Florida- Joyce's Graduation

This morning we went to Joyce's graduation from Pensacola Christian College. She graduated from the nursing program.

Grandma and Grandpa

waiting for graduation to start

Uncle Corey, Joyce, and Aunt Annette

Joyce and her cousin Daniel

Courtney, Daniel, Michelle, Joyce, Susan, and Ruth

Grandpa and Joyce

Grandpa, Joyce, and Grandma

Grandma and Joyce

Grandpa, Joyce, and I

Joyce and I

the building where the commencement took place

some views of the campus

Aunt Annette got a cake for Joyce, and we all went out to eat for lunch at a Mexican restaurant.

Grandpa and Ruth

Grandma, Aunt Annette, and Uncle Corey

It was really nice to see family that I haven't seen for a long time!

~Amber~

~Amber~

Florida Part 1

Last night, my plane flew out of Rockford at 5:30 p.m. and I arrived at the Orlando/Sanford airport at 9:00 p.m. The flight went very smoothly, and Grandma and Grandpa were right there when I got to the baggage area. While we were driving back to their house, I saw how HUGE Orlando is! Grandma and Grandpa live in a gated community (Landmark Baptist Village). Today, we just relaxed in order to get ready for a busy week. :)

Grandma and Grandpa's cute little house :)

the camera I rented arrived today

Grandma and I went for a walk today in their neighborhood, and Grandma said there are usually several of these birds walking around.

oranges

tangerines

palm trees

Later in the day, we went out to run an errand so I took some pictures out the window. The house are so different down her. Almost all of them are cement on outside, and the grass down here has to be watered or it will dry up.

orange tree grove

A lot of the buildings are kind of spanish looking.

So far, I am really enjoying myself!!! :)

~Amber~

Vacation Part 10: Leaving for home

Sunday, July 5, 2009

On Sunday morning, we packed up our campsite. We weren't able to go to church because we needed to get going for home.

a frog found by the tent

Anthony chasing Austin with the frog.

packing up

On our way out, we stopped at the museum they had at the park, and some of us went on the trail.

buffalo

We left Bone Lick around 1:00 p.m. and arrived home around 9:30 p.m. We had a very good time on vacation.

~Amber~

Vacation Part 9- Creation Museum Day 2

Saturday, July 4, 2009

Since it was the fourth of July, we were expecting the museum to be really full, but when we got there about five minutes before the museum opened, the gates weren't even opened yet. We thought the lines would be huge, but there really weren't that many people there. We had pretty much gone through the whole museum the day before, but we hadn't gone the Dinosaur Den.

Utahraptor

Austin and the T-Rex

Alec liked looking at the dinosaurs.

It was really neat to see the different kinds of dinosaurs, and they can interesting information about them.

There was a guy at the museum making balloon designs for free. Out of anything he could have, Austin wanted a sword.;) Go figure. The guy made him a bigger sword and a smaller one. He told him the bigger sword was for Austin and the smaller one was for one of his brothers so he could beat them up. Austin really liked that idea!

Waiting to go see a snake show

I hate snakes, so I definitely did not want to go to this. To make matters worse, Dad made us all sit in the third to the front row! I survived.

bearded dragon

I'm sorry this is just weird!!! Most of these snakes around his neck were corn snakes.

This python weighed 80 lbs. and was 13 ft. long!

After the snake show, we were going to go outside to eat lunch and look at the stuff out there, but it was raining. We hung out in the bookstore for a while, but it was still raining. We decided to just go outside and eat in one of the pavillions. Thankfully, the museums had umbrellas you could use because we didn't know it was supposed to rain.

Outside, there is a botanical garden and a petting zoo. It was really a bummer that it rained the whole because we really didn't get to see everything. The petting zoo was kinda gross in the rain! We weren't able to get any pics of the zoo.

the suspension bridge- Austin called it the pirate bridge! ;) Not sure why he called it that.
When we weren't watching, Alec walked out into the rain and was going to stomp in a mud puddle just as Mom caught him. ;)

Because of the rain, the fireworks were cancelled. That was a huge bummer because I love fireworks. It doesn't seem like the fourth of July without them.

This how we spent fourth of July night- in the tents out of the rain.

We got out snacks and looked at all the pics from the week. It was kind of a dreary fourth, but we had fun anyway.

~Amber~