Saturday 30 June 2012

Discovering our Own Backyard!

REPOSTED from the i.seekissimmee.com website...

Hi there! My name is Audra Smith and I’m excited to take you along on our travels this week with i.seekissimmee.com! While I’ve grown up in the area, I’ve had the opportunity to travel & study abroad and even better, blog about my travels. Despite having lived in a variety of states and countries over the years, I consider myself to be a local and Kissimmee is my hometown. I’ve had lots of opportunities to visit the major theme parks and water parks – but now as I vacation with my family, I find myself looking at some of the local attractions that aren’t always right on the radar. Not to totally discount the fun that can be had at the larger theme parks, we plan on visiting a family favorite of ours… Sea World! For the rest of the week we intend to take on Central Florida [and by “we” I mean my husband, 2 daughters, and 3 nieces] to enjoy some of the area’s other charms with a brief excursion to visit Florida's "Oldest City" - St. Augustine.
"...join us as we explore our “backyard” and share our journeys for both locals and tourists alike!"
In preparation for our trip, I’ve had the chance to work with some fantastic people who have helped to facilitate some of our outings. We are truly looking forward to a wonderful week of fun-filled adventures with the family. Just a glimpse of where our travels will take us: a day at the WhirlyDome, dinner and a mystery at Sleuth’s Dinner Show, soaking up the sun at the Cypress Springs Family Fun Water Park and a luxurious nights' stay at the Gaylord Palms Hotel! To top it all off, we have a special occasion (our 1st Anniversary!) and we get to enjoy Independence Day with Kissimmee’s Monumental July 4th Celebration! That’s not all of our adventure, we’ll be sure to keep you posted on the rest of the fun! Keep checking back and join us as we explore our “backyard” and share our journeys for both locals and tourists alike!


Wednesday 20 June 2012

i.seekissimmee.com

So there's nothing better than being able to travel and to get a little moolah back for your time! It's not like I don't chronicle everything we do already (see facebook addicts anonymous) as I've already been told that a status "update" should not consist of a formal paragraph. Pffft! In any event, in the normal NO DRAMA LLAMA ALLOWED posts that I put on fb, I figure I've essentially blogged... so why update here? I know, I'm lazy!

But I digress... Roll back to when I see a post from my friend Jen, author of The Little Black Rain Cloud [blog], about the opportunity to blog for the VisitKissimmee website and get paid for it! I jumped at the opportunity and rush-rush-rushed to fill out the application. Imagine my excitement when I was selected as a guest blogger! Fast forward to um, right about NOW! Our week that we selected was the first week in July! Mind you, when I first applied, I kinda sorta forgot that I was pregnant and that my nieces were going to be with us for the summer. Oh yeah, and that it was Kevin and I's 1st anniversary. So now, we are going to begin our journey - where I've committed to sitting down and chronicling our adventures for locals and visitors alike! Because we live in Kissimmee, we get to go visiting outside of the immediate Central Florida area - which is exciting, since Kevin and I absolutely wanted to celebrate our anniversary in St. Augustine. But as a local, I felt compelled to share some of the other attractions (aside from Disney and Universal Studios) and also introduce our daughters to all this fun! I'm hoping that this initiative will give me enough motivation to keep on blogging. Mostly it's going to be about traveling - but that whole "life in between" means I get to brag, blabber and b!%$@ a little along the way! For now, I'm just looking forward to getting a "forced" vacation with my family! You can check us out on the i.seekissimmee.com website as well (Note - Those posts will be these posts!)

Friday 15 June 2012

Welcome to the La-La-La Lily Pad

Some background.... I'm a traveler! I've got the wanderlust bug! - and I love to go to new and interesting places. In the past, I would just MOVE wherever I wanted to see... but marriage and children have started to settle me down (except for when I encourage the wanderlust bug with my daughters!) and now we simply VISIT these places. At one point I even went to school somewhere as an opportunity to go somewhere new... check out my blog from my study abroad in the UK: Audfrogg Across the Pond It certainly doesn't anchor us to one particular area - as we've been known to go exploring in our own backyard... or visiting friends and family from here to beyond...so basically, we just hop from one pad to another!
"I've got the wanderlust bug!"