To sum it up, we had a great vacation, the girls were amazingly well behaved the entire trip (all kajillion miles of it), and now we’re back.

I’m going to get into great detail now, so when you “read more”, be warned we’re going extremely graphic heavy for you dial-uppers so I can show you some of my favorite shots from the last couple of weeks! Some of these pics are repeats if you’ve stayed tuned-in during my absence. If you’d like wallpaper of any of these just give me a holler. I’ll throw the wave I caught up here as a link, that one is a larger one for desktop wallpaper. 🙂

**one more warning about multiple images, you may want to click it and let the page open for, I don’t know, 2 hours ought to do it!**

We left at about 5AM on Monday, March 28th. It was still dark, and felt strange to leave the house. I guess I’m kinda protective, since it’s my nest and all! Mark and I have been together 15 years or so, and this was our first official “vacation”. I drove through to Kentucky, where we stopped at Rand Lake (I think & hope that’s right) which was just beautiful. As soon as we crossed the border I was a happy camper, since things were GREEN. I was very tired of brown! You’ve seen the sun shining through the tree – that was at the Lake, and I have this view as well:

I’m admittedly pretty preturbed at the moment, since somewhere in the transfer of images, I’ve lost a whole very cool clump of images from this first stop. Grrr. Caitlin and I teeter-tottered, Jay ran around in circles giggling, and they drove a little bus. Those were cute pics!

We hit the road again and kept on through Chattanooga, which just took my breath away. Once we got into Tennessee, the urge to run back home and pack up a U-Haul was incredibly hard to resist!!! We love the view there, mountains are so majestic and absolutely hard to capture with a camera. Waterfalls pouring off the sides of the rock walls that are carved away for roads, trees so high you get a crick in your neck trying to see the tops. Just beautiful.

Ruby Falls. I giggled every time I saw these signs, since Ruby Falls and Rock City were the signs I remember from the road trips through Tennessee as a kid.

We stayed in Chattanooga after a full day of driving, swam in the hotel pool and got some rest for an early morning departure.

Georgia was just as beautiful, although the traffic there scares the hell out of me. Sorry for cussin’ but there’s no other way to put it! Good LORD people, slow down!! Our car suffered a minor injury (thank you Mark for tailgaiting that daggone dump truck), and we have a cracked window to replace now. Bah! Still, it’s a beautiful state. No, I didn’t stop for pecans. Pee CAN’s that is. Not Pee-cahns. I apologize for saying it wrong all these years, I will never do it again. No, no peaches either. LOL

Well here we go, landing in the Sunshine State! This was entirely too exciting in the Traveling W’s car. Giggles and squeals abound!

Caitlin was immediately on the lookout for geckos! This is the first stop in Florida, and where the girls were caught in their scuba gear. Goofballs.

We stopped for lunch and I had to snap a shot of a palm. Those of you who live in areas where palm trees surround you, have a look at them, appreciate them, because they only grow where you are. Those of us who can’t have them love them very much and wished they grew in our mud and through our snow!!

Again, the drive was breathtaking. The AIR is breathtaking. Orange groves in bloom – can’t they bottle that smell? I want it. Send me some.

We arrived on Disney property after a short detour through ‘who-knows-where cause we were lost thank you mapquest’! Have you been there? It’s a scary place. LOL And no, he wouldn’t stop for directions. But then again, I’m not sure I would have either since even the bank signs were in another language! Caitlin was frustrated that we were in Orlando, but had no idea where we were going. I told her before the trip began that she had to allow for “getting lost” time. It happens. hehe! We arrived, picked up our tickets and found our hotel. WOW.

We stayed on Disney property at the Pop Century resort, which was so cool! I can’t even explain it. You have to go there. The first thing Caitlin wanted was a pic of herself in one of the years, they have 70’s-90’s all over the property, and they’re huge. See?

We settled in, found our way to the resort restaurant and gift shop, and acted like “newbies”. Boy after a couple of days there you could tell who was new to the property. It was kinda funny and neat after a day or two because we were explaining stuff to the newbies and passing on the information we acquired when we arrived and what we’d figured out on our own. It’s like another little world there!

We spent our first full day at the Magic Kingdom. On the walk in, I saw this beautiful lil duck-bird-guy, and I’m thinkin’ he’s on my list of things to paint!

When the girls saw the castle, their eyes just lit up. It’s just so beautiful! I think parents get just as excited to see it as the kids, you know? It’s a kid-thang. 😉

We hung around the castle for a while and they started blaring trumpets and things, and then the whole royal court started to appear! It was so cool.

Our first ride was one of Mark’s & my personal favorites, It’s a Small World. The girls were just oogling at all the cool stuff in there, and really liked being on a boat!

We pretty much walked in circles that first day. The lines were long for every ride, the park closed admissions around noon that day, they were PACKED. I’m guessing 75,000+ people? Lots. and. Lots.

Everywhere we went we saw egrets and/or cranes. My mouth just dropped when one just perched right up on top of a little snack stand among thousands of people. Again, those of you who witness this every day, just remember that some of us have to go to a zoo to see these great creatures. Wow.

