Author: Miss Lynne

Last Tuesday my nephew arrived from the UK to apprentice as farm hand. He did a great job and picked it up like a natural. Friday my sister and brother in law arrived to help as well, all so that Rob and I could have a holiday together.

Sunday morning we flew from Atlanta to Liberia in Costa Rica. We had a little bit of a wait at the airport for the next flight to come in but it was no issue, we were sat outside watching the world go by and enjoying the view of the mountains in the distance.

The shuttle trip to the hotel was about 2 1/2 hours which helps describe the standard of the roads as it was only 57 miles. We passed through many small villages and they all had the same set up, in the middle there was a soccer field and around the field was the necessities of life, a church, a school and a bar!

The last 6 miles of the journey was a dirt track that followed along the steep hills and valleys, there were deep ruts in the track from the recently ended rainy season. The hotel is fabulous, a small boutique hotel on the top of the hillside. 

All the rooms are individual bungalows and we were upgraded to a stunning one with great views and our own outside jacuzzi.

On our way to dinner, Rob remarked that this would be the perfect location for a honeymoon, then we both stopped and looked at each other and had a light bulb moment. We were married on December 29th 2007 but the next day I had to leave for the US to start my new job. Rob had to go through the spouse visa process and also pack up the house so he did not come over to the US to mid February. Then like all expats, most of our vacations have been to see family or family coming to see us. Although we did manage a few hiking trips in the RV. Of course, when we moved to Georgia  and took on the farm, we traveled like royalty (separately).

Last April my sister offered to come look after the farm for us so that we could get away together. THANK YOU, we are now officially on Honeymoon!

Last Friday I flew to Denver so that I could spend time with my Colorado friends. Jill collected me at the airport and our first stop was lunch with  Rinah Yeay!  Quick call in at Sally’s place to load some more fiber into the car then off to Salida. The trip across the mountains is beautiful, apart from the stunning Vistas of South Park (yes it’s a real place) we were also treated to herds of Yak and Vicuna  (small alpaca) as we drove through. We arrived at Salida just before 5pm and helped Sally to complete the booth set up. We finished just before 7 and headed over to Brookes Tavern for dinner by the side of the Arkansas river.

After dinner, we drove up to the fabulous mountain of home that belongs to friends of Jill. Luckily we remembered the route from last year as finding it in the dark is a bit of a challenge.

Morning brought beautiful views of the surrounding mountains and an early start to go finish off the rest of the booth

I did not have a booth this year as my yarn came back a little late, but I did take some mohair locks and some finished goods. Both of which sold quite well.

Lori Kirk from Cowgirl Yarns in Laramie stopped by to see Jill and we also had the pleasure of her company at dinner that night at the Twisted Cork. What a lovely lady, if ever you are in the area you should call in and say hi (but don’t forget to buy something)

Both Saturday and Sunday I had lunch at the local Vietnamese place, fabulous soup the first day and spring rolls with bubble tea the second. I was a reasonably good girl and only bought some yak and silk mix to spin with, a nostepin, shawl magnet and I won some gradient yarn in the silent auction.

Broke down the booth and packed up in record time on Sunday  and then off to dinner again at Brooks with Marney and her friend from Hawaii. Back to the house to get an early night, ready for the early start Monday and the drive back to Denver. Pit stop in Conifer to get lunch with Rinah and Sally and a little detour to Colorful Yarns in Centennial Park before flying back to Atlanta

Thanks again to Sally and Jill- love you both and I had a great time.

While Alana and I were away enjoying ourselves, Mr Rob was having his own roller coaster ride at the farm.

First we had too many roosters in our last batch of eggs so all is not happy in the coop and some of the smaller chickens are being picked on. We lost one of them on Wednesday. So we need to get rid of at least 8 roosters. Although on a brighter note we hatched 8 more eggs and they are doing well, hopefully they are all girls.

Then Thursday he could hear a lot of commotion in the garden and went out just in time to see  a hawk fly off and then one of the ducks come staggering up the garden with a gash on her neck. He has treated it with vetricyn and she seems to be fine for now, so fingers crossed.

Last but not least one of our cats, Bobtail,had gone missing. We are hoping he will either just turn up again or that he has found another house that he prefers to ours.

Animals bring a lot of pleasure but also a lot of distress 

First, let me start by talking about the Hotel, it was a pretty good package deal. Nice hotel, great room and a fab pool area that was open 10am to 11pm every day. The hotel, Loews Royal Pacific, is also on the Univeral Studio property so literally a 5-minute walk to the parks. The cost of the hotel  included entrance to the park for 3 days, express passes and early entrance to Harry Potter. I added on the dining pass which gave us lunch, souvenir mugs with unlimited refills and a snack every day. It was a great way to manage the spend and also made it easy for Alana to not worry about what she could and could not have.

