March 13th, 2019

I'm back!  Woohoo!  And boy do I have great stories for you!  We had SUCH a great  time with Hurley and Jessie!  But then, we always do ;)

Youngest son and his wife had already spent 4 days whooping it up at Disney when we picked them up and we all spent the first day together at Universal!  You would think that after 4 days, totally immersion at Disney, that they would be ready to step away from Theme Parks, but let me tell you, these two have both stamina and enthusiasm!  Two things essential to a really great theme park experience.  It. Was. Awesome.

We hobnobbed with lots of celebrities of course:

There were lots of interesting shops to explore and snacks to try (the frozen butterbeer was a particular favourite as was VooDoo Donuts) but Tim and the kids were especially fond of the rides.  Not me.  I am the designated holder of other people's stuff and I'm fine with that:

Eventually, we ran out of steam and it was time to make the trek back home.  I have to say here that the traffic was an absolute bear. A cranky, fat, snarly, smelly bear.  What would normally be about a 2 hour drive became a 3+ hour ride.  On the other hand, we had loads of time to catch up and yakyakyak and look at pictures on each other's phones. Eventually we arrived back in Venice where, because of the late hour, we just popped into a Perkins (open 24 hours a day and thank you very much for that) for a perfectly tolerable meal before finally arriving home and big time crash!

Day two was all about the Strawberry Festival and this was by their request, I swear!  We hit the road early-ish, miraculously found rock-star parking and developed a game plan.  Jessie wanted to see the animals first so off we went to admire chicken and bunnies and cows, wash hands THOROUGHLY and then a nice wander through various tents to see interesting strawberry themed, well, everything,  amazing and talented craftsmanship (I was especially taken by the examples of cake decorating! wow!), and listen to some really good  music.

Of course there were booths upon booths upon booths of fair food, some of which HAD to be tried.  Some was very good, some very bad, but all of it was an adventure.  And of course strawberry shortcake was eaten.  I think it's a law that if you go to a Strawberry Festival, you are required to eat strawberry shortcake:

All of us declined any of the rides or games in the midway and by afternoon, we were ready to move on.  

Once again, by request, the next stop were the outlet shops in Ellenton.  Tim and I wandered around slowly, peeking into this store and that. Hurley and Jessie however, scored big time! Hurrah! I do love a great outlet store!  

Back home to try out a Pizza Restaurant we had never tried before. It's funny how much more adventurous we are when these two visit us.  They do research before they come down and always show up with a list of restaurants to try! Very fun!  Then back home for home made cake.  Of course I baked.  Silly. That's not even a question!

Wow.....this a becoming  long post.  I think it'll have to be a two-parter.

See you again tomorrow ;)