the sunshine state

Last weekend I had a three day weekend and so I decided to fly down to Florida and visit Heather for the weekend. The weekend was absolutely amazing and so much fun. My favorite part of the trip, besides seeing Heather, was the 120 degree temperature difference from Minnesota to Florida. When I left NCU it was -40 degrees and it was 80 degrees in Tampa.

I flew in on Friday evening and was greeted by Heather and her great big beautiful smile at the closest spot she could get to from the gate. We fought through heavy rush hour traffic all the way to Lakeland, home of Southeastern University. We had about thirty minutes to get ready for our Valentine's Day dinner (a day late). When I walked across campus to meet Heather I was greeted by a stunning blond in a Hollywood-like red a black dress (see picture above). She took me to a little family owned Italian restaurant called Mario's. The food was excellent and the company was even better. After that we went with 11 of her friends to Downtown Disney and hung out there until 2:00 AM before coming back to Lakeland.

Saturday was up and at em' and 6:45 because it was Disney day baby. We stopped through Haines City to meet Pastor Gary Peck, one of my dad's long time pastor friends. He had two free "hopper" passes, which meant we could go to any and all of the parks. And so we started at MGM and rode the famous Tower of Terror and even went to the Beauty and the Beast show...that was interesting. Epcot Center was next (see picture above). We ate lunch and waited for two hours in a line for a 3D hang gliding ride. Well worth the wait. Then we left Disney and drove to International Drive where some of you may remember was where General Council was held in Orlando a few years ago. I took her to see the Peabody Hotel because she had never seen one before. Then we went to Don Pablos for dinner and then drove back to Magic Kingdom for the fireworks. The show was cool but when it was done I was ready to go home. We didn't even make it out of the parking lot before Heather reclined her seat 100% back and was knocked out cold. I struggled to get us back to Lakeland where we hit the hay immediately.

Sunday started with church in the morning, where Dr. Rutland spoke their Faith Promise service. From church we went straight to the beach and had a nice picnic lunch that Heather prepared for us...just trying to save some money. We laid out, played football, and watched the sunset on the beach (see picture above). Then we drove to Clearwater Beach, had dinner at a little local cafe, and enjoyed our last night before I had to be at the airport at 5:30 the next morning. What a trip. It was so much fun and full of so many memories.