SECOND DIARY CATCHUP-ORLANDO

Let's see, where was I? Oh, on the way home from the airport. late at night Florida time. Since we had nothing to eat but snacks since noon the previous day, Mike stopped at Wendys and got us a burger. Their rental home is fairly close to the airport, but impossible to find without a map as the roads wind around considerably before coming to their cul de sac. VERY nice location for little kids. In fact, the whole, huge gated community is full of nicely kept up homes, and we continually make mental comparisons to their Arizona home. Wider streets, virtually no cars parked ON the street, and virtually all the homes have lush, green lawns, not rocks and colored gravel like in AZ. The lawns are really weird, a really thick grass with tangles of roots ABOVE the sandy loam, but they are ALL green. Mike says it needs to get 4" high before mowing. Another interesting feature is that there are few fences, unlike AZ. which has an 8' cement wall between EVERY house. And, many of the houses have large, screened rooms, which tells me they must enjoy a variety of flying creatures. The people who have pools or hot tubs, normally have them screened.

M&C's rental is quite large, and has a unique design. The front door leads to a small room where they have a computer and small davenport. Off this, is a larger living room. Every room in the house has a TV, (I think). Off the double garage it leads into the laundry room, large kitchen, and another living area I believe is called a Great Room. In this they have a huge, flat screen, HD TV and a gigantic, curved couch.
On each side of these two living areas are two bedrooms and a bath. In an alcove off the living areas is a huge screened area for outside living. Lots of room for two adults, three kids, five cats, a big turtle and several poliwogs, rapidly reaching frog status.

The creatures of Florida are numerous, and quite entertaining. They have various "hatches" of insects, a small frog "hatch" where they found zillions of poliwogs in the kids wading pool, possums, endless ducks and birds, and some very large egret/heron type birds that wander around the neighborhood. There are ponds everywhere in the region, and they support lots of aquatic life.

It's always hard for people to accommodate our separate sleeping areas, so this was solved by bringing Christina's bed into the kids playroom for Mavis, and at one end, we took cushions off one davenport for me. They keep the house quite warm at night, so we had to adjust to that being used to a frigid bedroom. We just completed our third night's sleep and are beginning to adjust. What we're finding hard to adjust to is the three hour time differential. I am forcing myself to hit the cushions around 11:00 PM, which is only 8:00 our time, so I have difficulty going to sleep. Even going to bed that early, I am still sleeping in until past 10:00 AM, 7:00 our time, Oh well. Just about the time I am "adjusted," daylight savings time elimination will throw me off some more. Woe is I. Fortunately, Mavis has no trouble going to bed at ANY time.