Fourth of July

We are coming to the end of our wonderful trip to the USA, this blog was mainly for me in my old age to look back and remember what we have done.
THURSDAY: We had a bit of a clean up on the afternoon I spent the day Kachering (pressure cleaning) Keith’s veranda and driveway as the humidity had caused it to completely mould over with green alge.
FRIDAY: Was a day of cleaning up Jane wanted the place looking spic and span for the arrival of guests Bob and Sharon and family I helped to by cleaning windows, shovelling leaves and cleaning out the garage area. Friday night the family arrived and everyone was so excited to meet each other.
SATURDAY: The kids swam most all the day in the pool, it was so good to see BJ playing with all her cousins big and little, she had the best time, they all loved it. Us adults went out to the Antique Mall for a couple of hours it was amazing I have never seen so many nick naks in one spot I could have spent the whole day looking at all the antiques. Of course that night we had fireworks after dinner just to get things warmed up for Sunday.
SUNDAY: The day started with church at First Baptist which is the biggest church I have ever been in with its 7000 members. The service was amazing and you had to be there to really grasp the patriotism that was envolved in the service. Children dressed as presidents of old and recited verses of freedom speeches. Choirs sang songs of freedom, they had a procession of presenting the flags of all the armed forces which was my favourite part, then the pastor said to the congregation if you have served in the armed forces stand up when we present your divisons flag it was amazing to see so many of the audience standing up. Keith was in the Navy so he stood up during the presentation of their flag and service men. The Pastor preached a 30min sermon and we then all left. We had a big cookout for lunch that afternoon, cousin Peggy came by and so did Lisa and her children, there was so much food we were absolutely stuffed, after lunch we played games and then had more food and then got in the cars and drove down to the city park and watched the fireworks on the river. While watching the fireworks I got to see some of America’s finest white trash you ever did see, and some black trash too. It was funny, and a real eye opener. The Fireworks was the best I have ever seen and went on for ages and so many of them went off all at once which was so amazing to see, when we got home we did some of our own crackers and fireworks too. It was such a great day and I am so glad I got to be here for it.
MONDAY: Bob and Sharon and family were still with us so we had a day of separate adventures. BJ and all the kids went swimming in the pool, then got out had lunch and went to the Jax beach where they played in the surf and got Gelato ice-creams. Us adults went our separate ways too, Keith, Bob and myself went to St Nicolas Gun Shop where I found some good buys on T-shirts and Keith had a fine time looking at all the guns. Then we went to the Western Shop and I loved it, we browsed for quite some time there and I brought shirts and gifts for friends. Then we met up with the women who had been shopping at Hobby Lobby. We went to ‘Whataburger’ yes that is the correct spelling and had lunch, we went home and played around till tea time and then shot off the rest of our fireworks and firecrackers. It was a great day and the kids were exhausted. I did learn to play manners with the children which was quite a loud and excitable game.
TUESDAY: We went thrift shopping and I found some amazing clothes for bargin prices, there were heaps of people there as it was a huge store. We also went to St Marco which was the original shoping village in Jax before the city really grew, we had the yummiest pizza and shopped in some of the little old shops where I found some good buys on Vera Bradley bags. We then went to a huge bookshop called Books a Million and to Hobby Lobby where I found some good gifts for Christmas.
WEDNESDAY: This week we have had lunch with counsin Cindy-Bee and her daughter Sarah who live in Jax, not far from Keith and Jane. Mother and daughter who were such wonderful company, we went to a cafe called Panera, delicious fresh food.
We then shopped at the Town Centre which was fun, the busiest shop there was the Apple Mac shop which was full of people looking at the new 4G phones.
Oh and I have to say I have a new favourite drink now it is called the Sonic Java Chiller it was unreal, I am craving one even now and I am typing. Sonic restaurant is a drive in restaurant where you pull your car in and order at the parking lot and the girls roller skate your order out to your car and you pay them for it. Like Happy Days 
THURSDAY: We met Granny Fowler and Mr Bill Fowler the most hospitable and lovely people you will ever meet. We had lunch with them and Donna and Lisa and Lisa’s kids and their eldest Son Willis and his wife. Lunch was amazing we had all southern food eg: Mustard Greens, Butter Beans, Creamed Corn, Southern Fried Chicken, Homemade Biscuits, Roast Beef and Roast vegetables and Gravy, Chicken and dumplings, chicken and Rice, Fried Okra, Tomatoes. Then for desert we had: Banana Pudding, Coconut Cream Pie, Choc Chip Cookies, Fruit salad. Everything was home baked by Granny Fowler who is 86 years old, she is amazing, you wouldn’t think she was 86 she then took me in and showed me her quilts she is working on, amazing pieces of work for one so old. Martha (granny Fowler) still walks everyday and carries 1kg weight in each hand....unbelievable. I loved meeting them and hearing Mr Fowler tell stories of Paul’s Great Grandfather who donated most of the land around town that was parks and churches and hearing about the legacy he left behind. We are so blessed to be apart of his linage.
When we got home Nanna fixed us a baked chicken dinner with stuffing, mashed tatoes and gravy. I am telling you I have never eaten so much food in all my life.

