Here is a post...it's been too long...

Hey everyone.

There is not really an excuse that we can make to not do a blog and keep you up to date on what we are doing. In a nutshell, I (Brian) have been busy using the computer that we have a lot, and by the evening, we just stop and rest for the evening.

No excuse.

Any way.  School is over for me (Brian still) and I aced another class in the doctorate series (yay me) and we have more time to do things.  Catching you readers up on me... I have been writing a Pre-Calculus workbook, started a Calculus workbook but had to switch to re-vamping an Algebra 1, Geometry, and Algebra 2 workbooks for their next versions.  I also helped create a summer program that a few districts across Florida are going to use, so that's pretty cool. Besides that, I'm helping out wherever the people need me wherever I can. Oh, I turned a year older on May 1st and had a fun birthday weekend with Staci.


Staci here. I still have a month left of school (June 9th....seriously....way to long...)! But things are winding down in the classroom, we are doing a lot more fun stuff and I am trying to push the love of reading actual books onto them. One student today actually thanked me for turning her into a bookworm. Win for Staci! Our 3rd grade is going on a field trip next week and we are going to have a "special guest", Mr. Barnhouse will be joining us. My students are thrilled. I have seen a lot of progress in my students this year, both in academics and behavior. But summer vacation is looking rrrrreeeeaaaaalllllll good right now!

Together, we're still doing awesome things as you'll see in pictures below.

 

Spring Break start in March. St. Augustine Beach. 

It is one of the windiest beaches that we have been to overtime. 

 

We had visitors, Parental Units: Manes Version.

They came down for the weekend to visit us and took plenty of selfies with us. 

Looks like they need some fountain of youth water. ;-)

My new Bird Friend that I was whispering too (looks like yelling).

Apparently I cast my boat in the wrong spot. There is water 40 feet behind me.

This albino peacock was in full "show-off" mode.  There a few other albino peacocks, but a lot of regular peacocks roaming around.

 Finally made it to the "Fountain of Youth"

Look! They are standing up straighter and smiling more! They have life again!

The next day we went to a big Ferris wheel called The Orlando Eye. 

It's 400 feet tall and constantly rotates.

I mean, it's pretty tall.  Massive Ferris wheel.

Cool thing is that we all got Florida Resident tickets and saved 25% (a free ticket)

The entry point. It was earlier in the day, so there were not a lot of people.  The wheel continues to rotate and the passengers hop on while it's moving--slowly of course.

Each group of people go their own air-conditioned pod; nice to have the privacy of just the group.

The zenith of the Orlando Eye.  We could see the Disney World Cinderella's Castle and the Space Center that is on the east coast (around 80 miles--by road--away).

We're coming down. The whole journey around lasted around 28 minutes.  

It was pretty cool and interesting actually, fun activity.

Notice the alligator in the back?

This animal was located on the property of University of Florida next to really cool bat houses. The last day that the Parental Units were around was driving around Gainesville and do some local fare. 
They wouldn't get any closer to this gator though...not sure why....

Have to check out The Swamp. Go inside anytime (roughly).

The end of March was a visit to Universal Studios to check out the new improvements, such as these cat ears from Hello Kitty.

Before the main event, we tried the new restaurant on the strip. One of the appetizers was a pretzel with cheese and mustard (the small tins below). They did not advertise the size of the pretzel, which is bigger than Staci's face and neck.

The reason we went was to see this person. Jesse J is her stage name.  She's a pop singer and we've seen her last year; but this year she did an acoustic version of her songs and some new ones which was cool again.

Um...I think this is the first weekend of April? We've done a lot of things so I (Brian) lost track of when we did the activity.  As you can tell, it's a drive-in movie theater in Ocala, just 40 minutes away from us.  We watched two movies for 6 dollars (that's right...two movies...just released...6 dollars).

At the end of April, we had some gift certificates for TicketMaster and used them to go watch some Monster Trucks, also in Ocala. (happened to be the first drive of the new season and only one in Florida).

She's cute....but the funny thing is that we're sharing the same coat. That is my watch and her arm is the other one. Her right hand and my left hand. It was cold and we only had one coat at the time, problem solving. 

And it begins! These trucks were so amazingly loud and large. 

We mainly went to see this guy: Gravedigger.  We are not avid watchers but it's cool when the monster trucks were on TV growing up smashing things. So we went.

And then the reason we (and many people) went broke an axle in the first 20 seconds of his free form drive and that ended the night.

This is the first thing we saw as we drove into Georgia (I believe this was April 23rd..couple weeks ago).  I love Monopolie.....I guess you do need to LIE to win the game of Monopoly.

