Of relaunched churches, timeshares, and sweet tea

Our next stop was a Hilton Grand Vacations resort in Orlando. We got a great deal on it and just had to listen to a teensy-weensy presentation where we are shown all the benefits of buying into the system. Unfortunately, the presentation consists of being thrown into a dungeon and being flogged in an attempt to get you to relent. Anyway…it’s just minutes away from Disney World, Sea World, and an assortment of other attractions. However, we had no desire to visit any of these attractions. If we weren’t in the pool, we were next to it. Now that is my idea of a vacation. The only difficult part was leaving Stella with both sets of grandparents-not because they would do a bad job!-but because we would miss her so much. We’re glad that she was able to spend some time with them, though, and were equally glad for a little break.

Erica had a surprise birthday party for Vivian at a Cuban restaurant called Arco Iris. They had spent all day shopping, and fortunately, I did not have to be a part of that. To me, shopping and vacation are incompatible concepts.

This was the building that we stayed in. It was called Villa di Tomaso which if my Italian translation skills return to me, means Villa di Thomas. If you’re scratching your head right now, that’s just a joke-don’t worry about it.
In case you couldn’t tell, this is a picture of an ornate ball fountain thing. Moving right along…
Here is a shot of the pool. We spent all of our time here. And I do mean all.This is just a general shot of the resort.
Another shot-it was a Tuscan theme, and I have to say it was very beautiful and very well done.

Perhaps the greatest discovery (at least for me) of our vacation is pictured above. This is a $1 sweet tea sold at McDonalds. This was something almost too good to be true. The north/midwest knows nothing about one of the south’s greatest treasures, sweet tea with lemon. I consumed more of these than I care to admit and still miss them even now.