Off to Florida!

We are just fixin' (southern talk, y'all!) to leave for my annual business conference/expo in Orlando.

It's always a bittersweet trip when we return to the State where I lived all of my formative years, from age four until the Queen and I married and left for Tejas over 24 years later.

The weather is normally at it's best in January in Florida.
Their cold 'Winter' might drop temps in the 40's at night. Brrrrrr!
After making fun of them all of my life, I am now a 'Snow Bird' to a minor degree myself.
One of life's many ironies!
Time permitting I will do a post from the Sunshine State.
I really am getting too old for the 15 hour days that are normally required to work these shows.
There will be some fun though. We always go to Disney's Boardwalk to wander around and eat at the ESPN Zone there. Wall to wall sports, and we sometimes get to watch a live broadcast on ESPN radio while there. One night we will go to Downtown Disney, a really cool place which includes Planet Hollywood, the Rainforest cafe, House of Blues, and many many unusual shops. The largest of those is the Disney store. Some of your young un's have received cute things the Queen Auntie finds there.

On the way home we are privileged to stay with my favorite Auntie, Kitty, in Savannah.
She is my mom's youngest sister, and has always been one of my favorite people on this Orb.
A marvelous singer in her day, (mezzo soprano) she directed choirs in large churches in Richmond and Savannah until just a few years ago.
Her three boys and I were the only males in the family, and remain close.
Dave lives in D.C., we saw his family over Christmas.
Rob, the eldest in still deployed overseas in the combat zone as a civilian security expert after a 26 year career in the United States Air Force.
We will see Mike and his lovely wife Cheryl when we visit, as they still live in Savannah.

For many years we have talked about taking everyone to the Pirate's House, the oldest house in Savannah, now housing an eatery that remains a favorite for both locals and tourista alike.
This year I decided to 'seize the day' as it were, and we will eat there next Friday.

My Aunt is as excited as a young school girl that we are finally going to go.
Should be the highlight of our trip, I think.

Our soldier is preparing to go back to Boone as we leave.
He has reserve duty tomorrow, and the semester starts in earnest on Monday.
He had a wonderful five week holiday, and we really enjoyed the time with him.

I am going to bug him to do a guest blog next weekend, describing his adventures with three of his closest buddies at the opening of the new Chick Fil-A here in our area.

Local media coverage and all, they had quite the time camping out for over 34 hours.

Have a great week!