Home is always fun even when it was never where you lived...

Being with my Mom, Dad and Mary was really fun. We ate very delicious pizza, hung out at the pool, had a great barbeque and the highlight of our time was spent playing SkipBo and Kyler beating us 90% of the time.


our fun time of playing SkipBo. We ended up having to buy the games os that he could keep winning us all


The beautiful sunset from my parents house -I caught this the 2nd day we were at the beach. It was spectacular, unfortunetly, you can't really tell from the picture.


I love being with my parents it is really fun to talk to them, give them hugs and be able to just look at them anytime I want. Mary, Mom, Mckenna and I went shopping (or looking) at a really great mall and ate at the Cheesecake Factory. That was really fun, because the resteraunt was fancy, not so expensive and yet you felt like you were living like a queen. And we participated in the North Redington Beach Patriotic Parade- and had hotdogs, drinks, chips and icecream afterwards.


On the 4th of July we went to (or should we say were in,) the North Redington Beach patriotic parade.


The beautiful view of the bay. I have this one as my background on my computer because it is my most favorite view of all. I could get a chair sit looking at the bay for hours because it is so relaxing and peaceful.

It was so very hard to say goodbye to my parents and Mary when the time came but, when push came to shove we had to leave because Hurricane Dennis was coming and we needed to get to the Airport. We ended up staying at the Airport for 3 hours before we actually could leave for Atlanta, not because Tampa was having problems, but because Atlanta was having problems. We would get on the plane and then they would deboard us, then we went get back on the plane and we sat for an 1 1/2 til we could take off. Then we were stuck in a holding pattern because Atlanta was so packed with other flight traffic. But finally we landed in Atlanta, and had to board a flight that was not the one I had booked because we had missed our flight.
We arrived in Las Vegas at 12:30 a.m. and the family that had our car was so extremly nice to come and get us at 1:30 a.m and let us sleep at their house even though Matt told them that we would sleep in the Airport. We left Sunday morning for home and then vegged out all of the rest of that day. Whew.... I didn't know it would take two days to get home, but it sure was nice to walk into our own house and all the kids toys and large space after sitting on the plane and in the car cramped together.
Also, I needed to get home so that we could have our carpet installed in the living room and family room!

I loved our trip, I miss our family, the humidity and the beach, but we do get to see some Florida Family when Sharon, Rich and the Girls come in a few days!

Thanks so much for all the fun, Hope we can do it again! Sandi

Fishing on the Gulf

One of the Days the boys and Matt spent half the day on a Private fishing expedition. Mckenna and I were going to go, but Mckenna decided that she didn't want to see the sharks. They had had a lot of Shark attacks the week we were in Orlando and so she was afraid of the Sharks. Mckenna and I ended up spending the day at the beach.

Matt said that the boys had a lot of fun, caught a lot of fish which they gave to the crew of the ship (or Mates,) and got really good sun.



Matt and the boys on their fishing expedition


Kyler and the fish that he caught


Obviously, Devin has the sun in his eyes, but he did have fun fishing

Here comes the sun, or Why would anyone want to live in the snow when they can have the beach?

Well maybe people would like to live in the snow when your other option is to have red tide and the beach smells!

Okay, so for a little while the beach was smelly and yet, we still had so much fun! mckenna met 2 girls that were staying in the apartment above us and they played everyday that we spent at the Beach Flower. Then she made a friend at Grandma and Grandpa's house at the pool.

mckenna and her friends at the beachflower, Gabby and Hannah

What the beach flower looks like. We stayed on the right hand bottom apartment.

The BeachFlower is awesome because they have beach toys, chairs, a washer and dryer (which we have to pay for but it is worth it to have clean towels all the time,) and seasonings for cooking. Deanna the proprietor is awesome. The first time we stayed she bought us sprite and popcorn as our welcome treat!


This heron decided that after it was on the beach for a while that it would visit our apartment and actually walked into the house. (Sorry, I only have it on video)


We spent some time on the beach and the boys ended up getting skimboards so that they could skim in Florida and at home. Near our house there is a little ditch that has a low level of water and sand so that the skim with their friends. Kyler was just learning to skim in Florida where Devin had been skimming for quite a while already.

Matt and Mckenna decided to make a devin mermaid


Kyler getting ready to skimboard his way into the ocean.

We also spent time watching a baseball game between the Tampa Devilrays and the Detroit Tigers. The Tigers won. The Stadium is an enclosed Stadium which was really weird for me being used to Turner Field. But it did feel a little more intimate and we had really good seats.

In the other Kingdom's we will find...

While we are in Florida we are staying one week in Orlando and One week in Madeira/North Reddington Beach area.
Our last days in Orlando we spent in the Wonderful World of Disney! Now, we had been to Disney World in October 2 years before and so Matt and I wondered if we really needed to go again. Mckenna really wanted to see Minnie Mouse and the boys really wanted to go on the Rocking Rollercoaster and the Tower of Terror, but that would be 2 different kingdoms and I wanted to try and save money, so I only wanted to go to one kingdom and call it good. Since the boys were going to be at Universal on the cool rollercoasters, I thought that we would make Mckenna's wish come true by going to Magic Kingdom. But then I found out that Fairfield had a discount for parkhoppers that was the same as buying tickets on line, so we would save a little money, plus if you went to the owner breakfast (which they said would take 45 min, but ofcourse didn't, it took 2 hours,) you got $75 disney dollars which I used for tickets and I bought 2 day parkhoppers and off we went...

