Florida- Tuesday, Nov. 20, 2018

     For most of the past year, Scott has been anticipating the approach of his 50th birthday.  He wanted to go somewhere instead of having a party, especially since his birthday falls on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and his school district has that day off.  For most of the year he assumed they would probably go to Gettysburg.  Last week though, the weather turned wintery and being out on the battlefield didn't sound so appealing.  Besides, he's been to Gettysburg twice this year- once in April with his college friends and once in August with Brian S.  So he was ready to ditch the Gettysburg idea.  Toronto (or anywhere else in Canada) was not possible because our passports need to be renewed.  Julie wanted to go somewhere, especially since she had done extra work at school in order to get the comp time to get Wednesday off.  She asked him if he could do anything for his birthday or go anywhere- what would it be?  He just thought about it for a little bit and said, "Beers Around the World at Epcot."  After thinking about it for two days just to make sure that was the final answer, Julie made it happen.  Emma is going with us, but Anna is staying home.  She's going to have Thanksgiving with Noah and his family, plus she's got college work to do.  We had a small party with cake and presents on Monday (seen in the picture here) so that Scott could celebrate with the three girls together.  Then we got packed.
     We got out of school on Tuesday as early as we could, and rendezvoused at our house at about 3:00.  We went to the airport and said goodbye to Anna who drove the car home.  Our flight was a direct one on Frontier- the first time we flew that airline.  The flight was a little cramped, but quick, and we found ourselves in Orlando.  We got out luggage and rental car and made our way to our hotel and by about 9:30 we were settled in.  It's got a kitchenette, though we probably wont be using it beyond the refrigerator.
     Scott's got a case of the sniffles, but there's no slowing down now.  We'll be in Epcot tomorrow (but almost certainly won't blog until Thursday at the earliest).

Post script- Scott went out at about 11:30 to find a “necessity” that he always say we should bring and never do.  He found it at a 24-hour Wahlgreens around the corner from us.