Back from Orlando!

I know I've been super quiet.  That's because we were ON VACATION!

8 days ago, Kevin and I took our kids to visit my parents for more than a week!  That was an adventurous day. We woke up, loaded the kids and all their paraphernalia up, then discovered a baby skunk in our coop.  Um, not good.  Well, Kevin removed it to a better spot in the back yard, and we drove to Michigan.  We spent a few hours there with my parents and my brother getting the kids settled in, then drove back.  Kevin found 5 more baby skunks wandering around the coop or outside the coop.  Our best guess is that a mama skunk settled in under our shed (right next to the coop) and then died.  The baby skunks then started wandering about.  K. took them into our back 3 acres but...we're sure they all died.  They were too small to make it on their own. Kind of sad, but we really don't need a herd (pod?  pack?) of skunks settling into our area.  Skunks love both chickens and eggs.

6 days ago, Kevin and I flew to Orlando to celebrate our 15th anniversary, just the two of us.  Wow, what a treat!  We adore our kids and they are such a blessing, but they do take much energy and time (especially the babies).  For us to have days of peaceful talking and adventurous visits was terrific.

I don't have time to post a ton of pictures, but here are just a few highlights of our week in Orlando.

Mother's Day we went to the Leu Gardens.  This is a 50 acre botanical garden with a host of exotic and beautiful plants.  It was awesome.  We particularly enjoyed the desert section.  It is odd to think of a desert garden in Orlando (which gets lots of rain) but they use well drained soil and sure enough, there were cacti and other low moisture plants. 

The next day we went to Gatorland.  Another awesome place.  There are, of course, alligators.  There are also crocs, emus, pythons, weird Floridian cattle, and a large variety of birds.  Oh, it was fun.

Pretty birds.

 

We carefully timed our visit to Disney's Epcot.  There are online calendars suggesting days that will be less busy.  Wednesday was supposed to be good, and indeed it was. There were an incredible number of people there, but its a big place.  We thoroughly enjoyed our visit to the buildings for different nations. We liked our boat tours through Mexico, Norway, and a gardening building.  Spaceship Earth was neat.  We liked the Chinese acrobats and the Japanese drummers.  Epcot is painfully expensive and we wouldn't want to go often, but we had a lovely day together so it was worth it.  (For the 2 of us.  We can't wrap our minds around paying for the entire family to go. )

We stayed 'til almost closing time (9 p.m.) and watched the 9 p.m. fireworks from the parking lot.  Thus ended a tiring but good day.

Last night we flew home.  A man dropped over from a heart attack (or some other terrible problem) while we were waiting for our baggage.  It was scary and unsettling.  We don't know if he lived or not.  Paramedics were on the scene in a very few minutes, and an ambulance arrived soon afterwards.

Today we drove halfway to my parents, met them and the kids at a Wendy's, ate together, then brought everyone home.  We had a nice vacation, but are very glad to be all under our own roof again.