Mckenna wanted to go into Cinderella's castle, which by the way I am wondering why they have all the Sleeping Beauty stuff in their if it is Cinderella's home? What a bummer, I mean,Cinderella becomes a princess and then has to share it with some one else? Why doesn't Sleeping Beauty have her own home?


Sweet little Mckenna Marie


We walked around the Magic Kingdom, then went on Splash Mountain, some of the space rides, even though we didn't go on Space Mountain (way too busy,) and the kids and Matt raced each other around the race track!


Devin riding in his race car. Do you think that he really wants to win Mckenna and Matt?


Mckenna driving Matt around the race track. look how nice those smiles look.


After the car race we headed over to Epcot, so that I could go to the different countries... we went to the mission space area first so that the kids could go on that ride (3 times,) and then went on the circle of life ride and a few slower rides. Epcot was so busy that Soaring California had a fastpass wait of 22o minutes. We never did get to go on that ride because they had so many passes out that they shut down the fast pass option and everytime we went to get on it had over a 3 hours wait! After all the crazy fast rides the family went on, Kyler got a really bad headache and we ended up going back to our condo without going to a single Country! That was a really big bummer, so that is something that I will have to do when the kids aren't with me on another visit to Florida.


Every one ready to go back to the hotel after a busy roller coaster day. Kyler doesn't look like he has a headache does he?


The next day we took a break and spent the day at our condo swimming, playing board games and bingo in the Activity Center. That was a really fun, relaxing day! The thing that I love about the Fairfield Resorts are that they have a great Activity Center where you can check out different board games, play arcade games and they have a movie night on Monday's. They also have a playground for the kids, which Mckenna was going to go play on until she saw the "DON'T FEED THE ALLIGATORS," sign near the walkway from the pool to the playground. Needless to say, she never went on that playground even with me telling her that I would walk with her. If I was going to own a time-share it would be with the Fairfied Resorts for the many options that they have for keeping the kids happy when you need that one relaxing day in between the really fun, but hectic days.

Our next day at Disney World we went to MGM as soon as it opened so that the kids could go on the Rocking RollerCoaster before it started getting crowded. The wait was perfect and while we waited we ordered fastpasses for another time when we got off. I was in line ready to go because Matt told me that it wasn't that bad of a ride when we passed the sign with the back/neck warning and the huge message of the ride causing Naseousness. The kids had kept saying that I wouldn't like the ride and so I chickened out and didn't go. But while I was waiting I met a really nice lady and her little girl from Scotland waiting for her boys and her husband to come off the ride. They were really fun to talk to, they were on Holiday (which is so fun to hear with an accent and the saying "holiday" instead of Vacation,)


My view of the Tower of Terror while I was waiting for the rest of the family during their ride of the Rocking Rollercoaster. We never did go on the Tower of Terror because it was closed.

We went on alot of rides at MGM while it was raining we ran into one of the gift shops and Kyler found the perfect Mickey for his collections of small stuffed Mickey's. He found a Jedi Mickey near the Star Tours ride. He was very excited about that.

After spending half the day at MGM, it started pouring more than it had been all day and so we decided to try one of the other kingdoms that we had never been to. We stopped at guest services and talked to them about going to Disney Wide World of Sports, but they told us since it was raining that we should really go their because every event their that day was outside. So we decided to go to Animal Kingdom

Wow, why in the world did we wait until 4 p.m. to go to Animal Kingdom? Matt, Kyler and I loved this place the best. Kyler was in seventh heaven with all the animals, the plants and that great big tree with all the animals carved into it! Even though it rained it didn't bother us because it was just like being in the rain forest and unfortunetly for us, we only had 3 hours left of this kingdom since it closed at 7 p.m.


Isn't that the prettiest Red in the middle of all the various greens?

Matt and I decided that if we ever went to Walt Disney World again it would be Animal Kingdom and MGM, but ultimately Disney is best being visited every 5 years or so.




This is the only picture of Kyler that I could get that wasn't so obvious of his aversion of me taking pictures while we were at Disney World. This picture was taken waiting for the safari ride in Animal Kingdom

Kennedy Space Center

So, one day we spend at an earthly amusement park and the next 2 days we spend at the epitome of Matt's realm of the Universe; Kennedy Space Center. We started out in the afternoon on Saturday and found out that the center was closing in about 2 hours, but if we bought our tickets we could spend the next day free. The first day, Saturday, we watched an Imax film about space, Which I think was called INTO THE DREAM, and was a movie that I had bought Matt when we lived in Florida and some how in the years that we lived in Utah it disappeared from our collection of videos, (maybe it went to where ever our wedding video went- the missing sock scenario but without the dryer.) WE also had the kids check out the gift shops so that they could decided on their memory purchase of this part of the trip. Mckenna ended up picking out a snow globe for her friend Kyleigh who collects snow globes.

