Vacation 2012 Part Two

Let's see...  Next was Wednesday when my mom had scheduled some craft thing with the girls at one of the rec centers, so we stuck around The Villages.  It was just driving around in the golf cart and swimming.  That was nice since I was sort of tired of all the driving we had done the previous couple of days.  Kris and I went to have lunch at Sumter Landing and walk around looking in all the little shops.  We also took the time on Wednesday to drive around The Villages and take a few pictures of the girls for possible Christmas cards.  I'm not sure if we'll use any of them, but I think we got a couple of good ones.

Thursday was EPCOT, which was pretty much the same as Hollywood Studios.  It was hot, but not as crowded.  We went on one ride we did not go on the last time right away, Soarin', and then a couple of other cutesy rides that Ali likes - the Figment ride in the Land of Imagination and then we started walking around the world showcase. Soarin' was really fun and Alison was a little scared when we told her what the ride was like.  But afterward she said she really liked it.

 

By early afternoon and the heat was kicking in.  Ali was getting a headache and not feeling well (I think because she was getting dehydrated) so we went to a couple of movie attractions where we were indoors for a good 30-45 minutes at a time.

We finished the World showcase quickly because a severe weather alert had been issued and the rain was coming.  We waited it out for a little bit in the big ball at the entrance to EPCOT (Spaceship Earth), and by the time we were out, the rain had almost stopped.  But again, everyone was wiped out so we left.
 

One thing to add about Thursday was the people we were talking to in line for Soarin'.  As we sat in line for about 80 minutes, some kid started talking to Kris.  He had been given the little lanyard that they use to track how long people wait in line.  After a few minutes they had a nice little discussion going.  Then the kid's cousins started in too.  One of them happened to be a year older than Sarah and was actually a very nice boy.  We found out they were from Kentucky and they told us all about themselves and what they did in high school (football, baseball, wrestling).  One of the people in their group (Kris told me it was an aunt) was taking pictures of the boys talking to Sarah, which I thought was kind of strange, because she wasn't even trying to hide the fact that she was taking Sarah's picture.  After we got off the ride Kris said something to Sarah about the boy being very nice and sort of cute, and Sarah said, yeah, he was.  So Sarah could have had a boyfriend from another state if she had played her cards right. 


Friday we went to the endangered animal/rescue park in Homosossa Springs.  But that lasted about an hour.  Ali wanted to go, but got bored quickly.  That and the fact that there were quite a few mosquitoes out and biting made it sort of miserable.  Also, the girls were freaked out by a story my mother told them about going there a couple of weeks previous with my brother and niece and seeing a couple of snakes crawling around the paths.  They were all trying to be very careful, watching where they stepped.

It really wasn't much anyway, but we ended up going back to my parents' house and went swimming all afternoon.  Which was fine with me.  We drove back down to Sumter Landing because the girls wanted to look in some of the shops and while we were down thereby Lake Sumter, we saw an alligator, which was rather surprising.  It looked like about a 4-5 footer.  I didn't think the oldsters would let gators get established in their lakes, but I suppose they figure it'll bring people into town to see them, and then they'll spend their money there.

Anyway, I would have rather enjoyed a relaxing afternoon the day before we left so we could pack things slowly and weren't feeling so rushed.

Overall it was nice to get away from the stresses of work and WI for a week and the girls enjoyed being able to swim every day.