Surprise visits from family

Orlando is (as I am sure you are all aware) a big convention place for a lot of companies. When my mom and Jack left on Tuesday I was a bit sad to see them go. So God decided to cheer me up a bit! My Uncle Larry from Birmingham (my dad's brother) called me on Tuesday and said he was in town until Thursday for a work convention! I was so excited. We made plans to meet up with him on Wednesday at his hotel for some drinks and dinner. Kyle was in Tampa that day for work and his hotel was down in a place called Celebration, FL, only about 20 minutes from our house. We met my uncle at his hotel and had a great evening. We had some drinks and then headed to one of the many restaurants at the hotel for dinner. It was so nice to see him again. We had stayed with him and my Aunt Myra in B'ham on our drive from OK to Orlando and that was 8 months ago, and the last time we saw him. It is always so nice to catch up with family, especially ones you don't get to see too often. Loved getting to hang out with him!

On Thursday night we ventured to Universal for their annual Halloween Horror Nights at the park. It was so much fun! My friend from work, Jaya, had invited us to go with her group of friends who were going so there were 11 of us. The park had random people walking around to scare you and the houses we went in were pretty good. They have 8 haunted houses - all movies themes- and various shows around the park too. We made it to Saw, Wolfman, Leave it to Cleaver, and Frankenstein. The lines got pretty long, some were up to 190 minutes and it was a school night. We also caught one of the shows called Bill and Ted's Halloween adventure. Apparently they have it every year but they change the content. It was all based on current pop culture people so as you can imagine they had a Michael Jackson, Billy Mays, Edward and Bella, and a very funny Christian Bale when he went crazy on that light guy. Pretty entertaining. We didn't get home until 1:30 AM but it was worth it!

Then on Sunday, Kyle's cousin Jason was in town for a golf tournament and we got to meet up with him. Kyle's dad Gary has a twin brother named Larry and Jason is Larry's son. It was the first time I had met anyone from Gary's side of the family and I was really excited to get to meet him! Kyle hadn't seen him in 15 years so it was a very nice reunion. And he recently got married to an Angela, so there are now two Angela Payne's in the same family! I love it and can't wait to meet her. Jason is the assistant golf coach at the University of Georgia so we got to walk around Islesworth and watch them all play. Islesworth is a really prestigious community in Orlando and is where Tiger Woods (and many other pro golfers) lives and it's the course that he practices at. The course was beautiful and Kyle even said he would be so nervous if he ever got to play that course. We also met up with Jason that night and went to a Kerr's Winghouse (like a hooters, but classier...no not really) for some wings and beer. Jason and Angela have invited us to Athens, GA for the Georgia / Tennessee Tech football game next weekend and I hope we get to go. It is only about a 6 hour drive so I'm pretty sure we're going to take them up on their offer. And they are expecting a little sweet baby in April so we are excited for them! Thank you Jason for the passes to the tournament and we hope we get to see you soon!

Love,

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