Some Pic's I have taken....

Disney Cont....
Notice the pic of BJ she is at the pool playing drowned rat for me :) It was one of those funny pics we were doing.

Here you can see BJ with Pluto. And here are also some pics of me and BJ by the pool at the Pop Disney resort, the water was warm like a hot bath...but we still enjoyed it.


We got up Sunday and spent the day at Disney again at Magic Kingdom, we went on all our favourite rides. I spent a lot of time cruising the shops while the 3 young ones roller coasted. I went on the Splash Mountain ride because I loved it :)

Disney was worth the trip and we had a ball, there is just so much to do there. It is a very clean place too, and people are helpful and friendly. It was mega crowded on Friday, but Sat and Sun were pretty good.

We left the park around 4pm and S & L drove us up to Waldo to Wendy's to meet Keith and Jane and then Keith took us to IHOP for dinner. It stands for International House of Pancakes, it was yummy and I had a breakfast dinner :)

When we finally arrived back home I was exhausted :)

Monday 28th I had to take it easy to recover from the Disney adventure, but I did manage to go to the hair dressers and have my hair done by this Spanish lady...She was ROUGH!!! She scrubbed my head when she was washing it with her nails till I thought it must be bleeding, then when she was straightening my hair she burnt my ear with the iron....then she had the audacity to ask me for a tip when it came time to pay for it.....I will NOT be going back there again. Interestingly enough, it is expensive to get your hair done in the US. It costs me $47 to have my hair washed, blow dried, and straightened in Australia, and that is a top quality salon where you get massage chairs, and Capachino Coffee's free. And in the USA I paid $30 to have my hair washed, Blowed, and Straightened, and it was NOT a pleasant experience. So Australia has quality hair treatments for more cost effective prices :)

One thing I do enjoy here is the way you get to help yourself to sauces, syrups, napkins, salt, and condiments when you purchase a meal. You can take as much as you like. The small Coffee's here in fast food places are actually twice the size of our small Aussie coffee's and you don't get milk you get 'cream' which is artificialy milk but you get to take as much as you like. The average price for coffee is about $1.99 or up to $2.50 but it is twice the size and you can get free refils. If you want to buy a special coffee like a capichino that costs extra around $3 and you don't get any free refils so that is safe as australia. When you buy drinks you get free refills and if you are leaving the resturant some places let you take a take away cup with you with it full of drink. I have found Cracker Barell to be the best eatery place here, they are very accomodating. I brought a fresh lemonaide (yummy) and then after they had done my bill up I asked if I could buy a coffee to go, they said I didn't need to pay for it they would give me a coffee for free because I purchased a drink with my meal. Isn't that great!

Disney,
Well I must say disney is AMAZING - I love it soooo much. We arrived Friday arvo at around 3pm and spent the whole night there till 1am. We went to Magic Kingdom, we did all the rides in that time, and some of the shows too. The best part for me was the amazing Fireworks, I have never seen fireworks like they had at Disney, some were even shaped like a heart when they exploded. I loved the Pirates of the Caribean theme ride, it was a slow ride and you sat in a boat and it meandered thru different scenes of the movie with pirates etc. The detail that has gone into the scenes is simply amazing even down to the automated dummies having hairy legs :)

BJ loved it, we were exhausted when we got back to the motel at 2am and finally got to bed. We stayed at the Pop Culture Disney resort which was nice, we had to catch a bus to and from the resort to Disney as it was 20 mins away, thats how big the Disney complex is, it is Huge!

I had this interesting large pretzel that was soft and filled in the centre with sweet cream cheese, it was different and quite nice.

