Archive for the ‘vacation’ Category

I found out that in a couple weeks my sister-in-law and family will be heading out to Yosemite National Park!  When ever I hear of someone going out west on a family vacation I can’t help but think of the movie Vacation with Chevy Chase and all the problems they had. 

It always seemed like when went went on vacation we would always have issues too!  Our issues always seemed to be with something happening to our vehicles.  All I know it was probably a good thing we didn’t have an RV because it’s probably easier to find a car towing company versus a rv towing company.  I guess when my sister-in-law heads out west they will be camping it with a tent. 

Here’s wishing them a safe trip out west and back home!  May they not have to visit a bunch of car repair shops like we did when I was little.

It seams like just about everyone I know (besides immediate family) has gone on a cruise at some point in their life.  Weather it was an Alaskan Cruise or one of the many different Caribbean cruises that are out their.  I’m just not 100% sure if that would be something Paul and I would enjoy or not.  Hopefully some of my readers would help me decide by letting me know about their experiences.  This is what I’ve heard so far…

The first thing people tend to say is how AWESOME the food is.  That there is food 24/7!   For someone that is trying to loose weight I’m not so sure that is a good idea, but at least I know there are pools and the ship is big enough you can at least get some good walking or some sort of exercising in.  If I do remember right my friend did show me the workout room on her last cruise 

Another thing that I’ve heard is great is to go to sleep and then wake up in a totally different town!   That way you have something new to do and you’re not stuck doing the same thing ever day like you might if you take a vacation by car or plane to a certain location.  Usually (at least with us) we are always in a hurry to get wherever we are going to do what we want the first few days, only to repeat stuff the rest of the week.

Since that’s all I pretty much know about Cruises here are my questions for you…. Have you ever gone on a cruise before?  If so, where did you go?  Finally, what was the highlight and low point of your cruise?

I’m so excited since I just heard back from the owner of Srub Jay Villa  (the vacation rental we stayed in this past February when we went to Disney) and his home is available for next February when we will be going!   We had only rented from one other owner down there before and this house (layout, furniture and pool) was so much nicer even though both homes were in the same development. (Sandy Ridge)

If you are heading down to Disney and are debating on where to stay (On site or off) I’ll just give you some of my reasons why we enjoy staying off site. 

The first time Paul and I went to Disney it was the first year we were married and we ended up staying at the All Star Resorts since they were the cheapest and was in our price range.  While it was nice having the magic of Disney all the time, I just remember the rooms being on the small side.  It was fine for it just being Paul and I, but thinking of having 2 little kids in the room with us just made me claustrophobic.

Since every year my parents end up renting a condo in Orange Beach and I know how nice it is to have that extra room I started looking for a house, villa or condo to rent.   Our first year we didn’t do so hot as we ended up getting scammed by Jorge Gomez (You can read all about that here) but we did end up finding a nice 2 story house for less money that we were happy with.  Then last year we were going to try and book it again, but because I was booking in advance (the last time it was a couple weeks before we went down) she wasn’t able to match the price from the year before so we decided to start shopping around.

After looking through tons of houses on all the vacation rental by owner sites (vrbo, homeaway) and contacting quite a few owners we ended up deciding on Scrub Jay Villa.  I can honestly say I was a little nervous about the whole thing before we got down there thanks to the scam from the year prior, but once we got to the house and the key did end up working everything just went perfectly! 

The house was so much nicer as there wasn’t stains on the carpet, nothing was broken (one of the blinds were broken in the previous house) and the layout was so nice as 3 out of 4 bedrooms were away from the living room.  So we could stay up at night watching tv and we wouldn’t be keeping the kids up, but yet they were close enough where if they yelled for us we could hear them.

What was really funny was that the countertop in the kitchen was the exact same as ours at home and the carpet was the same carpet that is in Kevin’s bedroom!  So it honestly made it feel like home away from home.  The kitchen had pretty much everything you would need!  All I had to do was go to the grocery store to get some food in the house while Paul and the kids enjoyed swimming in the pool!

