snippets

Thursday and Friday were spent in Orlando at the Rosen Shingle Creek Resort. The four pools, arcade, many restaurants and stores kept us so occupied that we never once asked valet for our car back. We ignored DisneyWorld, GatorLand, SeaWorld and all the other theme parks to enjoy a simple vacation mainly between the zero-entry family pool and the 2-foot deep kiddie pool. Awesome. (so awesome that I didn't even take any pictures...which is probably a good thing considering my luck with digital cameras and pools of water)

Saturday, we drove home. We left around 11am and arrived home at 7pm. We stopped for gas, lunch and bathroom emergencies...and that was it. I-75 (the bulk of the trip) is such a boring drive...flat road and constant pine trees. It got me day-dreaming and longing for a trip along the McKenzie Pass-Santiam Pass from Springfield to Bend in Oregon. I much prefer mountains and VIEWS over flanking pine trees.

Lunch was at a Mexican restaurant in Gainesville, FL (go Gators?) The food was surprisingly light and pretty good. Lauren was so excited to show off her Spanish words that on our way out she said "adios" to anyone and everyone who would listen. The owner noticed her enthusiasm and gave her and Tyler some free mints as a reward.

Back home we spent Sunday struggling to adjust from vacation mode to reality. This hasn't been fun. Matt caught a cold from the conference and snores like a freight train at night now and I found a gray hair (my first) yesterday. I probably got the gray hair laying awake, listening to Matt snore.

Today, Monday, Matt was back at work and the kids and I did our weekly grocery shopping. At Walmart I picked up a NapMat for Lauren which is required for Kindergarten.

She's breaking the napmat in on the sofa.
Dinner tonight was Chicken Fajita Pizza.

I followed the linked recipe but I made my own pizza dough in the bread machine. Next time I will either bake it at 450 degrees instead of 425 or cook it for longer. This center of my pizza was still pretty doughy. Other than that it was delish.

After dinner the kids did some water painting

and now Matt is reading the same 4 Thomas the Train books that I read last night.