Vacation Post 1: Take Off & Landing

This year the Stokes' took a week and went to Sea World for our family vacation and then on to Tampa to see Chris' mom. As every family does, we took a TON of photos. For posterity's sake, I'll blog about our vacation over a few blog entries (my goal is to someday have the blog entries published and bound by year...someday). 

So we'll begin, well, at the beginning! We took advantage of a hotel's park, stay and fly in Milwaukee and flew out of General Mitchell Airport. This actually saved us a 3 am car ride and huge parking fee. Summerfest was occurring in Milwaukee so our hotel options were slim. Without going into the details (screaming ladies, a heckling 'gentleman', a weird musty smell...) let me just say that in the future I'll pay in cash what we paid in sanitation and safety when my hotel options are slim. But we survived the overnight and off we went!

Once we arrived in Florida all was right with the world. The shoulders came down from the ears and the mind relaxed. Let the vacation begin! We arrived at our Orlando suite and it was sweet! (get it? Sorry.) This place was a FAR cry from our Milwaukee hotel (thank God). We spent our first half a day in Orlando exploring International Drive and breaking in the pool and soaking up the sun.

Head 'em up, move 'em out

"Patiently" waiting.

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Ready for a much needed vacation!

 Pool time!

 Evening swim with Sea World in the background.