Oh, dear God, it’s morning. Mornings after a traveling weekend are always hard, especially when you have to go back to work right away, but when it’s been a nice loooong traveling weekend…let’s just say that coffee is definitely going to be my friend this weekend! After spending Independence Day with my husband and in-laws in Orlando, I’m both recharged and exhausted, if that even seems possible. I had a wonderful time, but now I’m facing the longest stretch of school without a break and it’s going to be a couple weeks before Scott and I see each other again.
Scott rescued me from the airport late Wednesday and we went back to the house to unpack, and I got the guilt treatment from our furry little friends. Almost immediately, I had a cat in my lap demanding to know just where I had been and why I wasn’t in my appointed place, taking care of her and feeding her.
How do you resist that face?
The day after, Independence Day, was pretty low key. We grilled, we played with sparklers, we watched the Capitol Fourth and a couple other programs on TV, and we jumped in the pool. That’s a perfect Independence Day in my book, especially when I was really in need of some relaxation!
The next couple of days were a little busier, but not much. We caught a couple movies, I hit the outlet mall with my mother-in-law for some fun additions to my summer wardrobe {since I’m moving to a place with one season, I can justify beefing up my quantity of summer clothes!}, we dined out, and, of course, we made it over to Disney. Scott and I did a little walking tour around the Wedding Pavilion, because around this time last year…well, you know 
We stopped in at Saratoga Springs, also, to sit down with a Disney Vacation Club consultant. We’ve been debating buying into the Disney Vacation Club for some time, but I wanted to see just what the prices were and what kind of benefits we would get. As part of the promotion, we got to tour models of the new vacation villas at the Grand Floridian, which are absolutely gorgeous! I took tons of pictures, and I’m going to be stealing some design ideas down the road!
Don’t you love that tub?!
We ended up not signing on just yet. I didn’t want to commit funds in the middle of our move when we still have some major moving pieces to take care of, like the activities for our upcoming cruise, boarding the cats for a while in Florida, and sending my husband back to Florida to house-sit for my in-laws and then bring the cats back at the end of their quarantine. My father-in-law is having surgery at the end of the summer, so we’re reshuffling our plans to help support, and working around the 120 days of quarantine. Seriously, if you ever start planning to move to Hawaii and you have pets, start early.
After the tour, we took my in-laws over to Artist Point for dinner. Scott and I were dying to explore more of the menu, and we just had a great little celebration dinner. This time, I attacked the cedar plank salmon, one of the chef’s specialties, and the suggested pinot flight that went with it. Delicious!
My husband isn’t a big drinker – I’m the family wino – but he does appreciate a good port. For a treat, I got him the port flight, and he had a selection of 20, 30, and 40-year tawny ports, one ounce pour each. You can see he enjoyed!
And we managed to catch a family picture before we got out of there!
Before I flew out, we managed to make it over to Typhoon Lagoon early Sunday morning, and discovered that was the prime time to go. I don’t think we ran into any line that was longer than five minutes until about 11:00am! We were able to ride our favorites four or five times each in a row, spend some quality time in the lazy river, and still get out of the park with plenty of time for me to do some laundry, pack up my stuff, and for us to head to the airport.
With this, I’m officially halfway through with my schooling in Virginia, but we’re only part of the way through our summer world tour. I still have three more weeks of school, then we have to get all of our stuff – and the car – shipped out of here, and we’ll start making our way westward. That leaves Colorado, California, Washington, Canada, and Alaska on our to-visit list before we finally end up in Hawaii! I’m so beyond excited for our Alaska cruise! That’s one thing that I keep in mind whenever I start getting frustrated at living out of suitcases, which we’ve been doing for over a month now.
Here’s wishing everyone a great week!
