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.

BJ found this scrawny little dog that was going on the flight with us from Dallas to Jax. She made friends with it instantly, her name was Bella. Who knew animals could actually hop on a plane, (inside the passanger section) with all us humans and fly with us. My first thought was "what happens if it poops???"



This is a pic of me standing in the Dallas Airport in this flashing light booth, it was really pretty.




Above is a pic of me eating Taco Bell, get a load of the size of the "small" drink I ordered. It seems American's don't do 'small'. Pic of BJ eating her Taco, after the taco's we lined up to get Popey's chicken, it was good stuff.

This was taken from the plane windows over the middle of lower USA somewhere. We think it is farms or crops, very ornate looking from the sky. BJ was impressed.





This is me still going strong on the flight from LA to Dallas. Good flight no hang ups at all. I slept most of the way lol...while our little treasure (bj) watched over me.

This is BJ and I on the plane, the first leg of our journey, this was about half way thru the trip, I look like a woman on drugs.

Hey we are here, in the country. The flight was LONG, I slept a lot and BJ was like one of those freaky bug eyed people, she couldn't sleep much at all. She is like on a sugar/mt dew high atm, she is wired! I swear the seats on Qantas plane a so close together on purpose cause they don't want you getting up and walking around. We sat next to this young girl , she only got up once the whole trip whereas BJ and I got up and down continuously. My legs ached so bad on the trip, and I made the mistake of taking my shoes off, big mistake my feet swelled and hurt like crazy when I finally put them back on at the LA airport.

LA airport is big and the lines are extraordinarily long....took us an hour to get thru customs, then another hour to get back into the airport in the American Airlines line. We did meet some real friendly LA people who were flying to New York so we chatted for the hour while we stood in line.

The toilets are weird, but I like them. I don't appreciate the back splash but!!! I do appreciate the automated flush, the toilet seat covers, and the nice toilet paper, and the auto taps.

We have been eating as much good stuff as possible, but the prices here are quite expensive even for food. I paid $11 for a small meal at Burger King, 2 drinks and a burger and hash browns. That seems excessive. I have had Taco Bell...yum, and popeys chicken which was nice.

I can't sleep!!!

Ok this is my first blog page EVER!!! And Yes; this will be long, and YES; this will be boreing :) But I know that there will be some poor soul out there who gets as bored as I often do and will read my blog just for the fun of it.
Ok, its 2am on the 18.6.10 (the morning I leave) and I can't sleep. Have been on this computer paying bills, checking out USA sports shops scouring the internet for bargins I can send to myself. Had all my pages up and marked and all my shopping carts full and guess what!! My computer crashed and I lost the lot. Is that divine??? Should I take it as a sign to STOP spending so much money.
The one puzzling item I just can't settle on is a jacket for the K-man. Should he get 'red socks', or UFC???
Anyways I am going to sign off and go and try to sleep. I have packed my suitcase, very minimal amount, and all I need to do is write out all my addresses I will need while in the USA.
I am excitted, the girl is excitted too; a 12 year old .....however, she has managed to sleep while the 40 year old is still wide awake and stressing.