WOW! Has it realllly been 10 days since my last update? Sheesh! I do apologize. I suppose sometimes I just think there's nothing in my life worth putting "down on paper".

But, given the long absense it's time for a recap!

Nov. 8th: Drove from Jacksonville, FL to Orlando, FL. We were staying with our friends Bill & Patty. (they're the ones with the super cute little girl named Jacqueline) Friday nite was the rehearsal dinner for the wedding we were attending on Saturday. The dinner was held at Chevy's--- a popular Tex-Mex restaurant where the bride and groom first met.

Nov. 9th: Bill, Patty, Jacqueline, Ben and I went to breakfast at Panera Bread company. YUM! Came back to the house and got ready for the wedding. The groom, Noel, was Ben's best friend in highschool. Wedding starts at 2pm. All along I was dreading it based on the rehearsal the evening before--- Noel and Marissa are Catholic and I had not been to a Catholic wedding before. They offer communion at Catholic weddings. Communions typically take a lllllllong time. (Or at least it seemed to take a long time when I was a child going to our local Presbyterian church.) The rehearsal was an hour and 15 minutes, so I was anticipating that the actual wedding was going to take 2 to 2 and half hours. It didn't. It was only an hour long. Of course, it helped that NOT every single pew was filled as I thought that it would be filled. In fact, it was a modestly small amount of people in the church. I'd say a total of 50 people. Maybe 75.

After the wedding, we drove downtown Orlando to the Four Points Sheraton Hotel for the reception. In the hallway outside of the ballroom was a beautifully arranged spread of fruits, cheeses, crackers, punch and melted chocolate. YUM! I discovered that fresh pineapple and melted chocolate do NOT go well together. However, of course, strawberries do just nicely. **wink, wink**

The actual reception started about an hour later. After all the obligatory "dances", a blessing is said and the guests are free to join the bride and groom at the buffett table. There were deviled eggs, mini keishes, egg rolls, crabcakes, tuna fish finger sandwiches and the like. Ben and I headed back to the fruit spread out in the hall. We devoured the cantaloupe, honey dew, strawberries and crackers.

Most of the guests had began to filter out around 8:30pm. Ben and I left nearer to 9pm. We went back to Bill & Patty's house and watched tv and went to bed.

Nov. 10th: Bill wants to take us all to the brand-new mall that just opened that week. It's called Millenia Mall. We get there and the place is P-A-C-K-E-D to the gills. We initially were going to eat at the food court or one of the restaurants inside the mall but everywhere had 30 to 45 minute waits. Patty was starving. So we leave the mall with the intention of going to a restaurant down the street and returning later.

We drive and drive and drive. Before you know it, we're on International Drive; or as it's affectionately called, "I-Drive". I notice a Darryl's on the side of the road. I explain that I have not eaten in a Darryl's in several years and that when I was a little girl, it was one of my favorite restaurants back in Virginia. We all agree and head inside.

After lunch, Patty suggests that we take Jacqueline back to the house for a nap. This way, she won't be crabby later. After her nap is over, we all head to Boardwalk Bowl-a-rama. Apparently the building use to be an old Wal-Mart that was converted into a bowling alley. It has 80 lanes (40 on each side of the building, 2 arcades (one in the front and one in the back of the building), a bar area with darts and a food service area. Because there were a lot of birthday parties being held at the bowling alley, we were 6th on the list for a lane. It was a 45 minute wait. In the meantime, we decided to throw darts. Bill kicked our butts. I did ok. I managed to score two bullseyes!

Finally our names are called for bowling. Ben decides to enter our names into the computer to start the game. The big joke for the weekend was saying, "peni". Prounounced pee-nee. Short for penis. You had to be there. So anyway, Ben enters Bill's name as L. Peni. Then Patty's as Big Peni. His nickname for me is P. Little (for Pumpkin Little) and he's P. Bigger.

I bowled a strike on my first frame! Then, I scored spares every frame thereafter until the 7th frame, I picked up a spare! I bowled my BEST game ever! I bowled a 159! I wanted to beat Bill who bowled his best ever at 172! My Momma would be proud! (she and my dad were on a bowling league before and just after I was born.) Ben, on the other had the worse score of us all---an 82! Ooops!

We all had a blast! I have pics to prove it. I'll try to post some of them in the next few days if I find the time to do so!

So, even though I was gone for 10 days, at least the recap was worth the wait.

Thought Of The Day:"In the end, nothing we do or say in this lifetime will matter as much as the way we have loved one another."--Daphne Rose Kingma

Until next time... peace, love & HEALTH!!!