Here are the views from our hotel room, love the water lilies

 

Now let us talk about the food – have to say it was generally pretty poor. Hot dogs and beefburgers looked underwhelming. Pasta was not too bad and there was one shining light though and that was the fish and chip lunch at the Harry Potter restaurant. It was cooked to order and was really tasty.

Going to a theme park with an 8-year-old is very interesting, Alana is a complex mix of a daredevil and a scaredy cat. It was only the height restriction that kept her off 2 of the roller coasters but she just made the height limit on the dragon ride and so I was propelled at very fast speeds through a number of loops both upside down and sideways yeah!

Yet some of the rides that were dark and had spiders meant my hand was clenched very tight.  Although I think we both decided that the Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb was both of our favorite ride in both parks. We made the mistake of thinking that we had picked the one water ride that would not get us very wet, well we got that wrong. We were both drenched right through. Did not help that we ended up in the front seat.

Thank goodness the hotel was close so we were able to go back and get changed. We had the typical heavy thunderstorms every afternoon that we were there, but we managed to pick indoor rides so missed most of the heavy rain.

The Harry Potter area in both parks was very well done and the rides there were great. Alana bought a magic wand and they have places around the area where you stand and make a certain shape with the wand and it triggers things to happen, like water spouting or things moving in the shop windows. Very cool but also a great money maker. As you can imagine the wands came with a high price tag.

I also learnt that Hello Kitty is not cool but Scooby Doo and Sideshow Bob are

My little daredevil  tried her hand at rock climbing, she did really well. She is strong, agile and fearless.

Most nights Alana went in the pool after the park and I was able to sit and read while keeping an eye on her. We were lucky enough to have poolside service so a nice cocktail helped relax me a little.

On the last night, we had an early dip in the pool then got ready and went out for dinner at City Walk.

Long drive back to Atlanta tomorrow but all in all, it has been a great week.

 

 

 

We left St Agustine mid morning after a quick stop at the mall to buy a new dress for the little one and some shorts for me. We made good time until we hit the outskirts of Orlando and then we were in the typical traffic that they always seem to have around the park area. Just after we arrived at the hotel there was a heavy downpour with thunder and lightening so we were very lucky to miss driving in it. The hotel is really nice and themed on a Hawaiian Island.  So they presented Alana with a lei at check-in.

Our room wasnt quite ready so we sat in the lounge and I taught Alana to play rummy. She of course had managed to pick it up quite quickly so we will be playing a lot more. It helps pass the time between adventures.

Not long to wait till the room was ready and of course Missy quickly picked the bed that she wanted

Once the rain stopped we went over to city walk which is the main dining and entertainment area. It was only about 5 mins walk away and we had a good look around so the we could plan for the future. In one of the stores it seems that zombie alpacas are all the rage these days!

We went off to play a round of crazy haunted golf and clearly there is something special about the 17th hole as Alana managed a hole in one again! She is really doing very well for a beginner and we had a good laugh. The course was very well done but more Scooby Doo horror than anything more sinister,

Time for dinner so we shared a pizza and then we walked around to the Portofino hotel so I could show her what fake Italy looks like. Before we walked back to our own hotel

When we got back to the hotel, the lagoon pool was still very busy so we had a mad dash upstairs so that Alana could get her swimming costume on and go play in the pool till 8.30 of course she managed to make friends with some girls her own age and had a lot of fun. We are off to the park at 7 tomorrow as we have early admission tickets for the wizarding world of Harry Potter,

Today was pirate day, after breakfast we went back into the town. Started the adventure off at the pirate museum which is reputed  to have more actual pirate memorabilia than any other location globally.The tour guide was dressed in authentic costume complete with long flowing hair and a Scottish accent, he was also very informative. They give the kids a treasure map and they have  to find 12 hidden drawers in the museum and write down the code word. Alana found all 12 and was able to pick her “treasure”

Off for an early lunch and then onto a game of mini golf. Alana managed a hole in one on the 17th, woo hoo 

We then made our way to the highlight of the day, a trip on a pirate ship. I had bought the coin waist band at the Renaissance festival some months ago and this seemed like the perfect opportunity for her to wear it.

We boarded the ship and got ready to set sail

Just before we left, Captain Hook and Blackbeard boarded the ship and stole our treasure.

Once we were at sea, Alana and the other children were taught how to sword fight.

This was followed by singing some sea shanties and some face painting.

Oh no look who is coming after us, it’s Captain Hook and Blackbeard in another boat and they are firing canons at us 

Luckily when they tried to board again the kids were ready for them and fought them off.