Jay was a lil sickly, and a lil cranky, and fell asleep on daddy while we were in line for the race cars. I took her and let her nap while he went driving the Indy 500 with Caitlin. She was giggling when they finished, I suppose because she managed to give daddy whiplash in a car that only goes 3 mph. LOL

Again, with the birds. Again, wow.

We did wait nearly 2 hours to go on the Jungle Cruise. Funny how the line doesn’t appear as long as it is until you get right up past that blind spot right over there and then it’s 3x longer than the one you were just in! We waited, and it was worth it. It’s a 5-10 minute boat ride around and our “tour guide” was hilarious. i.e. he pointed out a variety of foliage – see? Right there —> as he pointed to greenery. And he showed us the backside of water under a waterfall, and warned us not to try viewing the backside of water at home, as it may result in getting your head stuck in the sink. “Thank you for visiting Disneyworld” he said, “it’s the largest human trap ever created by a mouse!”

This is a fake elephant, btw:

Here’s the view from right outside our room at the resort. It was fun from every angle!

The larger-than-life potato heads were so neat. When we arrived, I told the girls to go yank their butts open to see if there were more parts inside. After our “newbieness” wore off, I suggested it to other families who hung out by it. Lots of kids went and hung on the backs to see if they did indeed open. They did not. Bummer.

We spent a day shopping at Downtown Disney, stopping at Mc’D’s for lunch and fed the birds. This bird is so wierd lookin’, and I couldn’t get over how we got it to come over by us and snatch fries right out of our hands.

We saw a lot of geckos there, too. Can ya see him?

More birds. This one is amazing, and again, another that is on my list of things to paint! I don’t know what it is, so if you know, spill it please. I’ll go searching as soon as I have a chance, but we saw them in Beaufort as well, so I’m curious if anyone knows what they are?!

Here I am with the girls in front of Planet Hollywood at Downtown Disney. Had to have a fountain shot!

And Caitlin caught her first gecko here with her bare hands, she’s so proud of herself!!

Happy turtles on rocks on the walk over the bridge there:

Lego Land was SO neat. Walls of lego’s, any color and or size you can imagine. I personally hate the things as individual pieces, the corners of them always manage to find their way into the most sensitive places on the bottom of my feet. &*(^^&* I could better appreciate them here, in this format:

The next day we went to the Animal Kingdom Park. It was so beautiful. The first thing we saw was the Tree of Life, which is home to a full movie theatre inside of the tree if that gives you an idea how big this tree is. And if you think that’s impressive, the carvings that covered the entire tree were outstanding. What a very cool project, I wish I could have been there watching them build this!

Our first trek there was over to the Safari Adventure. I did attempt to take pics, but man the trail was really bumpy and we whizzed through the thing so fast I couldn’t get a good shot of anything really. I did get a beautiful pic of the waterfall right outside the exit to the safari though!

The aviary was so cool. Saw some cool birds, Caitlin was our guide and identified all of the birds with her lil handbook. No, I don’t remember what they are. 😛

Then we walked thru and saw some underwatery stuff, I took this Happy Hippo pic at eye level through that really thick glass stuff. No, really I was in there swimming with him. No, I wasn’t. He’s fake. Are you even paying attention anymore to what I’m writing? Just checking. He’s real. I promise.

Meerkat! Isn’t he cute? Hey? What’s goin’ on over there?

This guy looks so peaceful. Nice lowland gorilla taking a nap near his personal waterfall.

At this point I wished I worked for Disney. Dang. We went into the kids area where there’s a petting zoo. Walking into a building (pass through), the walls are black and covered floor to ceiling with paintings of animals. Oh. My. Goodness. Why didn’t anyone call me?!?!?! Here’s a small portion of one wall:

This owly guy was in there too, I’ll be painting him. He liked my camera. hehe.

The parks even have pristine ponds. Where’s the daggone algae, people?! LOL

Ooh! A Bug!!!

Yes the mission for the day was to obtain every single autograph we could get. We waited, and waited, and walked, and waited, and ate, and watched a parade, and waited in line again. We DID manage to sneak in a viewing of the Lion King show there, where we were grooving and clapping and jamming to some really amazing song and dance. This fire eating guy – woah. I had to get pics to prove his skin actually touched the stuff. Don’t know how they do it, but here’s some proof it’s real!

And you saw us already with Mickey, right? Well here’s a hand crafted giraffe from the parade there that afternoon. Jay waved and waved and waved, at every single thing that passed by us. LOL

And the flamingo shot came from the Animal Kingdom park as well. Another one I’ll be painting!

On our way out, the egrets and/or cranes filled the trees along their river (stream?). We crossed the bridge and I had to stop, it was incredible. This is only a portion of the mass of birds that filled this area:

On our way back from dinner that night at the resort, we saw a bullfrog. Heh. He’s cool.

