John C Donahue.com

It was a busy weekend of Church, Baseball, Disney, Vacation Bible School, and spending time with my lovely bride.  Friday Sid and I got to spend the evening with a couple friends from our new life, Saturday we spent some time with each other, and Sunday we spent time with friends from our old life.  It was very therapeutic.

FRIDAY

• Tons of errands today – but one of the most important was to purchase a Ray’s shirt for Sid and myself.  We’re heading to a Rays game tonight!
• I even got the pleasure of having lunch with Sarah – we tried out the Zephyrhills LEGENDARY Mexican Cafe…Not great, but not bad.
• I came home and then cleaned up a little until Sarah-Irene came home.
• Our friends John and Karla Shelton picked us up and then we headed down to the ‘Trop’ to catch the Rays versus the A’s.
• GREAT GAME – the Rays won 6-0, but the best part was walking around Tropicana Field and seeing the amazing ways they have decorated and all the fun attractions they have for the kids and adults alike.
• One of the best attractions is the live rays tank.  We snapped some pics and video for friends and family…it was a ton of fun!

SATURDAY

• Saturday morning was set up for Vacation Bible School at Common Ground Tampa.
• Sarah was truly in her element as she helped Julie set up the stage and decorated the entire worship area for VBS.
• While Sid was working on decorations, I was finishing the multi-media for the weekend worship service.
• After we finished at church, we stopped by a couple of bookstores and picked up some research materials on Walt Disney World…of you can’t GO to Disney, you can READ about Disney….
• We grabbed a cat nap and then later on in the evening, I headed to a friend’s house to watch UFC 100 on Pay Per View – I was JAKKED for this event!
• It did not disappoint.  It was an amazing card, and it was packed with great fights, a few surprises and a few unbelievable moments!
• For the record – Lesnar needs to learn some manners.

SUNDAY

• Sunday turned into a much busier day than we had expected.
• In the morning, Sid and I headed in to Common Ground early to make sure everything was set for the morning.
• There was a few little flare-ups of attitude from a couple people, both of whom we didn’t see it coming, so Sid and I went to grab some breakfast for a cool down.
• The service went well, other than operator error, Danny knocked it out of the park (as usual) and the service ended well.
• Sid and I headed home to change and get stuff together for Downtown Disney.
• Sometime before we headed to Orlando, we realized that we had a rehearsal that we had to be back in Tampa for…at 8:30, which gave us JUST ENOUGH time to hang out, and get back…but it was going to be a LONG DAY.
• It rained pretty heavy for the first half of the trek, which put us about 10 minutes behind, as we were meeting friends, we didn’t want to be late, but I BENT the speed limit a bit and made up the lost time.
• We met up with Pam and Jim Fenoff, some friends from my old LifePoint days and strolled through the Disney Store and Trend-D, one of Sid and my favorites shops at DD.
• We decided on dinner and headed over.
• After we finished eating, we said our good-byes, and then Sid and I realized that had an extra 20 minutes to kill (I was trying to stay as close to Orlando as possible until the Shuttle took off at 7:13…which got scrubbed.
• But the extra time allowed me and Sarah to explore the Disney Complex.  We saw the Animal Kingdom Lodge, Disney Boardwalk, and the backs of EPCOT, Hollywood Studios, and Animal Kingdom.
• If you can’t GO to Disney, you DRIVE AROUND Disney…do I sound obsessed?
• We got back on the road and headed back to church.
• The Mission Trip kids got there 30 minutes AFTER Sid and I did for their sound check….YIKES.
• So when we got home at 10:30, the dogs were VERY HAPPY to have us home.

All in all, it was a great weekend, and a fitting one, because this was Sid’s last free weekend for a while.  I start my new job on July 20, and sometime later (much later) Sid will decide what she is going to do about her weekday and weekend job.  We’re going to try and create some time…it will be a challenge, but worth it.