This theme park is owned by the same people who own Silver Dollar City so that's cool to see similarities between the two (but also lots of differences).  Anyways, it's 1.5 hours away and fun.

New for 2016 is their dinosaur experience, where you can walk through life size animatronics of dinosaurs.

It's a pretty 'laxed area, so we had fun.

She'll be as fierce as the dino behind her when she grows up.

The full progression of Staci's birth can be seen in our upcoming book, it's hilarious.

I see many similarities between these two. (Staci talking now).

Where are the workers at to stop people like us?
Rebels.

If you could zoom in (different picture) then you can see that there is a face-off between the two raptors.

Careful about exploration, never know what you're going to see.

We had reason to go of course to this theme park (we're not junkies). Her name is Hollyn, an uprising Christian singer. She has a couple of singles on the radio and one with TobyMac.

Speaking of, we were there to see TobyMac - the guy on the left.

This is our second time seeing him and he is coming back to Orlando in a few months so we're going to see him again in September. If you're free, then that is a good time to come down. He puts an awesome show.

Very energetic. Very fun. 

Nymphadora (kitty I (Staci) is holding) had her first birthday on April 12th and Minerva (kitty Brian is holding) has her third birthday on April 23rd, so we celebrated their birthdays together!
As you can see....they were thrilled about this....

But after the torturous picture taking we made them do, they got a new scratching toy. 

Brian opening his birthday gift from his parents as they are watching via Skype on his phone that is attached to the selfie stick on the left side of the picture. 

Last weekend we celebrated Brian's 28th birthday. We spent the weekend going back to Cocoa Beach/Cape Canaveral and then to Orlando to go to Disneyworld.
Our first stop was to eat at our favorite breakfast place (once you eat breakfast here...you will never taste breakfast the same again). When we lived near this restaurant we went almost weekly and the owner knew us, so she was excited when we showed up on Saturday and made sure we were fed well.  

Then for an early dinner after spending the day at the beach we went and got Mexican.

Then on Sunday, the day of Brian's birth, we spent the whole day at DisneyWorld. We set out on an adventure to go to all four parks in one day.
Brian likes to spend his birthday at Disney because he gets to wear a button and everyone says "Happy Birthday!" 

1st Stop: Hollywood Studios
We showed up before opening and was ready for the day ahead!
For Your Information: Brian is wearing a fez because it is his birthday fez. We bought it last year at EPCOT on his birthday and has declared it "Brian's Birthday Fez".

Eight line on the Toy Story ride for the 28 year old.

We hurried to this ride right away because it is so much fun, especially for us who like to compete against each other. 

Woody and Jessie!

2nd Stop: Animal Kingdom

Of course had to get a picture with the Tree of Life

Soo....here is a story. We made reservations at this African lunch buffet because we thought it sounded fun online. We just thought it would be a buffet and would be a lot of fun food, then when we showed up the hostess was seating us and telling us how it is a Character Lunch and that Mickey, Goofy, Donald, and Daisy would be walking to each table to take pictures and sign autographs. We had no idea that was happening. When Brian heard that, he got soon excited. Made his already awesome Disney birthday even more awesome.

So, this picture was taken right before Mickey came to our table and Brian was getting nervous.  Then spilled chocolate milk all over the table and his pants....Then later I also spilled my drink all over the floor and table. Being around Disney characters makes us nervous. ;-) 

Donald passed over Mickey and came to our table first! He is short!
Each time a character came they would poke Brian's birthday pin. 

MICKEY!

Enough said. 

Goofy is crazy tall.
I want you to notice Brian's chocolate milk stain...

While Donald was taking pictures with the table beside us, Brian was being rebellious and touched his tail! 

Brian's view of the rebellious act. 

We ended up staying at this restaurant long enough that the characters came around again and we took selfies with them. 

This one was complicated to figure out how to get everyone in this picture. He's so tall!

Brian got a birthday cupcake with Mickey sprinkles!

PLUS...a birthday card signed by his faves. 

Indiana Jones dress up.

3rd Stop: ECPOT

We went through this park pretty quickly because we recently had passes to this one. 

They were handing out free applesauce

Then some people were handing out handfuls of applesauce so we took it happily. Then Brian had to walk around with them in his pockets...

4th and Final Stop: Magic Kingdom

We had FastPasses for Haunted Mansion that was about going to expire within 7 minutes of us arriving at the park so we had to very quickly walk there then was able to take the famous castle pictures after. 

A wonderful end to a wonderful weekend. 

Thanks for reading and looking. One day we might actually keep up with these blogs. We have plenty of things we will be doing this month and a very awesome trip in 41 (almost 40) days. I hope you enjoyed our adventures!