't see any pros, so no autographs this time. But we have already decided that we will be going to a race in the future and hopefully seeing some of the pros. I would love to meet the John Force racing team!!!

So we get inside and it was just awesome. To see everything with your own eyes that you would usually see on tv...that was just cool. So it ended up being a really warm day and we were all in jeans. So we know better now....check the weather before you leave.

So I am a bad mom and forgot to bring the ear muffs...oh wait not really. It wasn't planned, so that is why we didn't have them. We ended up having to pay 20 bucks to get Donny some new ones, but hey he wore them and that is all that mattered...

He had just as much fun as we did...and that is pretty good for a little boy that was a month away from turning 3.

So, all in all...it was a great day. We say a lot of cars and a lot of racing. I can't wait to go again. And I will take just as many pictures as I did this time. But hopefully I will have pictures with drivers!! I can't wait. We must start planning!

So, now we are heading north to Knoxville. I don't know about the drive, but the GPS told us it is going to take over 4 hours to get there...wow. I thought that it would only be like 2 maybe 2.5 hours.

But once we got going we figured out why it was going to take so long. We were going on these two lane roads thru the mountains. Not very fun...and luckily I don't get car sick. I could have on these roads.

These scenes are what we saw a lot of. I mean it is really pretty but oh man it gets boring after awhile.

We finally got into Tennessee and we got to our hotel. It is now time to go to bed, as it has been a long day. It has been a good day, but long. We are all ready for bed. Tomorrow we head home.

Headed North

Wednesday

April 15, 2009

So, here we are. Heading north. I can't believe that our trip is almost over. Where did the time go? If only I hadn't gotten sick, then we would have had that one extra day. But that is ok, we have had a lot of fun. And we are going to make these last couple of days fun too.

We are heading towards Atlanta, Georgia. That is where my husband picked out a hotel with his flyer miles. The Westin, in downtown and it is like 70+ floors. And it is circular kinda crazy to think about.

But today has been good so far. As you can see I went a little nuts with the pictures. I took a lot of Donny and myself in the backseat. Just got a little bored. Finally took a picture of some palm

trees. How can you go to Florida and not get any of those? But other than that, we saw a lot of the same thing. Palm trees are a really neat sight to see.

We left our hotel around 9:30 am and we were planning on stopping just inside of Georgia. That was our plan. Well....things went really well and we only had to stop for gas and to use the restroom. Donny slept a lot and so did I. I also started the second book in the Twilight series. I read like 150 pages of it on vacation and since haven't read any of it....kinda sad.

So we had planned on stopping at Summit racing in Georigia. A very neat place. But you have to have an interest in cars and car parts. Otherwise it would be really boring to you. I loved it and so did my son. He got a new hat (for FREE). I also bought a pair of sunglasses there and he got a new pair in Florida and he finally put them on for me while on the way home. I think that he is adorable in them. They are Kung Fu Panda. I think that he just plan looks cool in them. And then you put the hat on and he jsut cracks up with it because it is just plain too big! But he loves it!

So we finally got to our hotel and it is right in the middle of downtown. Not really my favorite

part of town. Things just seem kinda creepy to me. So we got all checked in and we were

told that our bags would be right up to us in our room. And our room was number 4616...you got that right we were the 16th room on the 46th floor. That is the craziest feeling ever. To go and look out the window at the whole city is amazing.

Even Donny thought that it was really high up...Can't you tell by the look on his face? I still can't believe that I got this picture. It was perfect!! Donny thought that it was neat that our whole one wall was a window. I did like that too!

I still didn't know what to think of being on the 46th floor. The elevator was sooooo fast. We went from our floor to the 5th floor really fast. My ears popped it was so fast.

We did take a walk over by the pool and it was already closed, but I am sure that if Donny wanted to have swam, he could have. But we didn't.

We did have a couple of bad experiences though. We had asked for a microwave, twice, and we never got it...so our frozen food that we had bought for dinner...ruined. And then it took them an hour to get our luggage up to us. That is ridiculous!!! I don't think that we will ever stay there again. We will probably never stay at a Westin again! We liked our Sheraton that we stayed at on the way down...highly recommended compared to this!

So, it is off to bed that we go. We will be heading a little more north tomorrow. But we are also going to go and see some race cars. The pros...we can't wait. This is something that we didn't plan too, so that is even better!

Good night, hotlanta....

Rainy Morning

Tuesday

April 14, 2009

Today we woke up to rain and storms. Not really something that we wanted to deal with again, but we did. We turned on the tv and just waited. We went thru another Tornado warning. I think that they were following us or something. Who has 4 tornado warnings while on vacation? I never have...and I really don't want to go thru that again.

