Managed to get this photo posted.....

Yesterday I had the chance to meet a blogging friend, Jackie, for lunch at California Pizza Kitchen. She had been kind enough to mail me a specialty ruler to try out....and I had the chance to return it in person. We had a very nice lunch and a good time chatting. The weather was beautiful and we walked back to the parking lot together, along with my friend, Nancy. Here is a photo of me and Jackie that Nancy took after we finished lunch. It is so nice to meet up with people we have come to "know" in Blogland!!! (And this Thursday, I should meet two more......Pat Wys and Gene Black.)

Missing for a few days....

I'll be missing from Blogland for a few days. I don't have wireless internet access at the house where I'm staying until Tuesday morning...and I don't want to tie up their computer. But....I hope to get online again by Wednesday morning. (I'll continue with more about my trip at that time.) Going to be 70 and sunny today........will HATE to leave this kind of weather in a couple of days. *sigh*

Like a slap in the face.....

We made the most of our last several hours at Disney yesterday.......saw a couple of things in the Magic Kingdom that we'd not seen yet and did some shopping and ate lunch there. Then...it was time to move on to our next stop. We stayed last night at a place that was SO different from our beautiful hotel at Disney....it was like a slap in the face or having cold water dumped on me. LOL I think after staying in a nice place like that, I need to be certain the next stop isn't so drastically different.......I think I need to have a gradual adjustment back to reality. At least the weather was warm and I sat out by the pool for an hour reading my Kindle. Today we are going to stay by a friend for three days and her house is nice, so we'll be comfy there. (The weather is also supposed to be nice in the daytime while we are there...so we'll still be in warm weather for another few days...YAY!!!)

Here are a few photos from yesterday.....this shows 9 snack items we got before we left Disney. We had a dining plan and had 9 unused snack credits.....so we got cookies and fudge and stuff like that. The item in my hand is ONE cookie (that one is white chocolate/chocolate chip flavored). We will try to be very good and will eat these items slowly.......I hope!
We passed a lot of orange groves and some pick-your-own places. I suppose the driver of this truck had gone to a pick-your-own grove......what fun to see a truck filled with oranges driving along with us. It makes me forget it's the end of January and COLD back home!Oh, yes....me and my Kindle reader by the pool yesterday afternoon. If the pool water had been heated, I'd have been IN the pool.

All good things must come to an end....

*sigh* I guess the saying is true: All good things must come to an end...and I guess we'd not appreciate them as much if they lasted forever, would we? So....today we move onward from Walt Disney World. It has been an excellent trip. The only daytime rain we had was the first afternoon we were here...and it was only for a short period of time. One day it was windy and chilly (but sunny) and the rest of the week had nice daytime temps and plenty of sunshine....the one bad night storm was when we were eating dinner. The weather, overall, was extremely pleasant for us...considering the cold, wintry weather back home.

Yesterday we spent time in the Magic Kingdom and the crowds were low when we first arrived. We walked right onto most rides. Funny thing, though, I realized as we were breezing into them, that we didn't get to see all the fun things Disney usually has along the way when you are waiting to go on a ride. (I'm not complaining....would rather miss them and get right on the ride than to stand and wait!) The weather was wonderful....crystal clear...and down to shirt sleeves by lunchtime. Here are a few photos......

Love the topiary work on display here....Mickey and Minnie....Alice and her tea party friends....just a small sampling of the beautiful work done to keep this place so pretty and magical.

Yummy sweet treats....and a special dinner!

Karamel-Kuche (German for Caramel Kitchen) is a wonderful, specialty candy shop located in the Germany section of EPCOT in Walt Disney World. They have so many homemade confections and their display case would make anyone drool. Hubby got some chocolate caramel fudge and I got what is pictured below. (I'd have loved to get many more things but one has to be a bit careful of all that sugar and those calories, ya know? )

Strawberries (LARGE ones) covered in either milk or dark chocolate and drizzled with caramel!

Here's mine....it was WONDERFUL!!!AND....now for the special dinner. A few months back I became reacquainted with a gal on Facebook with whom I had been friends in elementary school. We did the math and determined we'd not seen each other in 50 years and had long ago lost touch with each other. Since she has moved to FL and isn't far from here, we made plans to meet for dinner. We had a very nice evening with her and her husband and found out how much similarity there has been in our lives over the years! Here is a photo of Carolyn and me......showing our school girl smiles (on our much-older-now faces).

Sunshine and storms (bad ones)....

Sunshine started the day yesterday (in spite of predictions otherwise). We got to take a lot of nice photos of flowers (which we love doing) and other things by the countries in Epcot and also got to ride two of the most popular rides there with NO wait (since we took advantage of the early opening for hotel guests here). Then....it was back to the hotel for me to go in the pool......YAY!!!! Off to dinner and when we came out, the temperature had plummeted about 20 degrees and it was absolutely pouring....thunder, lightning, and a tornado watch....NOT nice at all, but....we were headed back for the night anyway, so it didn't spoil any of our plans. Here are some photos from our day.....Gee...more photos that could inspire some quilting ideas....Yup...it's me in the pool. Then I went in the hot tub. Hubby didn't go in either one.

He just sat and took pictures (even of his own feet)!!!Tomorrow I hope I remember to show you photos of a really delicious treat I got for myself at a recently-opened sweet shop in the Germany section of Epcot. Yummmmm.....

Sandals and capri pants!!!

Yesterday, the temperature was in the 70's and I wore capri pants and sandals and was very comfy. We also ate lunch outdoors. LOVE being able to do that in January!!!

Some photos from yesterday....

Such pretty blue skies at Animal Kingdom.......and the animals were all out and letting us see them on our photo safari there. What a pretty place!
Another quilting idea for Gene!!!
I think this would make an interesting pattern for quilting, too...sort of a variation on doing bubbles.Me with Tigger....Today is supposed to be in the 70's again BUT cloudy and rain early and then some severe thunderstorms. Of course, our legs are pretty sore from all the walking, so maybe this will give them a day to feel better.