I was super lucky to be able to go to Florida for a week in June. Frank had a business trip and I was able to tag along.
Even though I love my job, I admit that it isn't very flexible. I'm the only one who does what I do and there's no one to cover for me. I've been lucky so far that when I've had to be gone (for my foot surgery for example) the person who had my job before me has been available to help out. Lori, the front desk person for the other office has helped out on Friday which is when their office is closed. So Frank had been complaining recently of how inflexible my job was and it's been annoying him. So when I found out about the trip to Florida I said, "I'm going!" and I just went in and told Dr. Free that I'd be gone. He was surprised but since I was able to get it covered (Yay for Bobbi and Lori again!) he didn't complain. I felt double guilty when the time came though because when I asked for it off, I didn't realize that I would be missing 2 weeks for Frank's Dad's death. It was totally understood by Dr. Free but I still felt bad at how much I've been gone.
Anyway, I went to Florida!
One of the reasons I was excited to go was because Frank said he would be staying in a Disney hotel and when am I every going to get to stay in a Disney hotel??
Turned out it was a Universal studios hotel. Which is all good except it meant I wasn't close to Disney after all.
I will still hold out hope for a Disney hotel some day...
I spent most of the time lounging by the pool and reading and stuff like that. I spent some time visiting Annavon of course. And I decided to go to one amusement park while I was there. The parks are so expensive that I couldn't really justify more than that, partly because of my foot...I still wasn't able to walk very far without pain so it didn't make sense to walk all day more than one day.
I wanted to go to Harry Potter World again of course because it's awesome but to really experience it you have to get a park hopper pass which is extra expensive. Then I was tempted to go back to the Magic Kingdom because it's the classic thing to do. But those are the two places I've actually been before. So in the end, I decided to go to Animal Kingdom. Mostly to see Pandora, to be honest. I also decided to use a scooter while in the park.
I'll admit I felt like an idiot with that scooter. Everyone else who had a scooter was either very old, very obese or had a cast on their leg. Then there was me...looking totally capable of walking yet scooting around in slow speed around the park! haha It was the right decision though. My foot was much happier with less walking.
This is me in front of the Tree of Life. It was super cool!
It was also raining at this point but I had to stop for a picture.
Honestly I was happy to walk around in the rain because there were times during the day that I thought I would melt! So hot. So humid.
I enjoyed the park a lot. The rides, the animals and, of course, the ambiance.
Disney does a great job.
Pandora was amazing and so cool.
I stayed til dark just to see it light up and it was totally worth it.
Sadly the pictures don't show how amazing it was.
There is a super popular ride that I stood in line for 2.5 hours to ride. Crazy. But the line was actually interesting with lots of stuff to look at so it didn't bother me. Plus the fact that I had to steer that scooter through those switch backs took some brain power! haha
The ride itself is one of those that can potentially make me motion sick (3D movie type ride) but I really enjoyed it.
On our last night of Frank's convention we had the opportunity to go into Universal Studios as a special event after the park had closed. They had free food (Frank found it not impressive), drinks and dessert. We also had a massive thunder and lightening storm which included sideways rain! It was pretty crazy and it closed the rollercoaster, of course. We took our free ponchos and went anyway. It was fun, if wet.
We then spent two days at the beach and Annavon, Lindsey and Mitch came for a day as well. Beautiful weather and a great time.
I took very few pictures on this trip but I was enjoying each and every moment.
