Joe vs. The Barn

Neglected....That's how Joe was feeling when I forgot to put what he was doing while I was on vacation.

No, really. I did forget to mention what Joe was doing while Sharen and I were hangin' with Mickey and friends.

He spent the better part of a week and a half in Indiana tearing down and restoring part of an old barn on his Mom's property.

When we were there last year the roof and a good portion of the barn had caved in so Joe, our friend Mark Wilkin and Joe's brothers dug in, knocked down and rebuilt it over the course of about 5 days.

The rest of the time Joe and Mark did a little fishing, spent some quality time with Joe's mom and brothers and drove from here to there.

Oh, they took a little side trip to Cabellas in Nebraska. That's like Michaels craft store for hunters, fishermen, etc.

I'm proud of you Honey. You did a wonderful job and I'm sure your Mom truly appreciates what you did.

P.S. Thank you to Mark Wilkin for going above and beyond the lines of friendship to travel all the way to Indiana, work from early morning until dusk (with very few breaks) in the rain to help Joe and his family. You are a true friend. And, thanks to Robin for letting him go!

Love,

Kharen

Magic!

Bippity, bobbity, boo...(or something like that)!

I saw a t-shirt not long ago that spelled out "Supercalafragilistic..." yada, yada, yada. It made me think about how you really "spell" out magic. You don't. You have to find it.

So, that is exactly what Sharen and I did the week of May 12 - 16. We spent a few days in Orlando, Florida with family and the Magic Mouse.

Aunt Sandy and John graciously put us up in their home. It's always very comfortable (and beautiful) there and it gave us a few extra hours with them. We didn't have many as they were off to a conference in Boston that Wednesday. Thank you so much Aunt Sandy and John.

We also spent a limited amount of time with Butch. We had dinner with him when we arrived, spent the better part of a day with him and then went to dinner at Wolfgang Pucks and to Cirque de Soliel la Nuba on our last night in Florida.

But, we did take some time to ourselves! We spent a day at Epcot and a day at the Magic Kingdom.

We road my favorite ride in Epcot, Soarin' but not before we took a Behind the Seeds tour of the hydroponics used in the growing of some of the plants and vegetables used at Disney theme parks and restaurants. It was very, very interesting.

We ate a wonderful meal in "Tokyo". We took lots of pictures....or Sharen did. I ran out of room on my memory card. We saw a show performed by Davy Jones (of The Monkeys fame). John didn't think we should tell anyone that! We spent a little time with Crush from Finding Nemo and found a few Nemo's and other very strange fish in the small aquarium in the Coral Reef area. We stayed to watch the fireworks over the lake in the middle of Epcot. It just gives you goose bumps and I've seen it three or four times now!

The next day we went to the Magic Kingdom. Is it just me or does that place get smaller as I grow older? We rode all the typical rides....Haunted Mansion, Small World, Space Mountain (yes, I said Space Mountain). We ate the typical frozen banana and Mickey shaped ice cream bar. We saw some new things like the Pirates of the Caribbean (remade to include things from the Johnny Depp movie) which was a little disappointing since it was the main reason we choose Magic Kingdom over Sea World or Animal Kingdom. We had our picture taken with Chip and Dale just like we did several years ago.

We stayed for the fireworks here too and we almost missed a real live Tinkerbell flying through the air! She must have been on a very high wire and she just "flew" past. It was a very nice night and a perfect ending to our two days to ourselves.

We found some Magic in the down time we needed. Our feet hurt from walking all over but our hearts were full with the special time spent together and with family and the beauty of Epcot and Magic Kingdom.

Kharen