They were also able to regain the treasure chest and they all got a share of the booty.

Before we left the ship we had time for one last picture with the crew 

All in all it was a great day.

Only read on if you are not squeamish, I got bitten quite a few times on the legs by yellow flies (thank goodness they did not bite Alana) well they have reacted quite badly. Hopefully they will get better soon. Off to Orlando tomorrow.

Early drive to the Okeefenokee  swamp Park near Waycross Georgia after a quick chat with Great Nanny Wales. We were some of the first people there and so we had a quick look at the nature center and then off to the boat ride through the swamp.

We saw lots of alligators from Babies through to full grown males.

The swamp itself was very interesting with all sorts of plants and wildlife. This plant digests bugs in its flutes.

There are also just a lot of really pretty water lilies and other water based plants. The guide recommended hiring a boat and doing the swamp from Fargo in April when all the plants are at their best.

Much to Alana’s amusement I nearly walked into the Web of a banana spider, and we saw a lot of other spiders, all about the size of Alana’s hand! 

After the boat ride we took a small train ride around the park, we stopped at a recreated pioneers homestead. There was a blacksmith there making knives out of railway ties

The engineer also allowed Alana to blow the whistle on the train.

Next came the talk at the nature center, the guide talked about the various snakes and turtles that they had there. Alana was allowed to hold Bumper a young male about a year old. These will grow as big as dinner plates over time and can live longer than a 100 years.

Before touching  the snake she had to wash her hands to make sure she did not smell like food!

We then went outside with the guide to see the black bear, they have 4, mum dad and two youngsters. They reckon there are about 7000 living wild in the swamp. This is dad, he is about 15 years old.

Once we finished at the park, we started our drive to St Agustine. After checking into the hotel Alana went into the pool and of course made friends with some other kids.

Off into the town for dinner and a walk along the shoreline, we also booked our adventure for tomorrow but you will have to wait to hear what that one is 😀

The day started well as two of the chick’s that Alana put in the incubator 20 days ago hatched. So glad that she was able to see the complete cycle.

As you can see there is another egg ready to hatch and indeed when we spoke to Mr Rob we are now up to 4

Miss Alana and I left early for the first leg of our trip, Douglasville to Brunswick. We made great time and got there just before 2. Quick check in to hotel then off to St Simons Island for some ice cream. We then hired some cycles, which brought back memories of living in Sweden. The bikes are the same there, no gears, no hand brakes and you stop the bike by pedaling backwards. 

We had a few stops along the way. First stop was for Alana to play with the sand on the beach. 

We also walked along the little pier, there were plenty of people fishing and we saw our first horseshoe crab.

Alana also saw her first pelican but it was a bit too far out to take a worthwhile picture.

Rounded off the day with dinner at Applebee’s and we are now watching Rio the cartoon movie.

Alana is such a happy little girl, and pretty easy to keep happy. She is content with her own company yet perfectly happy to mix with others. Listening to her giggling while watching some of her videos on youtube is very comforting.

At last, we were able to get a better picture of our bat, he is doing his best to eat as many mosquitos as he can. Between him and the chickens they really are keeping the bugs under control.

Yesterday we had a baking day, Alana helped me make butter cookies, they are embossed with Alpacas and some were made alpaca shaped as well.

We then made strawberry and rhubarb crumble ( crisp ) Mr Rob’s favorite.

Alana and I went to the cinema to see Finding Dory even though  we already found her yesterday at the Atlanta Aquarium. We might have stopped off at a Dairy Queen beforehand for a mini blizzard ice cream but shh don’t tell Mr Rob.

 

 

While I was back working this week, Mr Rob and Alana settled into a routine of looking after the animals and swimming in the pool. In the meantime we had some critters come to visit as well. On Tuesday we had this huge lunar moth camped out on the kitchen window.

And on Friday night we had a wee little scorpion come in to say hello.

The bat has also been back but he is too low down in the shutter to get a good shot of him. Tuesday Mr Rob took Alana to the trampoline club and she had a lot of fun and also made a friend.

Wednesday Alana went out the back with Mr Rob and he took her down to the river where they had fun looking for lizards and snakes

Alana found a lovely heart shaped stone that she then wrote on as a surprise gift for when I got home from work – awww!

Thursday Alana went on a guided nature hike over at Sweetwater with about 12 other kids. It was about 2 hours of walk and talk through the forest and down by the river. She said it was a lot of fun.

Friday they packed a picnic and went on a 20 mile bike ride on the Silver Comet Rail trail. They had plenty of stops to get a rest and admire the scenery.

Saturday was my turn and Alana and I went off to the Georgia Aquarium for the day, it was a lot  of fun although very packed.

 

And look, last but not least …. we found Dory