The pool and spa was so relaxing.  The first couple days I’ll admit the water was a little chilly, but that was just do the cooler than normal temps in Florida.  Once we put the solar cover on and the weather got warmer the pool warmed right up and we all enjoyed going swimming.  Especially me as there are no neighbors in the back yard (just woods) and the houses next to us didn’t have anyone in them as well, so I didn’t have to worry about anyone seeing me in my swimsuit.  ~wink~

The big bonuses of why I would rather stay in a house/villa/condo over staying on site is because with houses not only do you have LOTS more room, but you have a full kitchen (not just a microwave and dorm size refrigerator) where you can make meals and save some money and also a washer & dryer so when your clothes get dirty you can just throw them in the wash, therefor not having to pack as many clothes! 

 For those who don’t know where Sandy Ridge is, we just LOVE the location!  It’s actually in Davenport which I’m sure scares some people away because it sounds far, but it’s honestly only 10 minutes away (just the next exit) from the Disney exit on I-4!  What’s nice and the reason we are thrilled with that location is you don’t have to deal with all the stop and go traffic like you do with 192.  There is only 2 red lights between the house & I-4!  I will admit that once you do get off at the Disney exit to get to the magic kingdom’s parking lot can take another 10 minutes due to the slow speed limits on site.

All I know is after staying in a home off site and having the extra room and privacy for the same price or cheaper than staying on site or even in a hotel I know what we always will be doing from now on!

Here I haven’t watched Survivor at all this year, but since Amazing Race isn’t on anymore (the season finale was last Sunday) I decided to watch this until Desperate Housewives comes on.  All I know is I’m always amazed at the scenery these contestants always get to see.  It always looks so nice and beautiful. 

All I know is it makes me want to go on a vacation.  Seeing the big canyon they are walking by reminds me of the Grand Canyon.  Whenever I think of the Grand Canyon I always think of the trip I took with my parents & sister when I was in 4th grade.  My Dad was able to take a month off of work and we ended up hooking the pop-up camper to our Jeep Cherokee and headed out west.  All I know is my parents should of bought some cheap travel insurance because bad luck ended up following us there and back. 

The worse was driving through the desert and the rear tire blowing out on our Jeep Cherokee and the steel belt ended up ripping through the jeep which made the tool box fall out and our pop up ran over one of the tools which then made the camper also have a flat tire.  So there we sat in the middle of the desert with no jack and insulation all over us.   Praise the lord that only 2 or 3 cars behind us was a police officer and he was able to help us.  Of course him being silly and saying “Jack, Jack.. whose got a Jack” didn’t help matters, but he gave my sister & I both flags to wave to slow traffic down.  I think only 1 car passed us the whole time we were out there.   All I know is I was never so glad to get to a hotel room that night so we could wash all that installation off.   At least the second time we had a flat tire that trip we ended up being right next to someones house and they were able to help us. 

Have you had any problems when you were on vacation?  If so, what was your worse experience?

I know it’s a little early, but I’m already dreaming about our vacation to Florida and Alabama.   All four of us can’t wait to go to Disney again, but we have heard some good things regarding Busch Gardens.  One of Paul’s friends went to Busch Gardens and didn’t up liking it so much that they never did make it to Disney.

Have you ever gone to Busch Garden’s with little kids?  I went online and it seemed like most of the rides seen to be for older kids.  Kevin & Katie will be 4 & 6 (they are on the shorter size for their age) and I keep wondering if it would be worth our time to go there or not.  Do they have a lot of stuff for the little kids too?   Would you do 1/2 Disney, 1/2 Busch Gardens?  Or would you just do Disney?  Or maybe pretty much all Disney and 1 day of Busch Gardens?  Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you!

Friday night I ended up going over to my friends house for a Tastefully Simple party.  (Can I just say those are the best parties to go to!)  Anyways when we were there a few of the girls started talking about how much fun they had last year on the cruise they went on and how they can’t wait to go on another one.

That is something Paul and I have never been on.  Honestly they never have sounded to interesting to us.  If we were to go on one I think we would pick an Alaskan Cruise than European cruises.  Maybe it’s because we have been to Alaska and we know how beautiful it is up there.  Plus, maybe some of it is also Paul has no interest in going over to Europe. 

