Our Summer Vacation - Day 12

Day 12 July 17th, 2010

Another morning of getting up early and this time – it’s time to head home. Todd’s Aunt Charlotte got up and made breakfast, toast, eggs and bacon. I myself had a blueberry muffin.

So we said our goodbyes and headed out. We stopped over and saw our Brand New BABY GREAT NIECE!! Absolutely beautiful she is. We hung around for about an hour and headed back out once again.

Meet Makayla Juliann Bryd








This time back to Todd’s Aunt’s house because I left the charger and batteries his Uncle gave me. And then to Todd’s friend Bryan’s house once again, because last week when we stayed with him, I left stuff behind. Gosh, is that ever a good way to go back and visit someone? Leave your shit behind!!!

Aunt Charlotte saying good-bye for the 2nd time


Bryan, Robin and their Daughter Crista with child, also Makayla





Anyway, we finally hit the highway and here are are again stuck in freaking traffic. Got our of Maryland and into Virginia at 11:44am it’s now currently 1:54 we’re on route 1 and traffic is not moving, ok maybe at a snail’s pace. We jumped off of I95 because of it and still ended up in it. Our next stop is Hardeeville SC where Sam and I stopped both ways when we did our Maryland trip last month. But I’m thinking that’s not going to be our next stop being that we won’t be getting there until 11:02p GPS time. We want to stop somewhere around 8pm, so we will see.

Well we ended up staying in North Carolina instead, because VA held us back by 3 hrs. The traffic there just sucked and it was a Saturday afternoon. By the time we got out of that miscible state it was 5pm - unreal, it took 5 and a 1/4 hrs to get out and there were no accidents, just stupid people who drive slow and take up the road.

Our Summer Trip - Day 11

Day 11, July 16th, 2010

Got up bright and early and headed out down the road to Hershery! I have to say this has been one wonderful, great vacation for the 3 of us. We said goodbye to the Poconos. I’m still a little sadden that my cousin didn’t come see us, she was only 15 minutes away, I guess some people feel different about family members? Oh, well all I have to say is I tired, nothing more I could do – 2 messages was enough. Our next stop is Hershey’s Chocolate World. We got there, took a tour and it was FREE!! Wow, nothing is free but that sure was. It was the neatest thing to see. I took a few pictures and here are a few of my favorite. But I am wishing I got Sam that Hershey Kisses hat, but he did get a t-shirt and Todd got a really cute cup, pictured!










Next it was off to Gettysburg to see the American Civil War Wax Museum. That was kind of neat too, and cheap for one. I’m glad we have AAA we saved on ½ the cost.




Well by the time we left the Museum, it was really too late to be heading to our nieces house to see Makayla. So, I called her and told her we will be by in the morning before we leave out of town and head home.

So we ended up at Aunt Charlotte’s house just about 4:10p; soon thereafter Todd’s Uncle Frank showed up, then came Aunt Marg & Uncle Jack, then Mark and his family, wife Michelle and adorable daughter Ashley who just turned 7 last month. Aunt Charlotte made a wonderful dinner of lasagna, garlic bread, & salad – wow, what a great meal. I will say that’s the best lasagna I’ve ever eaten. I need to get her recipe for sure. Then for desert Aunt Marg made this wonderful chocolate cake – she must have known that Sam was a chocolate lover!



Sam and Ashley played very well together; they seem to have hit it off as soon as they met. Ashley is an adorable little girl, who has never met me in her life. Her Mommy and I were talking with each other, she kept looking at me and then she wrapped her arms around me. Gosh, how I long to have my little girl one day.


Todd’s Uncle Frank – looks just like Todd’s dad – they could be twins. Anyway he and I were taking, he checked out my camera and said I believe I have 2 batteries and a charger home that may work with your camera. He drove back home, call and came back – he gave them to us. Wow, that was nice of him to do that, so our next trip, I can always have a back up ready to go. So after a nice dinner and visit with the family, we were off to bed as we wanted tog et up early, head out and see Jessica.

