Florida Part I

When we first arrived in Oveido it was about dinner time so we didn't do much of anything. I did finally get to meet the the squeeze's famous Babka though, at the ripe age of 94 she is the peppiest grandmother I have ever encountered! I was also easily able to meet the other portion of their big family because all the ladies live in the same retirement community. Not only that, but they are also neighbors. And three out of four of them are named Anna Placko. They told us their mail gets mixed up and they receive phone calls for each other frequently, no surprise there.

The next full day we spent hanging out with these vibrant ladies, we have Anna Placko (Babka, they call her Anna B. Placko because her maiden name starts with a B), Anna Placko (we call her TA, short for teta Ancha in Slovak, or aunt Anna, she is Babka's sister-in-law), Anna Placko (just Anna, she is also Babka's sister-in-law), and Vera (Babka's actual sister). Milly, or Milka, who is TA's niece was also visiting from Delaware so we essentially stayed with five ladies for six days.

After settling in we headed to the parks! Day one we made our way to Animal Kingdom and Disney Hollywood Studios. I haven't been to Disney in almost 20 years, not since my parents took me as a buffer after their divorce. I remember it being a great experience, minus a few bumps in the road like when our rental car was hit or the occasional argument between them.

I was pretty ecstatic when the squeeze and I got to Animal Kingdom, I've never actually been to this park so it was a great first time experience. At some point it rained. I mean it poured. We invested in Disney ponchos, wise choice on our part as it rained the next two days as well. We became so used to the rain it was easy to ignore that our shoes were squishy with water.

After a long half day at Animal Kingdom we made our way to what was formally known as MGM. Disney Hollywood Studios is wonderful, I love the roaring 20's theme throughout the park. We stopped and grabbed Mickey Mouse ice-cream per suggestion of the squeeze's dad and browsed the 'streets' of the park.

We managed to nab two seats at the Sci-fi Dine-in Theater Restaurant, it's basically this massive indoor drive-in movie theater set that's a restaurant. The cars are the tables and there is a large movie screen that was constantly plays 20's themed cartoons, clips, and commercials, it was such a cool set-up! The squeeze was adamant about eating here but I didn't know why, I'm so glad he pushed to come here!

And of course we had to go on the Tower of Terror multiple times! It's just as spooky as I remember, one of my favorites to date. I love rides that make even the experience leading up to the actual ride memorable. We didn't get home until about midnight, and then we did that two more times in four other parks. We've covered more ground in two weeks than I have ever!