Monday, January 6, 2020

A new Decade! Florida Part 1

New Year day 2020 arrived!


Darrell gave me this cookbook that he found at a thriftstore. It's pretty funny.  A lady named Cornelia gave it to her friend Margaret.  Margaret even wrote notes in like by the recipes like Very Good or V.G.  Or wrote when she took a particular dish to church.

Many people left New Year's day.  We headed to the Story Book trail before they took off.  A fun short little hike, with a fun view at the end.

The Heits hung out till that evening.  It's sad when all the family leaves!  It was a good Christmas.  It was super busy and a lot of work, which I want to change for 2020.  I definitely want it more simple.  Though this year I am hosting Thanksgiving....That will be crazy!  I've done it before and again, it's a lot of work.  I'll need to ask family to sign up to bring dishes.  That will help a lot.

We had to put away Christmas sooner than I wanted.  But we were headed to Florida and I didn't want to come home and have to put away decorations then.  When putting away Christmas decor and when setting it out I purposely got rid of things.  It was nice, we had these containers empty when we were done putting away Christmas! I am going to save them till after we put away winter coats and gear to see what we need.  Then I'll get rid of the excess, empty boxes. 

Our first trip with friends happened the beginning of 2020! David and Katherine can use his parent's timeshare every year.  They found one in Florida that would sleep all of us.  They invited us last fall and we started making plans to go to Universal Studios as well.  We left Friday night and drove through the night.  We met up with them at the Orlando Temple.  I did initiatories first, then Lee went in with the kids for baptisms while David and Katherine did a session together.

We found the cornerstone!  Elden's little tradition at the temple.


The kids I hung out with had fun with some of the local insects and wildlife.


Lee and Haley went to Walmart to grab a couple things, so they didn't make it in this shot.

We stayed at the Marriott Grand Vista which was really fun.  The suite had a living/kitchen area and then three bedrooms.


We had lunch and toured around a little.  The kids went swimming.  Sadly the first day it was raining out, but not too bad.  The pools are heated and the kids loved it.

Cal got Elden and Liam on his shoulders.


We also spent some time at the little area with ping pong and pool.  We ate dinner at the suite and then did their site-wide s'mores thing.  We also did a little impromptu workout which was funny. That evening David, Katherine, Lee and I went out to a Friendly's ice cream restaurant while the kids watched a movie and hung out.





The next day we went to church, of course.  No one said hi to us there except when I asked two people questions like where was Sunday school.  Then they asked me if I was visiting.  The Sunday school teacher handed out chocolates which was fun.  It was fast Sunday but we waited a week and fasted the next Sunday.


That afternoon we hung out again, ate lunch and dinner, did home church and went on a walk.  It was David's birthday that day which was also fun.


The boys bedroom. Liam, Christian, Clark and Cal slept in here.

A screened in patio.

Our room.  Nice and messy!

Happy Birthday David!


Shanna did a talent show with Gracie which was cute.








Shanna and I are the same height!  She has probably passed me up.  She has very long fingers as well! 

Katherine and I took turns with the food.  I did all day Sunday and breakfast and lunch on Monday.  Monday and Tuesday nights we went out to eat each night.


It was cute that some of the kids were up early, packing their lunches.



We spent two days at Universal Studios.  The first day we did one park--Islands of Adventure.  I loved that things were still decorated for Christmas.  We went to Hogsmeade, which was fun.  I don't know if we'll ever do Universal again.  Some of the rides, even instruction for the rides were inappropriate .  The Harry Potter stuff was really terrific though.













The mystic fountain was really fun.  It's this decorative water fountain that has a camera and audio.  The fountain talks to you and can see you. A British guy was talking to us and it was really funny.  Cal said, "Hey, I have a question for you: Hey kid, wanna share a Nequick?"  And the fountain said he didn't know what it was and that his diet was a clear diet (water).  Anyway, really funny.

We went to special effects show and got to walk through this tunnel of water.  It was weird though.  So there are different "islands" of adventure at this park.  But sometimes each island had only one ride.  Very weird.





Fun Harry Potter gear. Love the prefect badges.






Dr. Suess Land was really cute.

Honeydukes!


I bought these peppermint toads.  $9.











We went to the Owl Post as well.  It was fun seeing the different wands that belonged to each wizard and witch.









That night we went to Chick-fil-A for dinner.  We picked up ice cream for later and hit the pool for a little bit.  Oh, and the castle ride at Hogwarts was really fun.  It was fun walked through the castle and seeing the fat lady portrait.  And of course she talked and moved.  And then other framed portraits that moved.  Fun touches throughout the castle.




Love seeing the kids talking.

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