Living in Georgia

The highlight of our trip was definitely Universal Studios. We had such a great time!  It was A LOT of walking but a very family friendly theme park. The sign above our heads says it all, "The Adventure Begins." We were given the advise to make sure we started off at the Harry Potter rides because you can't use your fast pass there and they get busy very quickly. It was sad to walk through the Dr. Seuss and Curious George section, knowing how much Ethan would really enjoy it but we were on a mission. And we were NOT disappointed. I highly recommend the rides. Some rides were very family friendly and some were only for big kids, but Universal Studios has the best set up called Family Swap -- you all stand in line together and then when you get close to the front they take you to a special section. The parent and child who can ride get on while the other parent waits with those that can't. Then when the first rides are done, yo...

 Wednesday we had most of the day together, minus a couple hours Jason had to do a phone call. We weren't sure what we would do but decided SeaWorld would be a good option because it wasn't too big and Jason got free passes through the military. We saw the dolphin show first and the boys LOVED it. It had dolphins, exotic birds, trapeze artists and the works!  Here they all got to touch the stingrays.  Then Jason had to sneak off to do his call so I took the boys on a big roller coaster ride that went through some water at the end. I wasn't sure how Ethan would do but took my chances. I'm not quite sure if he really liked it or not - I know he liked some parts of it - but he was a trooper and survived. And it was refreshing. All the other exhibits were a long wait in the heat so we headed off to watch the whale show.  Waiting selfie!! Wyatt's favorite mammal is the Orca so he loved it, as did the others.  Then we kil...

 Jason had a business trip to Orlando immediately following his two week Army Annual Training so instead of being gone for a few more days, we tagged along with him and made it a vacation.  We stayed at this awesome hotel with the best pool ever!! Needless to say, we spent most of the 100 degree days in the pool while Jason worked. We all loved it! It had two zero entry sides, a basketball area, ledges and steps all along it and a cool waterslide! I didn't get a picture of it, but it also had a very cool lazy river that we enjoyed a lot. It was very hard to leave this place!!    We did get out of the pool a couple times to do other things. They had a putting green alongside the pool area that Jack enjoyed put-puting on.  Jason joined us for just a bit before heading off to work.  Then we found a bunny and had a lot of fun following him around the green.  But it was hot and humid, so...

 We have been meaning to pressure wash and restain our back deck for a couple years now but just never got around to it. Finally we bit the bullet and just did it, and boy did it turn our better than I expected. First Jason pressure washed everything!    So clean with all the junk removed and it all washed.  Then we all pitched in and painted. It was tough work (I was nursing a swollen arm from a bee sting and a broken toe) in the hot sun but it needed to be done and even the boys helped out.  We have been looking at new tables for the back deck for a couple years but have been unable to find anything that we really like that we can stomach paying for.  I really didn't want to bring the old glass table back onto the deck - we rarely use it for anything anymore and it really didn't look all that nice anymore. But Jason power washed it and made it look better. And then I got the idea to just get an outdoor table cloth to hide the ...