The resort was really nice, and we were happy to be in the land of palm trees (although they little nuts on the trees were NOT coconuts. Jesse said they were "palm-olives," which is what they make dish soap out of. :) The first night we waited around too long to get supper and we were all starving and irritable by the time we finally found somewhere - some place called Houlihan's. From now on, when we're all so hungry we're sick and crazy, we're coining the phrase "I'm HOULIHAN'S hungry!"
Sunday, we went to Universal Studios. After standing in line for a good 45 minutes in the 
burning hot Florida sun, we finally got into the park, which was really cool. It's just like being in a city all its own - there are movie sets everywhere, and you can't tell if they are real buildings or just false fronts. We saw the T2 3D movie, rode The Mummy Returns, Twister, Earthquake, MIB Alien Attack, stood in line for Jaws (they had to shut it down because of lightning), and just goofed off and had a good time. It was really interesting to see how movies are made and to see actual props and stuff from movies that you've watched for years. After all this excitement, we were exhausted, so we went back to the condo and made pizzas and watched TV. My mom tried to get the kids to talk to me on the phone but they weren't interested. Then when she asked if they wanted to talk to Daddy, they both did and Sadie got on the phone and said in this sweet little voice, "Hey, Daddy!!!" Thhpt. All I did was give birth to them and love them and care for them every day of their lives, the little goobs.
Monday we went to the outlets (or I should say we TRIED to go to the outlets). I have never seen more cars jammed into one parking lot... cars EVERYWHERE. All over the curbs, parked behind eachother, parked on the sidewalk... it was ridiculous. We ended up dropping off Jesse's friend and his wife at the door and going to some little gift shops further up the road. I knew it was time to give up the outlet idea when Jesse got that look in his eye that said "I am going to run SOMEBODY down!" He doesn't do well in crowds. Luckily for him, I am not the typical shop til you drop woman. I didn't mind leaving the psycho parking lot at all. The afternoon was spent hanging around the pool, and that night we went out to dinner at another place called Key W Kool's which was pretty stinking expensive BUT delicious. After stuffing ourselves, we forced ourselves to pack up all our stuff and go to bed since we had to drop off Jesse's friends at the airport at 7:00am!!
On Tuesday, our flight didn't leave until 5:30pm, so we had pretty much all day to do what we wanted (which was mainly to go home and see our kids. We were getting fairly desperate... I asked one lady if I could hold her baby and she looked at me like I was nuts. I promised her I wasn't a weirdo... just deprived of my own children for 4 days. :) We went out to breakfast, walked on Cocoa Beach (the Space Coast) where we saw a woman playing a shofar out in the ocean, went to RonJon's Surf Shop, and THEN we went to Kennedy Space Center! I was SO EXCITED, I felt like a little kid! The rocket garden was amazing to me, and we rode in a space shuttle simulator, saw all kinds of cool NASA stuff, and got our picture taken with a real astronaut. I loved it! Jesse just liked it because I liked it so much, I think.
When we finally got home Tuesday night, we woke the kids up (which I'm sure Aunt Lydia and Uncle Darryl did NOT appreciate, since they had so graciously just put them to bed for us :) but we HAD to see them and give them their Thing 1 and Thing 2 t-shirts, Space Shuttle Suckers, Pooh Bear stampers, seashells, Tinkerbell shirts, and new shoes from the Nike outlet (not to be confused with the other nutso outlets we tried earlier). It's a good thing we weren't gone longer... they wouldn't have any space left in their rooms! :)
