In January, Jessi & I had an opportunity to be "those people" on Facebook. Yep, we got to enjoy an awesome vacation in Florida during winter.
How did that happen?
At the end of last summer two friends from church moved to Florida. Jessi used to run with the wife regularly. In October Jessi was chatting on the phone with her about a 10K race in January and lamenting that they couldn't run it together. Jessi got off the phone and mentioned it to me.
Now, I track our student loan payments pretty closely and I knew that we were going to pay off another one in December. That meant that January was going to be our fun month. I also knew that my sister was going to be starting her Disney World internship around the same time we were there. I also knew their apartment was fairly close to Disney World, and even though it was going to be a long weekend, it still was off-season. Plus, it would be in January and who wouldn't want an excuse to leave Oregon in the dead of winter?!
We did a little more research on the costs: Since it was off-season, the plane tickets were reasonable and my sister was currently doing a Disneyland internship and we were able to get discounted park tickets. Finally, we were able to stay at their apartment and save there too. All in all, we could afford to do this whole trip with our fun money.
So we made the decision to go for it.
Now, there are generally 2 types of vacations we take: The first is a relaxing one where we don't set alarms and mostly stay inside puzzling, reading and watching movies. Jessi loves these types of vacations. Usually by the end of one I'm physically trembling from not doing anything.
The other type, the type I like, is where we try to do as much as we can with the time we have. It's the type of vacation that you need another vacation to recover from. This is what we did. Yes!
Here are some pictures of everything we did:
The first day we went to the Animal kingdom. It's like a huge zoo with rides. It was very well done.
This tiger was incredible! What I should have done was take a picture of the huge crowd behind us.
We saw a bird show that was amazing! Every bird was extremely well trained and almost all of them did some sort of trick. It made me feel pathetic when I think about how little we've done to train Vinnie.
Yes! The original reason for coming to Florida! We completed the St. Pete Beach 10K Classic. Our times were pretty good too.
This is what the weather was like the entire time. Pretty. Nice.
We also went house/investment shopping with our friends. The price-to-rent ratios are actually pretty good. I don't think we'll end of up buying one of them, but we did find some interesting ones. At the very least, this was a great leaning opportunity and got us thinking about investing outside our area.
Then Lisa arrived and we went to the Magic Kingdom. How about this for crazy: in order to get from the parking lot to the entrance, you either have to take the monorail or ride a boat across the lake.
Jessi picked up some pretty cute Mickey ears. They go well with her red hair.
To the gallows!
I came really close to buying this shirt for my brother.
On our last day, we went to Epcot. I think we were all pictured out because we only have a couple. We did go inside the ball, which is fun, and we went a couple futuristic rides.
We also spent time in each little region. Here we are in Paris. We honestly could have spent the entire week at the World Showcase and never be bored. What an incredible place! They even make it a point to hire people from that city so it's truly run as authentic as possible.
That was our trip. It was a lot of fun and we'd like to go back again. Maybe we should buy a place so we have an excuse to go back regularly.
Now, I track our student loan payments pretty closely and I knew that we were going to pay off another one in December. That meant that January was going to be our fun month. I also knew that my sister was going to be starting her Disney World internship around the same time we were there. I also knew their apartment was fairly close to Disney World, and even though it was going to be a long weekend, it still was off-season. Plus, it would be in January and who wouldn't want an excuse to leave Oregon in the dead of winter?!
We did a little more research on the costs: Since it was off-season, the plane tickets were reasonable and my sister was currently doing a Disneyland internship and we were able to get discounted park tickets. Finally, we were able to stay at their apartment and save there too. All in all, we could afford to do this whole trip with our fun money.
So we made the decision to go for it.
Now, there are generally 2 types of vacations we take: The first is a relaxing one where we don't set alarms and mostly stay inside puzzling, reading and watching movies. Jessi loves these types of vacations. Usually by the end of one I'm physically trembling from not doing anything.
The other type, the type I like, is where we try to do as much as we can with the time we have. It's the type of vacation that you need another vacation to recover from. This is what we did. Yes!
Here are some pictures of everything we did:
The first day we went to the Animal kingdom. It's like a huge zoo with rides. It was very well done.
Just short of 6 feet. That's me.
This tiger was incredible! What I should have done was take a picture of the huge crowd behind us.
We saw a bird show that was amazing! Every bird was extremely well trained and almost all of them did some sort of trick. It made me feel pathetic when I think about how little we've done to train Vinnie.
Yes! The original reason for coming to Florida! We completed the St. Pete Beach 10K Classic. Our times were pretty good too.
This is what the weather was like the entire time. Pretty. Nice.
We also went house/investment shopping with our friends. The price-to-rent ratios are actually pretty good. I don't think we'll end of up buying one of them, but we did find some interesting ones. At the very least, this was a great leaning opportunity and got us thinking about investing outside our area.
Yes, I'm an adult, surround by little kids, enjoying myself just as much as them.
Jessi picked up some pretty cute Mickey ears. They go well with her red hair.
To the gallows!
I came really close to buying this shirt for my brother.
On our last day, we went to Epcot. I think we were all pictured out because we only have a couple. We did go inside the ball, which is fun, and we went a couple futuristic rides.
That was our trip. It was a lot of fun and we'd like to go back again. Maybe we should buy a place so we have an excuse to go back regularly.
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