The Houghs' Return to Florida: Day VIII

(contd.)

Day VIII

Shopping, Swimming, and Social Calls

Everyone slept in this morning, which should come to no surprise to anyone seeing how we had tackled two theme parks in mid-90s weather the last two days.  We had scheduled absolutely nothing for today, knowing that we needed one chill day of swimming, relaxing, and packing before our flight back to Michigan tomorrow.  Therefore, after a lazy morning sitting around drinking Dunkin Donuts coffee and watching good ol' Channel 9 Eyewitness News, we made our way down to the swimming pool to waste away a few hours.

This pool was absolutely amazing.

There is no such thing as relaxing in a pool when you have small children.  I just wanted to get some sun and relax, but ended up having to horse around with these two for most of the morning.  Oh well.

Abby catches some air.

This was an awesome poolside beer.  I generally don't care for IPAs, but this one was pretty watered-down, with a low ABV and IBU.

(Kris copied me.  Her drink's not as cool.)

The Tiki Bar we regularly frequented for food and cocktails throughout the day.

Grabbin' some lunch.  Of course it's fried, greasy food with no nutritional value whatsoever.

Another great poolside beer.  Sours are great when it's sunny and hot out.

Cheers, ladies.

There was a bee flying around Alayna's food, so she was trying to be sneaky dipping her fries in ketchup.  Kids are stupid.

At one point, in the early afternoon, Kris went up to the room to wait and meet her old friend from Sunchild, Vickie.  Here's the girls and I from six stories up.

Vickie and Kris hung out poolside and had a couple drinks while I went back up to the room and started getting around for heading into town.

Vickie only hung out for an hour or two, then Kris brought the girls up to the room, where everyone showered and dressed for a quick shopping stint we had planned for the afternoon.

The first spot we hit up was Disney Springs. . . 

These water pools are a lot cooler than the previous drainage ditches that used to surround Downtown Disney. . .

This place definitely looks a lot different these days.

What remains of Planet Hollywood can be see off to the right, there.  Pretty sure it's closed now, but they haven't torn down the globe yet.

I had wanted to pop into Raglan Road to pick out a shirt - always wanted a shirt from this Irish pub, and had never gotten around to getting one while we lived down here.

After buying my shirt and shopping around the store for awhile, we popped in a couple places on our way back to the car.  Along the way, Alayna insisted on stepping into this Cupcake store called 'Sprinkles.'

$5 for a frickin' cupcake.  Whatever floats your boat, kid.

A Cupcake ATM Machine.  Seriously.

Back into the Outlets. . .

After Disney Springs, Kris wanted to stop off at a couple of those super-touristy, cheap souvenir stores that are all over the damn place down here.  There was one right across the street from our condo on 535, so we stopped off at that one first.

If you've been in one, you've been in them all, folks - they're all the same.

Abby pretends to drink from a shot glass.  Because she has horrible, horrible parents.

She almost bought this hat.  Probably a good thing she didn't.

After hitting up a couple of those souvenir stores (that are seriously all the same anyway), we came back to the condo, went up to the room to change back into our suits, and returned once again to the swimming pool.  After a minute or so of swimming, there was loud thunder heard in the distance, and a pool employee kicked all the kids out of the pool.  The girls were pissed.

The storm looked a ways off, and appeared to be going in the opposite direction, so we sat by the pool and bided our time.

(Our balcony is five levels up, second from left.)

While we waited for the all-clear to get back into the pool, I ordered everyone some food (and myself a rum and coke, just to be safe.)

You can't complain with prices like these, folks.

The girls made a friend with the ballsiest squirrel I have ever seen.  This little dude feared nothing.

 

I had to yell at the kids a couple times because more than once they threw a french fry at him, which obviously only encourages the vermin.

I was not a fan of that son of a bitch.

The girls rescued a bee that had fallen into the pool, and attempted to revive it on the side of the pool.  Leaves for blankets, shit like that.

I don't think I was ever this weird as a child. . .

We hung out in the pool until well past 8pm before heading upstairs to wind the girls down.  We had to be out of the condo by 11am tomorrow, and had a crap-load of packing to do still.  Definitely not looking forward to traveling home tomorrow, this trip's been a hell of a lot of fun.

To be concluded. . .

- Brian