4 Disney Days Done - 3 More to Go

Hello from Kissimmee, Florida!

We are theme parking like crazy with four full days under our belts and three more to go. Armed with sunscreen, lots of money and of course hand sanitizer with have explored Disney World's Animal Kingdom, Epcott and Hollywood Studios and today we checked out Universal Studio.

One of the things that we have learned is that Disney World is really huge! It's really 4 separate parks with many other extras like water parks, golf courses and lots of resorts. You have to hand it to Disney, they do think of everything!

We are really enjoying staying in the condo (thanks again to Aunt Sandra) - it's nice to have a "house" - Emma and Leah have their own room with a tv so when we get back every night the girls are quick to get to bed! Tyrone is on his own little holiday as he is spending the week at the Puppy Dreams Pet Motel.

Highlights for us have to include:

*An African animal safari - Have you seen a rhinoceros pee?

*Musicals - Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Finding Nemo - we have seen them all!

*Stunt shows - Leah's favorite

*Rides galore - Just thinking of some of the rides we have been on make Ray and I dizzy!

* Video Game Design - see Leah and Ray star in their own game - try it online here

http://www.thinkingofyoupostcards.com/runtime/play?Guestcode=KQ2QKC97CHME2Q

*Jaws - Just ask Emma about that one

*Fireworks - Thanks to the Atkinson's for the Fantasmic tip.

*Animal Actor Show - Leah was pretty pumped to be callled up stage to help with the dog actors!

*And of course seeing all the characters - Emma was thrilled to see Barney, Leah loved the Princesses and Ray was excited to pose with Marilyn.

So we are mustering up our energy for 3 more action packed days - to the Magic Kingdom and SeaWorld.

Stay tuned................

We were kind of curious to see if anyone was reading our blog so Ray added the website counter (a company even contacted us to advertise on the blog!). So since we know people are reading this - we want to hear from you! What is your favorite Disney character??

A Trip to the Florida Keys

Hi again (2nd post today),

We thought that no trip to Florida would be complete without spending some time in the Keys. We ended up leaving the motor home up in the Miami area and zipped down to the Keys for a couple of days with our tent.

We pitched our tent at a very lovely oceanside spot. It was beautiful at night looking out at the stars (with all four of us and Tyrone in the tent!)

We spent lots of time on the beach swimming in the very turquoise warm water. Tyrone had fun at the Dog Beach and Ray and Emma went snorkeling and she saw her first stingray and jellyfish!

We went down to Key West to the Sunset Festivities at Mallory Square where we witnessed all types of interesting shows - everything from chain saw juggling to cat performances - some of these were strange indeed! The highlight of the night was of course seeing the beautiful sunset and hearing the crowd cheer and clap. Oh and about that key lime pie - YUMMY!

The Keys were beautiful - the weather was amazing - it was like we were on a tropical island!

Now we are making our way to Orlando for our Disney World adventures. We are very excited to be able to stay at a Condo for a week while we are hear - thanks Aunt Sandra for making those connections for us!!

Oh and about Ray's speeding back in Louisiana - luckily he did not get a speeding ticket especially since he was going 44 miles per hour in a 15 miles per hour zone! Paul - how did you know Ray would be driving that fast - your coveted prize will be coming in the mail.

Bye for now.

Everything Alligator (well almost)

Hi there,

It's been awhile since we last blogged - where does the time go? We have so much to talk about that we are going to 2 posts in 1 day!

Since our time in Louisiana we travelled along the Gulf Coasts of Mississippi and Alabama on the beautiful sugar white sands of Florida's Emerald Coast. We ended up staying at a little place called Mexico Beach which is just outside of Panama City for a couple of days of walking the beach, shell collecting and of course swimming!

Then off to explore southern Florida - the Big Cypress National Preserve, the Everglades and of course the Keys (the topic of our next blog).

As we travelled through the Big Cypress National Preserve and the Everglades - there is one common factor - alligators! Lots of them - from babies to big ones to even dead ones on the side of the road. The handy hint we learned in Louisiana about outsmarting an alligator came in handy when we went for a family bike ride in the Everglades!! We had a slight incident when an alligator was on the move after us. You should see Leah zig zag on her bike!! An eventful way to end the "Alligator Chapter".