So, yes we waited. We played cars, watched the radar and talked about what we wanted to do for the day. The original plan was to go over to the beach, but that didn't happen. It rained all day and that would have been a total waste of our time. But we will be going to the beach someday down there. Donny is still talking about that.

Around 11:30am we decided that we would go to the mall and then find the brazillian store that we liked. We can buy some of our favorite drink and maybe even some candy. And then we will decide what to do later...later. We just went to the smaller mall in Orlando. I had never walked around the whole thing, but it is a pretty nice place. Had a lot of nice stores. The main store that we went to was the Ron Jon Surf Shop. We all ended up getting something from there. And Donny managed to come out with a new truck...yes a Ron Jon Suef Shop truck...crazy kid!

At the entrance to the store from the mall is this really cool car. Or as my son would say...look at that really sweet car. LOL This picture isn't the greatest, but it did look pretty sweet!

We ate lunch right there at the mall. At Subway. It was an interesting meal as they were running out of bread. And that just isn't a good thing to do when it is lunch time and you seem to be really busy. But ya know...what do I know about that kind of stuff?? Not a whole lot...I just eat there. :-) Donny likes to eat there too...as long as it is a cheese sandwich. Nothing else...just cheese and bread. He LOVES it! And yes..he put a hole in his bread and he is looking at me thru the hole. I thought that it was pretty funny, as he has never done that before. And yes, he did manage to eat about half of the bread and all of the cheese.

After lunch we continued to walk around. We found a really cool John Deere tractor store...lots of little tractors that Donny would have loved to bring home. And we also found a store with a lot of the larger sized diecast cars in it. OH MY GOODNESS.....Donny wanted everything in that store. And yes he was naming the cars off one by one and I think that people were looking at him in amazement...like how does that little kid know what all of these cars are? I don't even know what all of the cars are....he still impresses me. And I hear it every day!

One of the larger stores in the mall is Outdoor World...Bass Pro Shops. Pretty neat store...with a very large aquarium in the center of the store. We have course had to go and check it out. I tried to get pictures of the fish....but they didn't turn out the greatest. I did get this one of an albino catfish.....and I still cannot believe how massive it was. All of the fish in this tank were massive. Kinda creepy.

We also managed to find a penny smashing machine in there too. Donny now has 3 books full of these smased pennys and I don't think that it will stop there. He loves to see them and hold them. So I make sure to go with plenty of quarters and pennys....just in case.

And outside of the store in the mall, there were these really big 4-wheelers. He wanted to sit on one and we let him. He just loved that. I think that he loved everything about this day so far. He even got to walk around the mall like a big boy...no stroller at all. As we didn't even really think that we were going to be walking around the whole mall.

He is turning into such a big boy...where did my baby go? I can't believe that in just over a month you are going to be three. That isn't even possible...is it? Where did the years go?

We love you big boy!

Our last stop before leaving the mall would have been a place called Monkey Joe's (or something like that). It was a room filled with all of these inflatable toys (kinda like our Jungle Joe's here in Kalamazoo). We didn't know if Donny would like it or not...but we figured we would give it a try. We didn't have anything else going on for the day and we really didn't want to go and sit in the hotel room with nothing to do. Not really a fun thing to do on vacation. But let me get back to telling you about the inflatable fun time.

Once Donny got used to it, he loved it. He even wanted to go on the inflatables that were for the older kids...we tried to convince him that he was too little for them. But that just didn't work out. We did let him try one, but he got stuck in it and he just didn't know what to do...Daddy was able to reach in and get him from the side though. He didn't go back to that jumper, but he did try to get to others that he wasn't supposed to be on.

I would have to say that his favorite was the on pictured here. It was the easiest for him to play with and not get hurt from larger kids. It had a boat and a whale and a seal that they could sit on and jump. And he loved to sit on the whale and jump so much...that he fell off....and guess what. He would get right back up on there and do the same thing over and over and over again! He loved it! And I loved hearing him have fun!
And he was a really tired boy after this fun event...so to make a kid tired go let them jump on the jumpy things at Jungle Joes or something. It works!!!

So after a fun day at the mall..we are headed back to the hotel. Donny ended up with his Ron Jon Surf Shop truck and he loves it!

We had a great family day together. And even if it did rain on us...we are not going to let that ruin our vacation. We will do something that is still fun.

So here is to another wonderful day ahead of us.

Good night Orlando!