The only thing I worry about going on a cruise is that whenever you come into port I’m afraid of getting taken as everyone would know we are tourists and we would be in those touristy area’s where prices are always way higher. 

Have you ever gone on a cruise?  If so, did you like it?  Would you go on another one?  What is one thing you love about cruises?  What is one thing you don’t care for about cruises?

Paul’s eyes bugged out when he got the bill for the Cinderella Gala, but getting this picture of Katie with Cinderella made it worth it!

As most of you know after Christmas I ended up buying my first ever laptop. Since then I fell in love with it and can’t believe I didn’t get one sooner.

One reason why I did buy it when I did was I wanted one to come South so I could “stay ontop” of my blogging (as you can tell that didn’t work out so well) and my emails. Thankfully both places I’ve stayed has had wireless so I never did have to find a McDonalds or Coffee house to go to.

We did have some trouble at my parents condo with their wireless though as it seemed like we (they have a laptop too) kept getting kicked off. After one day I had enough of it and ended up calling the internet provider and they asked if there was an Ethernet outlet that we could hook up to. I ended up finding it and my Mom & I went to wal-mart to buy an Ethernet cable and wow! What a difference that made. They could of cared less of being wired or wireless just as long as there was good speed and you didn’t get booted.

I usually am staying wireless unless I know I’m going to be on for awhile and they aren’t using the cable. But what’s really nice is today’s weather is in the 60′s and sunny so my Mom and I are out on the balcony laying out on the patio furniture and believe it or not my laptop is running awesome!  Must be because I’m not inside as the internet would have to go through the concrete walls.  

So now I’m blogging while trying to get a little tan!   Needless to say this laptop is priceless now! 

Last night my parents ended up watching the kids for Paul and I so we could go out for a date night. One thing about being on in a city while on vacation is you don’t know what restaurants are good and which aren’t. I don’t know if you feel this way, but while on vacation I would rather not go to the national chain restaurants like Applebee’s and try to find something we don’t have back home.

Last year while we were down here I ended up having to go to the ER and while there we asked the nurse where she would go and she had told us of a local place called L.A. Barbeque. I remember we went and were pleased with the place so this year we decided to just go to the same place as at least we knew it was good.

So we turned on my parents little lady (their GPS) and clicked on L.A. Barbeque and off we went. I’m glad we had her as I know we wouldn’t of remembered it being so far, but before long we arrived. Walking into the restaurant made me hungry and trying to choose what to eat was a little hard.

All of their food is prepared & cooked right there in their restaurant. They have their own special seasonings that they put on the food first and then they put the meat in their custom-made smoker and they smoke it with hardwood for a LONG time to make the meat nice and tender.

Tender it is! I ended up going with the pulled pork sandwich with baked beans and potato salad. Paul went with the 3 meat combo plate and chose Ribs, Pork & Chicken with baked beans, slaw and 2 pieces of bread. On the tables are 2 different kinds of sauces that you can choose to put in your meat (Sweet or Tangy) and on a different table they do have some bbq sauce that was called Fire in the hole, but we didn’t try that as we don’t care for HOT stuff.

My sandwich (with the sweet bbq sauce) was quite yummy, the baked beans I thought were to die for and the potato salad was pretty good as well. When Paul saw the ribs he honestly was a little worried as they were beef ribs and not baby back so he thought they would be tough. Was he ever surprised. They were the most tender ribs he has ever had. I think he wished he would just of went with the rib plate instead.

The prices weren’t that bad… to me no different than going someplace like Applebee’s or Logan’s. For our meal with 2 pops the total came to $22 and let me tell you.. we were stuffed! Paul actually ended up bringing 1/2 of his meal home with him too! (of course who knows if he will be able to eat the leftovers as I just might get to it before him)

So if you are ever in the Gulf Shores/Orange Beach Alabama area, take the drive up to Summerdale AL on Highway 59 south and visit L.A. Barbeque! I’m pretty sure you will be glad that you did. Like their motto says… Your fingers have never tasted so good!

I did try seeing if they had a website you could visit, but unfortunately they don’t, so if you want their address… it’s 603 Highway 59 South Summerdale, AL 36580