Yes, the next day was Sunday, but Matt really wanted to go back and so we spent the entire day at Kennedy. We scheduled a really cool first activity with a Lunch with an Astronaut.
We ate a buffet style catered lunch and then a guy came out and showed us a film on the NASA program, (Mckenna the whole time kept saying," where is the Astronaut, I thought we were suppose to have him sitting here eating lunch with us," after awhile she just said," this is a rip off," and then the Astronaut came in and she was okay,) Astronaut Jon McBride told us about his career at NASA gave the kids a great message about how Drugs, alcohol and the like will ruin your chances of getting in the Astonaut program and how it is better to be a leader and if someone asks you if you want the drug that they have say no, and then talk them out of using it themselves. It was a great start to our fun time at Kennedy Space Center. Mr. McBride also did a Q&A session and pictures. You could take a picture with your camera or buy one of theirs. Our picture came out better so we were lucky didn't have to pay out anything for that.

The next stop was to take a behind the scene tour near the Launch Pads. It was very neat to see the shuttle on Launch Pad B ready for it's first mission since the Challenger disaster, the launch was suppose to be while we were in Florida, but they had to scrub it til the middle of July (about a few days after we left,) and then they scrubbed it again for another week later. I ended up watching the launch at ReZults while walking on the Treadmill. It was an amazing sight. It remind me of our time where we watched a night launch when the boys were really little and caused me to reflect on so many memories from our time living in Florida.

While we were on the tour we visited an area where they held sections of the International Space station modules, that was really neat to see, because some of the modules the shuttle was taking with them to help restock, add to and make the space station more liveable. Matt absolutely loved this part of our vacation. The tour guide was a gal who was a volunteer but worked for a company that made some of the parts for the shuttle. She was so filled with information and you could tell that she loved her job and wanted to help others enjoy their Space experience. She and Matt talked when everyone else was just looking around, he got to ask great questions and she had very good answers that help him to quench his thirst for information.

We also got to see the building where they filmed the T.V. series, I DREAM OF JEANIE. That was fun because I always liked that show. The guide told us that they use the building for administration purposes, but not like they did during the glory days of the Apollo program. Now, it was just for non-consiquential staff where during the Apollo program, they had all the head staff and big wigs working their.

After the tour we stopped at the Rocket grave yard and walked over a bridge that lead to the area of the memorial to all those who have lost their lives for the Space Program, the kids weren't very interested in this until they noticed the Alligator's under the pier to the memorial. You would think that they hadn't seen an alligator in their whole life! When they had just seen one the day before, we spent a half an hour looking at those alligators, who were residing with a bunch of fish and a few turtles. Kyler couldn't understand why the alligators didn't eat the fish or turtles, I told him that they probably ate the fish but he turtles were protected by their shell. He had been really worried about the turtles, because we thought that they were cute and so he felt better with my non factual information. I mean really, I have no idea if they would eat the turtles or not, but it made sense to my mind.















Hey, does any one know the Answer to this question? What is the difference between Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral?

Write me and let me know, if no one answers I will let you know...

Our wonderful Florida break

Wow! What a great trip! We arrived on a very Humid day ( i guess that all days' are humid, but to me if felt great,) and stayed at a reasonable hotel. Which compared to the night before in Vegas felt like a 5 star instead of the 1 star that the Vegas hotel was. We were right near Universal which is great since that was where we were going in the morning to see all our Florida family! Island of Adventure was nice except for the rain which I guess kept us all from going on more rides. What I am wondering is this; what was the other part of Universal like? Did we pick the funnest park or what?

The kids were so excited to see their Grandparents, Mary, Sharon, Rich and the girls. Mckenna just feel in love with Kiara and Indigo. Poor little Kiara was sick and so we didn't get to see so much her really fun personality until about 3 weeks later when they visited us in Utah. But she is absolutely adorable and we could have kept her and Indigo for life.


Devin and Mckenna, I think that all of the next few pictures are all taken during the missing Sharon escapade. "oh, where oh, where did our Sharon go? Oh, where oh where can she be?"


Here is little Indigo. We were all singing songs while we were waiting for Sharon to show up ( see that story in the finlinson blog.) I Think that we sang popcorn popping on the apricot tree about 2 trillion times, people who have never heard that song were giving us some really interesting looks. Funny how in Utah you get a smile, in Florida you get a look of "wow, you people are really weird!"


Matt and dad doing what they did all vacation long! Talk, talk, talk, talk, talk! Are you sure dad that you don't like to talk? I love that you and Matt love to talk!


Sharon! look how cute she is! I love having Sharon around. It is sad that we live so far apart.


awwwwwwwwwwww! The T-Rex has me!!!!!


Hey, that T-Rex is trying to get me too...............

Which one of the kids will get eaten first? Who will save them?



oh, mckenna look at the sign above you! Doesn't it say "Do not climb!" But look at how cute she is. What person could stop a little kid from climbing in the middle of an amusement park?

Universal was a great start to our 2 week Vacation.

The water is warm in our hotel pool, So jump on in and enjoy the rest of the trip!