Saturday

Well, we started out early on Saturday morning and stopped at McDonald's before ever leaving the neighborhood! LOL Of course we did! :-) Anyway, finally on the road we headed to our first stop at Lake Wales, where we visited with some friends who moved there 2 1/2 years ago. We've seen them since, but have never visited their home, so that was nice for them to be able to show it all off. :-) We stayed for lunch and then continued on our journey north to Kissimmee. We found a great (easy) way to the rental house, which had minimal detours and side roads, which was great! We found it with no problems about 3ish. After checking out the house, which was just beautiful and so BIG (!!!) we went back out to Publix to do some shopping for the week. Later, we returned, I boiled eggs for all the kids to dye them that night, and then the big kids went swimming.

A good friend of mine, who I've known since kindergarten lives in Lakeland with her husband, and they came over for dinner later in the afternoon. It was great to see them and have such a nice, long visit with them. I haven't actually seen her since 1995, though we've written and emailed. So, that was a real treat! I think all the kids entertained them sufficiently, especially when Levi locked himself in the master bedroom and we couldn't get him out! Luckily, my friend's husband was handy with a steak knife and was able to get the doorknob off and pry the lock open. Levi was just sitting there on the bed watching tv without a care in the world! Whew! LOL

About 6:30, the rest of the family arrived: my mom, my brother Richard, his wife Leslie, and their two sons, Andrew (almost 8) and Aaron (2 1/2). Everyone stayed up kinda late, but the kids got to dye eggs for the next morning and swim in the pool.

And, that was the first day...
"God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day." Genesis 1:5
(I bet you just knew I was going to use that verse, didn't you?!? How convenient that we were there 7 days!!!)