Stranded

Chris: The fun came to an end in Florida and the road trip continued to Gulfport, Mississippi. Gulfport is where I spent 3 weeks back in the summer of 2006 rebuilding after Katrina. The area has changed so much but the damage past is still recognizable in the trees especially. We stayed at a hotel off highway 49 and after a drive around and some dinner, got a good night's sleep.

After breakfast at Waffle House and Krispy Kreme, we set off towards Houston, Texas. We'd been driving for an hour and a half before we needed gas so we pulled off highway 12 in Livingston, LA which is where the festivities began.

It had been raining nonstop since we left Gulfport so the roads were extremely wet and slippery. At the end of the exit ramp, the car went into a skid and spun. On the shoulder, the gravel gave us some traction so we started to recover. It all started to go wrong when the car drove over an old tire. We lost control again and ended up in the ditch. An old, down, rotten tree was there to greet us. It hit the front passenger corner and busted the radiator. All other damage was purely cosmetic.

A car came by to see how we were and told us that his friend had a tow truck so a call was placed and my car was out of the ditch in no time. I placed a call to my sister in Houston and she agreed to drive the 5 hours to pick us up. While we were waiting, the tow truck driver took us to the fish fry he and his family were going to. It felt like the beginning to a bad horror movie but we went anyways. The food was FANTASTIC. We had fried catfish, fried corn, homemade hush puppies, homemade fries and good old fashioned Natty light. We did Louisiana right. After the fry, we went back to the tow truck driver's house and Margaret came to pick us up. The drive to Houston was uneventful and the fun continues.

Emma: Margaret had Monday and Tuesday off so we spent those day with her exploring a park downtown and helping put together the study. We've also introduced Chris to Doctor Who and are currently 3/4 of the way through series 1. Other than that there's not much to report other than the fact that the car repairs will take until the end of next week so our visit to Houston is extended from 2 days to 2 weeks! Hooray for extended visits, not so hooray for only 3 weeks in VA between the time we get and the time we move to Swansea =/

As always, pictures are on facebook

Fun in Florida

Chris: Ok I'll start this post with an apology. We have been in Orlando Florida for the past 2 weeks and haven't posted at all. Our days have started very early, ended very late and after long hot days at Parks, blogging is the last thing on our minds.

So the past 14 days have been filled with the following parks and activities:

Magic Kingdom

Animal Kingdom

Epcot

Hollywood Studios

Downtown Disney/Disney Quest

Typhoon Lagoon

Universal Studios

Islands of Adventure

SeaWorld

Eating and Sleeping (optional)

Visiting my grandmother in Hollywood, Florida

Lounging by the pool at the house

Emma: And so now we're sitting by the pool watching my parents play with noodles like 5-year-olds. As soon as I'm done with this we'll probably go and join in. It has been very very very very hot and I'm not sorry that the majority of our previous holidays here have been in October. We've been fairly lucky with storms and after almost constant rain on our first 2 days, we've got away with only 1 really heavy downpour with crazy strong winds yesterday in which the bins that were by the curb having been emptied decided to go on an adventure down the street. Dad decided to go and collect them and after 30 seconds came in looking like he'd jumped in the pool fully clothed.

I've had a lot of fun showing Chris all the stuff we used to do here when we were little as he barely remembers either of his previous trips to Disney and whilst I haven't been able to do too many rides with him, I've had fun being able to talk to him about them afterwards.

With the weeks passing and the time for our move coming ever closer, our hunt for somewhere to live continues and whilst we're thankful that Swansea is one of the most affordable places to live for a student, we haven't had any luck so far but we'll keep trying and something is bound to come up soon.

Now looking forward to our long days of driving and listening to Harry Potter audio books to keep ourselves entertained on our way to Houston and then back to Virginia.

For pictures of our Florida adventures, see Facebook (once we get around to uploading some)

And now for noodle-y fun...

Celebration in Savannah

Last night we set alarms for 4am in order the get on the road at 6am. We woke up at 7:20am having slept through all of our alarms and decided better late than never. With a brief stop at Starbucks, we were on 95 south by 8:30. Traffic was really bad until we hit Fredricksburg but was pretty smooth after that. The whole drive was uneventful with only 2 stops, one for food and one for gas.

We rolled into Savannah at 6pm, checked into the hotel and went for dinner at Cracker Barrel. The exciting part happened after we got back to the hotel. I checked my email and saw one from UCAS (the UK university application website) saying the status of my application changed. Guess what it was?

I GOT IN!!!

Now all I have to do is decide which of the 3 programs I was offered I want to accept.

Tomorrow we drive the remaining 5 hours to Orlando to start 2 weeks of fun. More to come from while we're there... If we can find internet!