On the road again - Day 4

So, two days to catch up on - one at a time... the days and the time fly by.  It's hard sitting here to even remember what all went on that day, but i'll wrack my poor old braincells and give them some stimulation with orange juice and hot chocolate and see what happens.  Hmmm... Wednesday morning - i think things were off to a slow start...we were invited to hang around with Jake and Deanna Ruggi and Ronn and Annie-Lynn VanAndel and family for the afternoon, but we had one pitstop on the way there...
Go figure, but the two most non-shoppers in the world decided to go back to the outlet malls to cash in on a few more things that we decided were deals too good to pass up  This time, finding a parking space was not nearly so difficult and we knew where we were going - we found what we wanted and were then back on our way down the highway. 
Highway 4 is the main artery running through Orlando - it's either east or west and seems to be our touchstone... now we had to head west and we had a complete written out set of directions - easy to follow and hard to mess up.... but we did.... somehow all roads in Orlando somehow lead to Disney (not Rome).  And we ended up on one of those - panic ensuing - but managed to pull ourselves out of the tailspin and back onto the road we wanted - via the Disney planned community of Celebration - aaah, well, it's good to see different places right??  Sure...
After correcting our mistakes and getting back on the road we were supposed to be on, we were all good - we found their vacation rental house with no issues - though no one would answer the doorbell or seemed to be stirring when we showed up.  Hmmm...was this a sign?  But Carina was bold and went around the back yard and lo and behold, there they were, soaking in their own private hot tub and swimming in their own pool all in a giant bird cage - or so it seemed to us.  We had seen these giant screened areas from the road when we were driving and thought that they definitely looked like bird cages!  But i'm sure they're handy to protect against bugs and other pests so you can enjoy your pool at night.  We got to stick our feet in the hottub for a while and chat which was super nice....but our poor toes didn't quite know how to react to being placed on the cold pavement after a warm soak! 
The place that the families had hired was a huge place, didn't look like it from the front, but inside there were five large bedrooms, four bathrooms, a huge common room with a big kitchen area.  They actually hired two houses - one for the adults and one for the kids - just down the road - and everything seemed to be flowing just great - meals taken care of, groceries done (some at their favorite store - the Dollar Tree - which even sells eggs for a $1.00!  We had to find this store for ourselves!) 
We spent the afternoon basking in the first sun of our week playing Wizard (I almost won.... but in that game, almost doesn't count at all!), learning (kinda) how to play tennis - it seems like fun, but i would need a very patient teacher - i either lob them way high or smack them straight into the net it seems, not too many happy medians there!  We then enjoyed a delicious spaghetti and salad and garlic bread supper - Italian seems to be our food of choice (or coincidence here). 

 the view from our hotel room, looks pretty, but no one was swimming

 one brave soul was sun-bathing with blankets and towels on..

 proof that there was sun!

funny, i have no pics of our games night, except this one, there were a lot of people at the house that night - but it was so gezellig and welcoming!

After supper was time for more games - Settlers was the game of choice and with that the gloves came off and the comfortable bantering which had heretofore been going on changed and the air became electric with the seriousness and skill of some very veteran players.  Carina is an expert at this game and usually manages to extract a win even from the most unlikely of settlement placements all the while maintaining that she is not winning... I even got close in the last game but that was snatched away by her skill.... i do have to smile and bow my head to her.  I should be watching and learning but alas, the skills don't seem to be rubbing off.... But it was great fun to be sure - so fun to be so warmly welcomed, not only by the adults but by all their grownup kids and addons.... thanks so much for the invite - it truly made for a memorable day.