Glimpse of Retirement

Hurray for business trips! Rob had a conference in Orlando and I got to tag along for the week. We went out a couple days early and hit Disney World. Now let me just say that humidity & I don't get along very well. It makes my hair CRAZY curly and I feel like I'm being smothered when I breathe. But that considered, I had a magical time!

You may be wondering what we did with the kids for the week...Happy Mother's Day to my Mom. She got all four wild things for all 8 days! To her credit, she survived!

I'll admit Disney World just wasn't the same without the kids...

We didn't have to stop to talk to even ONE character. I didn't have to console anyone when a line took longer than it should have-although there were times I worried about Rob;). We skipped Fantasyland and Toontown without any heartbreak. The ONLY thing we did in Hollywood Studios was ride Rockin' Rollercoaster again, and again, and AGAIN!

I confess I did miss them a tiny bit. We kept taking pictures of the things the kids would have loved. I missed them most at Clearwater Beach. Rob was at meetings with his boss, Dean, for the latter part of the week; so Marla, Dean's wife, and I ventured to the Gulf. We got lost in Tampa (thank you Google maps for that detour) but eventually found our way to Clearwater. It was BEAUTIFUL! The waves were so small it made me want the kids there to play with down in the water. They would've loved it. I was happy there was no oil in the water or on the beach from the BP oil spill.

We considered going to Cocoa Beach out on the Atlantic, but the space shuttle launch was scheduled and we decided not to try to fight the crowds (the news said they predicted over 300 thousand people would go out there to watch it-and to get to Cocoa Beach it's a single lane road...YIKES)!


One of the highlights was that we got to visit with some long, lost college friends. As luck had it, Craig & Tammy Youngs were in Orlando for a business conference at the same time we were there. We met them for magic hours at Hollywood Studios and rode Rockin' Rollercoaster with them for awhile, then headed to Downtown Disney for dinner. We sat outside talking for hours. I wish they didn't live in Michigan-they'd be fun to hang out with more often than once every 12 years!


We got to go out on an airboat ride and see some gators. The amount of bugs that were in the air freaked me out-I just got the creepy-crawlys thinking about it. Not my favorite thing we did, but worth doing once. We saw more alligators in the lobby of the Gaylord Palms, the hotel where Rob's convention was, than we saw out on the airboat.

On a random side note: Rob has become the king of self-photos. We worked our way through Florida with Rob's long arm snapping pictures along the way. It's very useful since we hate asking random people to take our picture.

I think I've caught a glimpse of what retirement can hold...and I'm looking forward to it! But in the meantime I will be content for the occasional getaway. I don't think it can be more than occasional, Hayden wouldn't let go of me all day Sunday. He kept his little arms around my neck and kept saying "Missed you mom". Always glad to know I'm missed!