Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Vacation Photos





Two months, really?  Been gone for two months and didn't even realize how much time passed by since I've sat at my computer and wrote anything.  I've felt no guilt about it either. 

Life happened. 

One thing leads to another and life around me is so much happier when my attention is not fully focused on a computer screen.  I'm good with that.  And to be frankly honest, I'm only writing because I have super fabulous vacation photos to share with my readers! 

We snuck off during school days to head down to Disney World and hang out in the glorious Florida sunshine.  Ohio weather this past winter has let us all down.  The up and down of 70 - 40 degree weather is more than anyone can bear and it's really hard not to complain about it.  I am a positive person and as long as the sun is shining, I feel like I can accomplish anything.  Even when I want to throw that positive attitude out the window because our weather is going to drop yet again tomorrow, I thank my lucky stars we don't live in Minnesota (so sorry Minnesotians!) because they just got more snow.  Us Ohioans have NOOOOO room to moan and complain about our weather now.

Anyway, it was a wonderful break from this stupid weather and I am the first in my circle of peeps to get a tan!  I no longer look pale and haggard.  Ahhh!!!

This is where we stayed. Holiday Inn Club Vacations.   First floor, just outside the pool area.












A small part of the lazy river.




Some dork put the wrong soap in the dishwasher on day one. 

 
Names need not be mentioned...

  
My favorite Disney character!

This sweet little darling stole the show with every character we met.




 It was still undecided who was the better golfer.... we may never know!







 
I went crazy over all the flowers!  I think I took over 200 pictures of flowers alone.  Here are just a few...
















It had been 31 years since my parents were at Epcot. 







 
 Then we headed over to Venice Beach.  Feels like home every time we're there!
 

 
Venice is known for shark teeth. We collected over 30 shark teeth. Marcella got the biggest shark's tooth we could afford.
 

We had learned that Caspersen Beach was the best place to find all the shark teeth.  Could've fooled us.  We only found three on this beach that day.

Caspersen Beach was beautiful, though.  All those rocks were once reefs and old coral.  Most of the rocks had shells embedded in them.

 

 
 Then we visited Siesta Key, the number one beach in America.  The sand was so powdery soft, it wasn't even hot to walk on.  Not much for shell hunting but the water was warm and easy to swim in.


And now for the sunset pictures.  I never go to the beach without taking pictures of the sunrise or sunset.  This time, I had a really nice camera with lots of new settings to play around with.  My mom and I took over 200 pictures of the sunset together.
 
 





This was my attempt at making a panoramic view of the sunset.  My camera doesn't have a setting for that so I had to take a series of shots and then stitch them together in Photoshop.  It was actually pretty easy, the hardest part was holding the camera steady so all the pictures came out the same.  It's not the final draft.  I ran out of time to perfect it, but you get the idea.
 
 
 Apparently Blogger has changed some kind of formatting with adding pictures and my picture display is less than to be desired.  At least the pictures are here....  whatever.  It's late.  So much for getting to bed early tonight!