We had to go back to the Magic Kingdom, of course. I mean really. We didn’t have all the autographs yet! And the line was so long at Dumbo, we had to go back. It just wouldn’t have been right if we didn’t. Dang. What kind of parents do you think we are? Here’s Jay on her first roller-coastery ride ever. Mark said she was squealing and flying her Dumbo up and down really fast, loving every minute of it. I almost threw up when Caitlin skyrocketed me up into the air in the thing and it jolted to a stop when it maxed out. LOL

This one, I just have to show it again. This is precious. Snow White just snatched my baby out of her daddy’s arms and hugged and kissed on her, it was the sweetest thing ever, and Jay was in a daze after it. Normally she is very shy. She would bury her head into me or dad, but not with Snow White.

And here’s Caitibug with Eeyore. Awwww!!!

And then, as I wated 55 minutes for Princess Ariel, Mark took the girls to the nearby jumping water play area where Jay decided she needed to catch as much water as she could up the inside leg of her capri’s. She was soaked, and happy, and all was well with the wait!

We hung out at the Kingdom all day that day, dawn til dark, and watched the parade and fireworks. We had to! We also had to buy jackets, cause it was chilly, and we were all fried. Here are some really sweet shots of the parade & firework event:

The coolest most excited face EVER to be recorded on chickeymonkey’s face:

The next day was Sea World day. What a gorgeous place. You’ve seen the Sea Turtles, we also saw gigantic brown pelicans:

We pet and fed sting ray’s:

Caitlin ran into an old friend, so they stopped for a drink,

We wanted to pet & feed the dolphins but honestly, people don’t let other people take turns there at the dolphin cove. So we were able to view them as they swam underwater, and the girls were disappointed. So if you go there, take turns ok? Other kids wanna pet ’em toooooooooOOoOoO waaaHHhHhHHh!!

We saw dolphins in training, this part of the park is now closed and will open officially in a couple of months I think? Anyhoo it was just open that week for people to come in and watch & clap & cheer the dolphins on to get them used to their new environment.

I saw these, and thought, hm. If I bawk like a chicken, will they bite my leg off? We tried to get Caitlin to put her foot through the cage, but she wouldn’t do it. Jeez, it’s just a foot. ;P

Oh the penquins. They are the neatest lil critters. Yes I’m gonna paint them, too. We saw puffins too, but you know how fast they are? Holy cannoly, FAST. LOL

Have you ever heard a barking sea lion? I wish I would have recorded this as a movie, he was a hoot, and a terrible catch. We tried to feed him, and I’m not kidding the egrets got to them before he did, and we aimed straight for his big wide mouth!

This guy just made me want to flip upside down. The pic is right side up. LOL

Caitlin got a little daring, did a lil bungee jumpin’. GO CAITLIN! She said all it did was make her have to pee. ::giggles::

Big fish, anyone?

Shamuuuu!!! Oh this show made me cry. They started out with games and that kind of thing, and then they played the Budweiser commercial for the troops, and everyone in the jam-packed audience was clapping through the whole thing. When the trainers came out to intro the show, the first thing they did was thank our Soldiers and asked if any of us were there in the audience if we would stand up. Many of us did, and the applause from all sides of us just brought tears to my eyes. What an experience. I don’t think any of us will forget that.

We took the next day off and hung out at the resort, and Jay didn’t think I was lookin. HA HA! I was.

We left Disney the next day for Jacksonville. On our way, we stopped at Holy Land, which was very cool. We took an hour long tour through the Scriptorium, ate lunch (What would Jesus eat?) and just enjoyed the view. It’s not a huge place by any means, but it’s created like Old Jerusalem. In fact, I felt like Mary of Magdalene when we first arrived. I went to the ticket counter wearing shorts and a strappy tank. Three sunburns, you think I’m gonna let clothes touch that skin? OW. Well I did. They asked me to cover up. (Blushing, covering cleavage, running to gift shop crying…) It wasn’t that bad, she was very nice as all the other men oogled my chest and Mark looked like a proud peacock. No it wasn’t quite like that either, just checking to see if you’re still paying attention. Okay shutting up. Pictures.

This is just moving. Going inside was even more so.

Baaah. Literally.

On to Jacksonville, our view was incredible. We had a blast, smelled the ocean, tasted sea salt, collected shells, and I was even artsy. I did a silly little sand sculpture, so there, I can’t even stop being creative for 2 weeks. Oh well, I tried. 😉

Toes in the sand!!!

We drove up to South Carolina for a few more days, where this sweet lil tree frog jumped on my leg. We were there visiting my bestest bud in the world that I’ve known for three hundred million zillion years, Paige. These next pics are random things we saw during our stay there!

And then, the drive home. Missing the mountains, palm trees, sand, seashells, geckos, frogs, seagulls, flocks of pelicans, ocean breezes, and tropical heat already. Sigh.

If you made it this far, your computer didn’t crash from graphic overload! Congratulations!!! Thank you for hanging out and I hope you enjoyed our trip! 😀

Here’s your wavey wallpaper, right here.

xoxoxoxoxox