Finally, below is a video we shot during our biking adventure thru the national everglades park - and no Uncle Phillip this wasn't taken off Youtube!!  Enjoy.

Mud - Boggin in Lousianna

Last time Leah wrote the blog so now it’s my turn. We headed north of Lafayette to Natchez, Missippii on April 13^th to visit the Frogmore Plantation, which is very close to the mighty Mississippi River. It had rained the last few nights and it was wet and really muddy. The parking lot at the Plantation was small so dad didn’t want to park there. Instead Dad decided to park at a large grassy area down the road. Splatt! Right into the a huge mud blob. AHHHHHHH! Yelled dad jumping outside. After about 10 minutes of Dad going back and forth, and back and forth inside out, trying to get out of the sticky, gooey, Lousianna mud, finally a nice afro-american came out of his GMC truck and got us out of the mud. Thank goodness!!

Dad thinks of the Kia SUV swamp commercial now - he found it here

We ended up missing the last tour at the Plantation after all that excitement and toured around Natchez instead . There are lots of really nice old houses in Natchez that we looked at and went went to a spot in downtown Natchaz where they used to sell slaves.

Then the next day we all got up bright and early and went to the Plantation. The Lady gave us a tour and showed us the slave quarters, barn, church, and saw how they harvested cotton long ago and today. This was really interesting to see a plantation first hand especially since the Grade 5 class read the book The Underground Railroad.
We then went to the New Orleans area and stayed a state park on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain. To get to New Orleans you have to cross a huge bridge which goes on for 25 miles across the lake! New Orleans was very pretty in the French Quarter. In some ways it reminded me of pictures of Paris. We went to this place called Café Du Monde and tasted some very yummy baignets - a square dounut thing with lots of icing sugar (thanks for the tip Grandpa Ralph). And for lunch we went to this old fashion burger dinner were 3 people worked. There was an Afro-American Lady who kept dancing as she was cooking and all the employees had a dancing competetion. It was so FUNNY!
Well all your guesses on what to do if an alligator is chasing you on land are all good, but what we were told was if an alligator is ever chasing you on land you should run in zig-zags. Because you see when Alligators are on land they can run extremely fast in a precise straight line – they only see straight ahead… So that’s what you should do if an Alligator is chasing you on land.

Today’s nailbitting, headpuzzling trivia question is……………………… when we were staying over night at the State Park, and when dad got stopped by a State Park ranger, because he was over the speed limit of 15 miles per hour, how fast was he really going?

Until next time.

Emma

Easter with the Alligators.

Hi everybody It's Leah writing the blog this time. We are in Lafayette Louisiana and are having lots of fun. This morning we went to a swamp and we went in a boat but it wasn't very big but it had lots of seats. We were the only ones there except for the person driving the boat and explaining all of it.It was really scary seeing Alligators we saw a really small alligator - we think it was a baby alligator and we saw a really big Alligator - we are thinking that it was 12 feet. We also saw lots of different kinds of birds, lots of them were on their nests with baby birds.
We also visited a little cajun town where people were dressed up in costumes. We even went on an Easter egg hunt and got lots of candies!

We went to this factory that dad really wanted to go to where they made Tabisco sauce - we got lots of samples! We went out for supper at this place where they had lots of seafood like crawfish (which everyone eats here tons - I like catfish better though) and they had a band that was playing Canjun music and we got to dance!

We are staying at a really nice campground with lots of people staying at. Me and Emma made three Louisiana friends - one girl was called Augere and one other girl was called Danielle and those two are sisters and the last girl is called Selena. Everyday and night they partyed and mostly every adult had a golf cart with the two back seats - my dad wants one!

Y'All have a Happy Easter!!

PS - Congrats to Aunt Sandra and Miss Nicole Macdonald who guessed our last trivia question about Leah's expensive visit to the doctor. The cost to see the doctor was $150 and then the 3 medicines were $110 for a grand total of $260...good thing we have coverage!  Ladies - your prizes will be in the mail sometime soon!

