Gone to the Dogs USA: Have not written in a while

Hi all,

Well it has been a while since I have posted. So it is time to catch up. I have been quite the busy bee.

In late October my Brother, sister-in-law, niece and nephew invited me along to Florida with them.
Well little did I know that since my birthday was that week we were going I had the biggest surprise of my life.
I was going to Disneyland for my birthday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What a wonderful most exciting gift my family has given me. Words just can not express how much this means to me. I love them all very much!!!!!!!!!!!!!

These are just a few of the photos and stories of our trip.

Well the trip starts here. Below is where we stayed. At the Port Orleans Resort at Disneyland.
It was great. I shared my room with my niece and the others had the other room. This place is huge. It has 5 pools, gift stores, good food and many other things to do. It is a vacation spot in it self. I would recommend any one going to stay here.

My Brother was the big planer for this trip. He had every day planned on what we were going to see and do. I mean right down to where what rides we are riding first to making sure we had the time to see everything we could in every park. It was pretty cool, but he sure was funny about it. I have to laugh at me brother, oh all in good fun of course.

After checking in to our rooms, we made our first trip out. Oh I bet you can guess where it was. Yes, SeaWorld. Oh, I bet you were going to say Magic Kingdom. No not yet.

SeaWorld:
This little one was just sitting pretty for his/her photo to be taken. These birds were all over the place just running around.

This is one of the toparies of SeaWorld. I love these things.

And of course this is a Sealion, a sleeping Sealion. I could just almost reach out and touch this guy I was so close. There were more making lots of noise on the other side of there pool. But this guy just sat there with his eyes closed not worry about a thing.

I have some photos of Shamu, but were not the best. We did see the show. It was great, what wonderful creatures the killer whales are. I just wanted to take them all home. I did venture out on my own while the others went on some rides that I just did not care to go on. I went to pet the Stingrays. Oh all I can say is what a shock that was the first time I got to touch one. It was a cross between feeling slimy and velvety. I just loved it!!!

Come on lets do this again guys and around comes another one. This is great!!!!!!!! I could have spent all day just playing with these guys. When I caught up with the rest of the family I had to take them to the Stingrays. My nephew and I were having the time of our life playing with the rays. This big boy kept swimming by for us to touch. Again it was great. You could also pet the Dolphins, but they were a little shy. This one just kept swimming just far enough down under so you could not touch him. He was a big tease. It still was great being up that close to one. Again what a great time it was. Now its time to go back to the resort to rest up for tomorrow.

Magic Kingdom:

Well we are off the next day to Magic Kingdom. I have waited 40 plus years to see that famous castle. OH Boy when I first laid my eyes on it that little girl lurking inside of me dreams just come true. It was fantastic!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Like I said earlier my Brother had the rides all planned out. We rode I think everyone there. I had some favorites of course.

This is the Pirates of the Caribbean, That is one of my favorite movies. Gotta love Johny Depp. Oh Baby!!!!!!!!!!

The wonderful Cinderella's Castle.

I have to say that my brother is crazy. We had stepped into that famous teacup ride. I mean me which I am pretty short, my brother, oh by the way he is over 6 feet tall, my nephew who is 10 years old and little shorter than me and my niece who is 13 and pretty tall herself all in one cup. Yes all four of us in ONE Teacup!!!!! Ok my dear brother figured out how to spin this thing around while you were going around. (Kinda reminded me of one of those sit and spin toys). He had is in tears laughing so hard. You could not look up because we were spinning so fast. My sister-in-law said we were the fastest ones out there. I am sure glad I that I am all ready a dizzy person:)LOL
We got to see the fireworks display too. What a great ending for a great day at Magic Kingdom.

It was truly magical!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now off the the resort and to bed for another fun filled day tomorrow.

Animal Kingdom:
Today was a two park day. We went to Animal Kingdom first. Animal Kingdom and Disney Hollywood studios are the two smaller parks. So we had do problem with seeing them both in one day. The park has very few rides, but I like to see the animals the best.

Here is a tiger of course. I love the big cats. They are so beautiful.

Here is one of the Gorilla's. This guy/gal picked up the blue jug to inspect. I was thinking to myself what on earth was he going to do with it. So I was prepared to duck if he was going to throw it at us. It was an open area between us and him. He finally sat it down and climbed up the tree that is behind him. Not sure what was in the jug.

Moving on we came to these really cool and big fruit bats. Again another open area between us and them.

Here is a cute little Mearcat standing watch. That was his job. The guide there said not to disturb him because he was on duty. How cute is he!!!!!!!!!!

Here we go now on the Safari ride. It was really cool, but we wish they could slow down a little. It was very hard to take pictures of the animals. My nephew got better photos I will have to load them later.

We saw the tree of life. It was really neat. All of the animals carved into it. A must see.

We rode what rides they had. One was the water raft ride. That was great. My niece and I thought everyone else was going to get wet going up a little hill, boy were we wrong that water got us both. By the time we were done my Brother got the worse of it. He was wet from head to toe. I mean really from head to toe. It was great!!!!!!!!

The roller coaster was mount Everest. That was really fun. I think that was one of my favorite rides.

There was also a little boat ride we took. It was fun.

All in all we had a good time at Animal Kingdom. Now we have to leave to go to Hollywood Studios.

Disney Hollywood Studio:

This park really did not have many rides. It was mainly shows. We did see a few of them and just walked around and took in the sights.

Here's is Mickey's famous Magic hat.

Another Topiary. I really liked this one. The grounds at all of the parks were beautiful. They were covered with flowers.

After a two park day we got back to the resort a little early so my Nephew and I decided to take a dip in the pool. We had fun playing with a ball and splashing around. It has been quite a while since I have been swimming. Oh Boy what a work out that was!!

Of to bed after a dip in the pool. Tomorrow the last park to see. Epcot.

Epcot:
Here we are the last park Epcot. Here is the famous

Silver ball. We rode the ride in it. That was cool. It was mainly telling you things from the past up to the future.

We rode this thing called the test track. I mean this was fun. It is like you are in a car like those test dummies are in. That might be say something. LOL and you run on this track that tests wind, water, how fast you can go. It was great.

We walked around and say a couple more shows and rode a couple of more rides. By late evening we were getting hungry. We decided to head on back to the resort for dinner. We thought we would take a ferry ride over to downtown Disney. Downtown Disney is mainly shops and places to eat. So we had dinner and did a little shopping and headed back to the resort on the ferry. It was a great end to a great day!!!

Now off to bed. We are going home tomorrow, but first we are going to the ocean. Cocoa Beach that is.

Cocoa Beach, Florida:
We were up and on the road to Cocoa Beach. I have seen the ocean before, but my niece and nephew have not. So it was going to be fun to watch them. It had been nice the whole week we were here until today. It was cloudy and windy. It looked liked it could rain at any time.

We headed to the surf shop and my brother rented a couple of boggy boards. Off to the beach we went. It is always a wonder to me seeing the big wide ocean. I am amazed again!!! The kids and my brother and sister in law went swimming, I just walked along the waters edge. The wind was kicking up the surf, so I decided no swimming for me. I will find some seashells instead and watch everyone else swim and take photos. I love the outdoors and animals as you may have well noticed.

Here are a couple of seagulls.