Part 2 of Day 10

Todd, noticed that in our little brochure of things to do that they had family bingo tonight. So we went to bingo - it was small, little jack-pots and fun.
all the kids 11 and under got to play their own little game
Sam was really focusing on his cards

Our Summer Vacation - Day 10

Well it’s now Thursday morning – Todd and I went for a big hike up a mountain – in the area at which we’re staying and they have really big steep hills, so walking up a giant hills was like a mountain too me. We walked for 40 minutes giving us a hard 2 mile walk.

saw this sign while walking...


At around 10am – well it was 10am because that’s what time the pool opens, we decided to check out the pool. We leave tomorrow and we haven’t been there yet. It was pretty nice, one person there – then more showed up afterwards. There was a single Mom there with her 2 boys, Mike 9 and Daniel 11 – both very small for the age playing. We let them join in on our fun and beach ball. The one boy Daniel missed the ball at one point, it went right behind him and his Mom said hey stupid it’s behind you. I was like what? I never heard a Mom or one of my friends for that call their kid stupid, I thought that was so wrong. Both boys wanted to play in the deep end, but their Mom wanted them in the short end as she called it…and again the boys said I want to play in the high end. They also had floats in their arms!! We also stopped what appeared to be a little red/orange lizzard, poor thing looked like he was seeing his last days. Never seen anything like him before.





So then we met 2 other couples there, one lady heard me telling another lady where we were from and we just hit it off. I’m such a people person – both couples live in Sarasota 8 months out of the year - I think that's what Jackie said? We talked for a long time; their names are John & Jackie, and John and Sharon. I’m attaching a picture of the four below. I’m sure once they get back to Florida, we will hook up.



Then the funny thing is, there were a lot of people – we had 3 beach balls going on in the pool. There appears to be other families who play with their children like we do in the pool. It was such a nice thing to see, you don’t always see families playing with their children. And then all of the sudden for some odd reason, everyone got out of the pool at the same time. I found that to be a little odd, Todd said he had put a Babe Ruth in the pool. I laughed so hard and the first thing I thought of it was a turd. But before he said that, I had to ask him out loud if he farted. He really didn’t put a candy bar in the pool. I guess the pool pump stopped running, but no one knew that.

Remember to view a picture in full view, double click on that photo and it will enlarge.

Our Summer Vacation - Day 9

I started my morning off by cleaning up some, vacuuming, washing clothes, cleaning the bathrooms as there are 3, but thank god we only used 2 of them. We’re heading out early Friday morning as we will head to Hershey and Gettysburg and then Maryland for the night. Remember when posting pictures, it's just a few of them - I took lots, but felt a few would be fine.

After we headed down the road to see the Poconos Indian Museum, pictured attached. It was ok, it was self guided tour of 30 minutes. Todd and I got a kick out of the old recorder they gave us as our guide. They had a cute little store attached, but we didn’t buy anything. I’m not into Indians and Sam didn’t ask for anything.







Then we headed back to the Wal-mart in East Stroudsburg to take Sam’s game back for the 3rd time. I just had to ask him as I have lost track – he said it’s the 4th time we had the game, but the 3rd time we’ve taken it back. For some reason it just keep screwing up in his x-box and now I think we figured out why! It’s because when he’s playing it, we’re in the car and the roads around here are horrible, there are pot holes all over, we have darted more pot holes then people itself.

So now that we have that taken care of, we’re on our way back home to the resort. We have has so much fun here, it’s nice being away from home from time to time. On the way back, we keep running past this store called the Christmas Factory – we had to stop. I have thought about getting Sam’s new 5th grade already something for Christmas, but we really have no idea what she likes, so we pasted on it. I did pick up this cute little ornament for baby Makayla and something for Grandma from Sam for his game.

The Christmas Factory..

we picked this up for Baby Makayla

and this for Grandma Ruth - because she got Sam a game he really wanted, it's a beautiful pin that she can wear.


We’re back, we eat and now Todd is attempting to do his 3rd walk today. He wanted me to go, but I’m walked out…I’m done – I told him tomorrow morning we can go for an early walk if it doesn’t rain.