Downtown Disney

Monday, January 9, 2012

Beautiful day and beautiful temperatures! I started the day by dropping everyone off at the Lazy River and taking Bear to pick up a rental car. I then stopped in at Pep Boys to get my rear pads replaced on the van. The warning pad started squeezing when we got here. Damn, should have been on the ball and had John check that at my last oil check.


We went to Sweet Tomatoes for dinner. Salad, soup and muffins. No meat. An excellent place to eat. I would recommend it to anyone coming down here (except maybe Moe....no meat :)
From there we went to Downtown Disney for the evening.

Took our annual shot with Donald & Daisy. I'll have to find one of the original photos. Good god these kids have grown!!


Had my little visit with Tigger. He seemed excited to see me again.


The highlight of the night was finding the Star Wars Vinylmations. Chris had talked about this day since July and was one of the lights at the end of the tunnel for her.



A great but tiring night, but another day in Paradise!

 

OrangeLake

Sunday, January 8, 2012

Left St Augustine this morning and made a quick stop at the Daytona Flea market to pick up some grapefruit and oranges (tradition).



Temps got into the 80's (I promise this is the last photo of the van temp :)

 

Arrived at Orange Lake and as usual the staff were very co-operative in setting up convenient units for us. Terry & family are staying in the unit that he purchased Christmas week on eBay and Chris and I have a unit next to them. These are recently refurbished 2 bedroom units in West Village that we'll be staying in this week. Next week we move to a 3 bedroom unit in East Village.

Click here to view our unit.
West Village Unit

Once we got settled I contacted my brother Bud and Mardi who have been here for a week after spending Christmas in New Orleans. We met up and went for dinner at Miller's Alehouse for some excellent food and great company. We spent a few hours catching up with each others news before we left to pick up the kids who were arriving at Lakeland Airport.

 
 
We had never been to Lakeland Airport which is a Domestic airport. Their flight was arriving from Niagara Falls (NY) airport. It was very refreshing to see after all the years of dealing with Orlando International.

 

When we arrived the first two rows were short term parking and the last three rows were long term parking (free of course). Once inside we went to the front desk and asked the gentleman (wearing a muscle shirt and sporting a colourful palm tree tattoo) what time he expected the Direct Air Flight from Niagara. He pulled out his smartphone, checked his app and said that it would be 30 minutes late (no flightboards). I asked if the plane was full. He yelled to the lady in the nearby office "Mom, how full is the plane?". She yelled back "Only 40 passengers" (on a plane that holds 150). Evidently though, it had been a very busy day. "5" planes had landed today with a total of 500 passengers!!
We then went upstairs where we joined a number of others in the screened in porch with a full view of the runway and watched the plane come in and taxi to right in front of us!!
What a refreshing and awesome experience.



Terry told us that the pilot requested that all passengers sit in the back before takeoff to properly balance the plane!

 

 

We are now all back in our units ready to take on the coming weeks.

Oh by the way, Moe was wrong, I checked with Terry, the planes don't still have ashtrays in the armrests!!!!

Thanks for tuning in!

St. Augustine

Saturday, January 7, 2012

We love St. Augustine! Started the day with a timeshare presentation at 9:00 am and then headed to St Augustine. The girl at the timeshare told Chris about a Bealls Outlet, so of course that was our first stop.

 

Some of the streets are amazing!

We took the trolley tour. It was informative and we saw a lot of interesting sites, this was one of the funnier ones.  Moments after this they were all waving to us!

Castillo de San Marcos

 Their lights are on till the end of January.

We'll be back!!

Pink Shit!

Now as most of you know, I'm not a wine con-a-sewer. On New Year's Eve, Terry brought out a bottle of Wayne Gretzky Pink Shit that brought back some fine memories of a Fall Fishing Trip a few years back.
So we're in WalMart last night picking up a few supplies and there on an end cap is a number of fine wines (I think that's the term the ladidas use) for $2.77. So I picked up a bottle of Pink Shit and it tasted just as good as the Gretzky stuff. Now what I found is that I slept like a baby last night.....and I only had half the bottle! It worked better than sleeping pills and the dispensing fee is way cheaper (15 cent deposit vs $11.99).
I think I'm onto something here. I just hope I don't turn into a hoity toity!

Day 2

Friday, January 6, 2012

Woke up in Rock Hill to temps in the 40's and had a leisurely 6 hour drive to St Augustine. By the time we arrived in Florida, temps were in the 70's.



Made our annual stop at the Welcome Center for some Florida Sunshine (Orange Juice).



Arrived at our timeshare at The World Golf Resort in St Augustine. This is the home of the Golf Hall of Fame (BFD). The resort here is very nice.



I booked it through the Blue Green timeshare booth at Bass Pro in Vaughn. Two nights for a one bedroom unit for $179. Of course we have to go on the dreaded timeshare presentation (which has never been a problem for me:). End result, $125 gift card for BPS and a $50 Visa card. Total cost of my 2 night stay......... $4

Check this photo out of our room using this new iPhone app that my close personal friend Tom Vogel told me about. I know Barry and Orca will never own it because it cost a whopping 99 cents!!
Load the picture using an iPhone or iPad if you have one and you can take advantage of the built in gyroscope. It's still cool using windows, just better on an idevice. Thanks Steve Jobs :)

http://360.io/5wPU9y

I have already noticed an improvement in my Sweety. Amazing what this Florida air and weather can do.

