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WALT DISNEY: DAY 9 HOUSE

Day 9: A Day at the House: Packing, swimming and an appearance of the Great Conjunction!

Today was a sleep in type of day for us, although I have really got to the point where sleep in is not in my vocabulary anymore. However, Sakari took full advantage of the word "sleep".

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I got up and started doing a little bit of packing. We really didn't have anything planned for today. The hubby had mentioned maybe going and riding go-carts at a place around the corner. But, when I checked it out online, it said that it was closed. I did find some other places in the area that had a little more entertainment other than the go-carts and thought maybe we would do that.



At some point and time, we decided to wake Sakari up so that we could go get some breakfast. All this packing is making me hungry!

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It was bright and sunny out tonight and the temps were nice!

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Since we had such a wonderful experience at Waffle House the other day, we figured that experience just couldn't be beat and we would have to settle for our original plans of going to Denny's. 


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Upon arrival, we were greeted with this:


 


 

I guess that was a good sign because the food was yummy and filling and the service was good. Now I felt like I was ready for a nap. Does that mean I'm getting old?


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Now I wanted to try to find another suitcase. We have been in dire need for a new one. I have a really nice one, but the airline managed to bust one of my wheels a few vacations ago and it's just getting worse. Sakari's is somewhat old and she had the old style with the small wheels on it and hard to push along standing upright. 


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We visited several different places and every time I found one I liked, they didn't have the right size (only had the smaller ones). Do people really take small suitcases on vacation? I'd never be able to fit anything in it. I would be at a loss for what to downsize and put in it. 


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When actually ended up at Walmart and found a decent hard cover suitcase and then we were finally ready to head back to the house for a fun filled day of washing clothes and packing.


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I always hate that last day packing because no matter if I'm on a ship or land vacation, I'm sure to always pack something that I should have left out for the next morning and will need to rummage through all of our luggage in order to find what I'm looking for. We always cross pack so that if something was to get lost, at least we would all 3 have items. Obviously that means that whatever I'm looking for is always gonna be in the last suitcase I look in of course. 


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Sakari decided she wanted to swim. Since it was a nice day out and the pool was heated, I figured why not.


I had a few hours of packing under my belt already and I wanted to enjoy this last day as much as possible

just like her so I met her out by the pool. 


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We had a friend show up (it was always landing on the fence and watching us during the entire week). 


 

Swimming with Sakari is never just a relaxing swim day. It's always full of games and anything we can make up. Sakari brought a rubbery fluid filled ball she won playing games at a place back home (you know, the games that you spend $100 on tokens and then the games spit out just enough tickets so that your child is able to get that .10¢ ball she wants) and it became a game of throwing it back and forth. Then her running and jumping into the pool while trying to catch it would be the next game. 


 


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Then we managed to find two ball catchers with the net on it. One handle was broken on one of them and the other had the net broke in places. So it became an interesting game trying to catch the ball. Sakari made sure that she would throw the ball at the perfect angle every so often...just to splash the water enough to get daddy wet, who was sitting on the sidelines watching us and being a party pooper not wanting to get in.


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Swimming went on for H O U R S !!!! She wore me out! Oh to be young and have all the energy in the world. 


 

After hours of fun, I decided to get out and make some sandwiches for lunch. We had some food we needed to use up before we leave tomorrow. 


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Then we were back at it again.


 

We actually swam most of the day away and not once did Sakari ever ask to go ride the go-carts. I figured she would want to go do something but I think she was just really wanting to use her private  pool  in the back yard. I mean after all, that's the reason I rented this house. I figured we'd get a lot of usage out of this. Maybe after a long day at the theme parks we'd come home and have a relaxing swim. But, it was always too cold in the evenings to swim. So, we only had a few days that we were actually able to use it. She was making the most of it today and making up for lost time!


 

Early evening was upon us and our swim session was over. She finally decided to get out and wanted to go play with her banshee and do some drawing. I swear I feel like she grew up over night. She's only 2" from being the same height as me and doing all the grown up things in life and able to ride any of the roller coasters we go on and do everything we do...but yet, sometimes it's hard to remember she is still a child at heart at times and wanted to play with a toy (banshee). I miss my little girl.


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The hubby decided to make dinner for his girls. We had a rough day of swimming and was worn out.


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I went outside to take pictures because the sky was so pretty tonight. I adventured out into the back yard beyond the pool to attempt some sunset/sky/palm tree pics.

The moon was full and bright as can be. It looked as though it had a streak from flying through the air. It was so pretty and neat.


 

I decided to call my animal sitter (who is basically family and is the mother of my oldest sons two boys and we love her to death) and she started telling me to look up at the sky. I told her I had been taking pictures of the beautiful sunset here and she told me about the alignment of Jupiter and Saturn. She said her grandmother lives in Florida and she can see it perfectly from her place. 


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I honestly had no clue what she was referring to and had to look it up:


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Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions happen every 20 years; the last one was in the year 2000. But these conjunctions aren’t all created equal. The 2020 great conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn will be the closest since 1623 and the closest observable since 1226! 2020’s extra-close Jupiter-Saturn conjunction won’t be matched again until the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction of March 15, 2080.


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Astronomers use the word conjunction to describe meetings of planets and other objects on our sky’s dome. They use the term great conjunction to describe meetings of Jupiter and Saturn, which are the two biggest worlds in our solar system. Though the two planets will appear spectacularly close together on the sky’s dome now, Jupiter and Saturn are actually 456 million miles (734 million km) apart. Saturn is nearly twice as far away as Jupiter.


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So I guess this was a really big deal! I had no clue and glad she told me about it. 


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I started trying to find it but didn't really know what I was looking for. I need a GPS for it! So, she told me that I needed to find the moon and then look right to it and I would see two very bright lights. They would either be so close together and look light a the brightest star or at least very close like two bright stars. 


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I ended up finding it and tried my best to get pictures of it with my Olympus point and shoot. At that point, I wished that I had my actual DSLR with my 300mm zoom lens. I told the sitter about my camera and was going to try to walk her threw the steps of setting it up to take a close up of the planets, but she ended up getting cloud cover within 10 minutes of being able to see it in Ohio. I also didn't realize that it disappears so quickly in the sky and goes down too far to be seen within no time.


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So, here's what I ended up with.


 

One last look at our pool for the night and it was time to head inside.


I headed inside to finish up my packing. We came here with 3 large suitcases and were leaving with 4 large suitcases...and I can guarantee they were ALL completely full. I was so worried about how to pack my new glass Mickey ears Christmas ornament to keep it from breaking. I would spend a few hours taking it out of the suitcase to just carry it with me on the plane to putting it back in. Back and forth. I really didn't want my $45+ ornament to get broken. Let's just say I stuffed the box it was in with tons of underwear and socks!


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I finished up the laundry for the house items and put them away so that the housekeeper wouldn't have to do them. I knew he was going to have a lot of cleaning to do with the areas we did not use and did not clean. 


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We didn't have an early flight the next day but we did have to be out by 10am. So shower and off to bed we went.



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