We learned lots of interesting facts about alligators today. Did you know that they can run extremely fast on land! So if you are ever chased by an alligator on land - what's the best thing you can do to protect yourself??

We are heading north to the Natchez Louisiana area tomorrow to visit a cotton plantation by the Missippi River.

Bye,

Our travels with Uncle Phil

Hello there - It's been awhile since we have last posted - we have been doing lots of different things. Here are the highlights:

San Marcos - We returned to San Marcos and met Uncle Phil where we spent 2 fun filled days on the San Marcos River. Everyone had the chance to frolic in the river swinging off a rope, just jumping (Tyrone) and kayaking. Ray, Emma and even Leah were successful in shooting some rapids!!

Houston - We then headed to Houston where Phil led us on 3 very action packed days.

We visited the Houston Aquarium where we touched stingrays and saw "Marina the White Tiger".

We checked out the Houston Museum of Natural Science where Ray learned all about directional drilling and now considers himself an expert (can you believe that Paul - he's sending you an email all about it) The girls were very excited to tour a vault of precious gems and jewelry.

The Houston Children's Museum was fun as Leah worked as a banker (and actually came home with some of the money...oopps) and Emma did a weather forcast for a local ficticious Houston tv station.

The Houston Zoo was a hit, especiallly the animal merry-go round!

We also toured around Galveston and saw some of the damage from Hurrican Ike. They are working hard to get things back on track. However, we did visit a nearby Barrier Island/Penisula called Bolivar where the damage from Hurricane Ike was incredible - the community was basically destroyed - very sad. But they do seem to be rebuilding.

Thanks to Phil, Kelly and Bandi (their dog) for being our tour guides!

We left Houston on Thursday and are now at this great little campground in Lafayette, Louisiana where we will be spending a Cajun Easter weekend - stay tuned for an update soon.

Oh and about our last trivia question about the seanut - Tyrone just went crazy playing with coconuts which were washed up on the beach from Caribban destinations. YEAH Grandpa Harry for getting that question right!

Our next trivia question deals with the American health system. For the last few weeks Leah has been hacking and coughing and becoming more and more conjested so we decided to take her to the doctor and get her checked out which was quite an experience. After pages and pages of paperwork (19 in total) , Leah saw a doctor who believes that what she had was allegry induced and prescribed a bunch of different medicine. The good news is that she is back to her bubbly self but we want to know from you - how much did this all cost us (doctor visit and prescriptions)???

Happy Easter - Hope the Easter bunny finds you.

Surfs Up in Padre Island Texas!

Greetings from Padre Island Texas!

Since our last post, we have travelled across western Texas and spent some time in the Texas Hill Country - Fredricksberg in particular and then went to San Marcos (yes that's right Mrs. Jackson!).

We are now further south on the Gulf of Mexico at this great spot south of Corpus Christi at Padre Island National Seashore. We are camping right on the ocean and are having lots of fun wading in the water and walking on the beach. As you can tell by the photos - it was really windy and cloudy here today but lots of humidity! Tomorrow is supposed to be hot and sunny! In true Pilkington/Andrew fashion, we got into a bit of trouble yesterday as our fearless hiking leaders (Ray and Leah) lead us onto the sand dunes (which we quickly found out that we weren't supposed to be on when we got yelled at by the campground hosts!).

We plan to stay here for another day and take in a ranger lead beach hike and the girls are going to work on their Junior Ranger cerfification. Friday we are going to head back to San Marcos and hook up with Phil and Kelly and then head back with them to Houston on Sunday evening.

And about the last trivia question - In Carlsbad, we had several incidents involving grocery shopping carts! In the afternoon, there was a run away shopping cart on the highway and then during the night we awoke to the sound of crashing shopping carts, in the Carlsbad Wallmart parking lot! Are these questions too hard??

And the next question - Tyrone has been having a blast running in the ocean and chasing birds and basically going quite crazy. He found a particular item on the beach that he loved to play with - what is it?? Here's a hint - it is technically a member of the "seanut" family.

Ta, ta for now.