A beautiful start to our getaway.

On Our Way!

Thursday, January 5, 2012

Left the house at 3:02 am this morning and had great roads and clear sailing all the way to Rockhill, South Carolina.  Arrived at our destination just after 4:00 pm.

The familiar skyline of Charlotte.

And great temperatures

Got settled in our room and then made our way to Cracker Barrel for a great dinner courtesy of Paul & Andrea!

This is always great when its on the menu!

And we turned it into reality!......Terry's favourite........Notice the 2 spoons??

We observed a beautiful sunset sky!  Things are looking great already!!

Tomorrow we're off to St. Augustine for two days before heading to Orlando on Sunday.

Time for bed!

One More Sleep!

Wednesday, January 4,2012

Well, one more half sleep. We'll be up at 2:00 am and off by 3:00 am (I can only get up early for Florida & fishing!) and heading for Rock Hill, South Carolina.
Just working through our checklist and getting to bed early. Kinda like Christmas Eve :)

Email Addition

Did anybody notice the new addition on the left sidebar? If you're interested in following this blog (and who wouldn't be :), you can add your email address to the form and you will get all the latest exciting news sent right to your doorstep!!

Explore. Dream. Discover!!

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

As with most things, Mark Twain said it better over 100 years earlier. This is our mantra for 2012.

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover

Delayed!

Monday, January 2, 2012
Well today was supposed to be our departure date, but we've known for a couple of days that we would be delayed because of the winter warnings we've been seeing. We will visit Asheville, Charleston and Savannah another time. Current EDP is now Thursday.

Little One / Friendly / Scrinch has made it clear that he wants to go with us.......... maybe next year, but this year Aunt Judy is looking forward to seeing you.

Happy New Year!!

January 1, 2012

All the best to all of our friends this New Year!
May it bring you all health and happiness.

Happy Retirement Carol!

After 33 years at the Bank of Montreal, Chris' best friend Carol retired today.
Happy retirement Carol and thanks for being there for Chris and I when things were tough.

Fuji Friday with the FishGuts

Friday, December 30, 2011
The FishGuts have maintained a tradition for years. It started back when we were all working at Dofasco (well all except Bud). We would regularly meet at Mr. Fuji's (Fuji Japan) on Fridays for lunch. We were informed today by Mr. Fuji that he will not be renewing his lease at the end of January. That is very unfortunate. We always enjoyed his knife weilding skills and of course his amazing Teriaki Chicken!

Lunch with Judy & Robin

Thursday, December 28, 2011

Took some time today to have lunch with my favorite little sister Judy and her daughter (my niece) Robin who was down from Blackstock.

It was a great chance to catch up on the latest news and prep Judy for her new tenant starting next week!

Time to Get Out of Here!

Well it's getting too damn cold around here. This morning was a freezing 22F !!

I looked out the window and there was all sorts of snow!
Those Palm Trees are looking pretty damn good!

Then Pogger sends me a picture of the kids from last night!

It was green grass the night before.

I think it's time to Get Out of Here!!

I'm Back!!!!

Tuesday, December 27, 2011
After a lengthy absence, I have returned to my blog ready to take you on new adventures!!
Stay tuned…

A Weird Year.......

Saturday, January 22, 2011
Here I am in the Orlando Airport catching up on my blog. How did I get to this point you ask? Good question.
This has been a very different year. We are usually in Florida by this time but because of the business venture that I've been involved in for the last 9 months we were holding off until things developed a little further. With things starting to slow down a bit at the office we decided to book some time in Florida knowing that there was a chance I may not be able to go, or might have to come back. One thing lead to another and before you knew it, this timeshare junkie had put together 5 weeks at Orange Lake! Next thing you know Paul has booked a week (now two weeks…one week at the Houses of SummerBay) and I scored a 3 bedroom at Orange Lake for Terry. No sooner did I have these booked and the call came in to return to Chicago on the 29th to attend a trade show and negotiate a contract!
So we put Chris' Mom on a plane to Tampa last Friday where she will stay with Cal & Marcelle before hooking up with us.
We left home at 3:17am Saturday morning on one of our strangest trips to Florida. The weather was not looking that promising, but it turned out to be probably the easiest drive ever. Roads were bare all the way and with weekend traffic, there were very few trucks an no commuter traffic. There was also no construction.on the weekend (note to self, remember this).
We arrived in Columbia SC around 5:30 pm had dinner at the Lizard Thicket and were in bed by 9:30.
Sunday morning was a leisurely 7 hr drive and the first thing we did upon arriving was to find a car wash to get all the salt off the van so people would stop staring and pointing at the strange white vehicle! May not look that unusual to you, but folks down here have no idea what the stuff is on my van!

The staff at Orange Lake were very accommodating as usual and managed to get us the same unit for all 5 weeks. They also arranged to have Terry stay in the same building when he is here.
Temperatures were in the 60s as we arrived in Orlando.
We spent Monday lounging by the Lazy River followed by lunch at the Olive Garden.




Temps were in the 70's


There was prep work to do before I left.

Christy had to learn how to pump gas!!

We enjoyed watching the fireworks at Magic Kingdom from our unit before going to bed.
Got up early for my flight back home. Lots of prep work to do before Chicago.


I am currently somewhere over the Southeast States as I write this.
What a difference a few hours can make!