Vacation Was A Success

We arrived home today from our vacation to Florida. We did SO MUCH...although it is the norm whenever we go to Florida. My family lives down there and we went this time to introduce Olivia.

First stop...Fly into Orlando, where my aunt and uncles live. Next, we headed down to West Palm Beach to see my Grandmother. Then, we headed to Hollywood to stay at the Hard Rock Casino and Hotel for the night. A vacation really wouldn't be a vacation unless my family gathered at a casino. It's just a fact.

Then it was time to head north back to Orlando. LOTS of traveling in the first few days. 3 hour flight. Close to 8-9 hours in the car the next couple of days and then back to home base in Orlando.

The rest of the week was spent swimming in the hotel pool and going to Disney's Animal and Magic Kingdom's (which we visited both in one day!) It was really great to bring Ella back again. The last time we went was 2 years ago when she was 3. It was a whole different experience in just 2 short years. The rides and characters she was/is interested in at those two ages are completely different. Also, Olivia was excellent for the most part. She did great on the flights, the long car rides and the long day spent at the parks....The down side was that she barely slept more than 2 hours at a time during the night and she was recovering from double ear infections, which made us all more exhausted than we already were. *Fingers crossed* that she sleeps better in her own crib tonight!

Part of my exciting and busy week was making sure that I took my Hipstaprint A Day picture. I was determined to not fail my 365 project just because I was out of my normal routine. I really had a great time taking pictures with my phone and found it so much fun trying to find things to shoot to be my pic for the day. But I must say....It is good to be home. :0)

The Storm Rolled In Before We Left, and the Start of Our Vacation

The night before we left for vacation, we had a storm roll in. The clouds were amazing. It passed over us fairly quickly, but was able to get these shots. They are a little noisy, so please excuse.






On another note, we made it to Lake Kabetogama without incident. The 4 hour ride went very well and Ella was wonderful. Unfortunately, the weather has been super crappy since we got here yesterday.....I am crossing my fingers that it clears up because I am getting cabin fever already! We are currently up here with a bunch of teenagers and I gotta tell you, I have never felt so old in my life. I am only 32 years old, but being around a bunch of 18 year olds makes me feel 50 in comparison! We came up with Keith's side of the family (his Dad and stepmom wont be up until Monday or Tuesday). Two of his sisters are up here with us (18 years old and 24 years old (I think...)). Also, alot of his Dad's friends are up here with thier kids and all the kids grew up together.....so it is just swarming with teenagers! Its actually quite humorous sitting back and watching them, but I still feel old.

I have limited access to the internet. I have to go up to the lodge to get a connection. It is taking forever to upload images, or download them when I go to a website. So I will have to catch up with everyone's posts when I get back into town. I am going to try to post each day though because I have a gazillion pictures. I never had a backlog of images with my p&s like I have with the Nikon already. I LOVE IT.

Since we have been stuck in the cabin for the most part, I havent gotten too many "vacation like" images. But heres a couple I got yesterday.


Ella and her Daddy standing on one of the docks when the rain let up.


A giggly moment with her Daddy....