On Sat we got up early had breaky and caught the bus into the Disney Animal Kingdom, it was amazing. Steven, Laura and BJ went on this one roller coaster 5 times they liked it so much. I didn't do many rides on Sat, I was pretty wiped out from Fridays adventures. On Friday we all went on this Roller Coaster called Space Mountain, it was pretty fast and turned alot and I was wearing my camo cap and of course it blew off and I lost it :( Everyone scolded me because I didn't take it off before I got on, you would think I would have known better :).

At Animal Kingdom my favourite part was the Safari. You sat in this big jeep/truck and they drove you thru was looked like an african wilderness, it was very authentic looking. We saw real animals like: Rhino, white and normal Rhino, Giraffe, Elephants, Cheetahs, Gazells, Wilderbeasts, Warthogs, Ostrich, and some other animals that I can't remember their names of. We even saw a big flock of Vultures, and pink flimingos. It was great as you were fairly close to the animals and got to see them, oh! and there were Lions too.

Tracie, you would have loved the Meer Cats, they were small, and soooo cute, we got pics of them. One of them was sitting on top of a termite mound keeping lookout for preditors. Then when he got sick of it, he would swap with another one who would take his place. Oh and we got to see naked Mole Rats! If anyone has kids and has watched Kim Possible you would have heard of them. I always thought they weren't real, just a ficticious creature....I was wrong :)

We left Animal Kingdom late afternoon when we had seen everything and rode everything, then we had dinner that night at Cracker Barell (my favourite) I got the breakfast, cause I love their sausage and biscuits and fried apples and hash potatoe casserole.

24.6.10

Had a shop till you literally drop day. Left at 9:30am and drove to St. Augstine there are discount Outlets there, all name brand shops like Calvin Klien, Estee Lauder, etc. I went in as many shops as I could and brought as much as I could ;) I got all these discount perfumes (name brands) for cheap prices, even got the Chanel Allure (ladies) that other shops were out of at an excellent price.

We had lunch and kept on shopping till about 5pm, then we drove to Denny's diner at St. Augstine and picked up Keith who was at the War Vet's biker convention there, we stopped off and admired all the amazing bikes, it was there that we saw this Harley with a sidecar all done up with a fighter pilot theme it was amazing. The guy told us all about his association with the Aussie's during the nam war.

After the bikes Keith took us to Barnacle Bill's where I had fried Coconut Shrimp, very Noice! we decided to stop off at the outlet mall again on the way home and did some more shopping. Didn't get home till late, but it was a great day :)

20.6.10
Sunday went to church with Keith and Jane to 1st Baptist Church at Jacksonville, it is a huge church with thousands of people and there are several buildings that take up 3 city blocks with glass walkways in between the buildings.

Church started with adult lessons which Bj and I went to with K & J, they even had hot food before the lesson that you could eat during the lesson (amazing ;)

Then we went into the church service which opened with a huge choir singing some beautiful southern gospel song, they had a baptism which was right up in the very top of the building so you had big screens to look at because the auditorium was so big you couldn't even see the pastor baptising the people. The whole service is televised on TV. The Pastor preached a message, there was a song by the mens choir, then three generations got up and sung a song, there was a 12 year old boy, his dad, and his grandad, it sure was something to hear :)
I love the atmosphere of the worship, so large but I didn't mind at all.

After church we all came back to K & J's and had a lunch because it was Fathers Day. They did a cookout (bbq) consisting of Steak and salads. Kay made her potatoe salad, Laura made her Macaroni and cheese, American's seem to just love their Mac n cheese, don't see the attraction there myself :) We had 4 different deserts, there was soooo much food.

It is later in the arvo now and everyone has left, Keith is working on Jon's bike and a storm is brewing. I better run now. Pic's below are of our lunch with different ones.

Oh I forgot to tell you that bj and I spent quite a few hours in Walmart last night - it was great for a shopper like me. We looked at everything and brought a heap of stuff.

This is bj at the Jax airport arrived safely, plane was an hour late, didn't get in till after 10.30pm at night. Jane and Keith and Nanna were there to meet us :) We were glad the trip was over

19.6.10
Got up and Nanna fixed us sausages, not like our sausages but Tennessee pride sausages, they are sooooo yummy. And she made mapple peacan pancakes, they were so nice with peacan syrup. I LOVE the food here.

Stephen and Laura are here, got to talk to them and to Jon too, good day just bumming around not doing much.

BJ and Steven went in the pool, its so hot here. We are going to Walmart this arvo....but get this we are going later at night. Thats right, the shops are open here 24/7 it is soooo coool :)

I had Butter Peacan Icecream for lunch today too....so yum. There is a storm coming in soon. So better get off.