Groszkiewicz Diary: Entry Six

Sorry this took so long. The end of the school year brings lots of activities. Where were we...

Saturday (April 5, 2003)

We made the mistake of heading down the beach road through Panama City Beach. We hoped to see the ocean but mostly saw hotels and thousands of college students on spring break. We did manage to find the Wal-Mart (for CDs) and a dollar store (for souvenirs). The dollar stores were suggested by locals who said we would find everything there we could find elsewhere but at better prices. :)

After making our purchases we cruised back to the Watercolor Inn for lunch. Boxed lunches were provided and we decided to eat ours on the balcony of our room. After lunch we walked down to Seaside to try and find some painted bottles Karen saw. After searching nearly every store we found a lot of neat things but not the bottles Karen was looking for. A walk along the beach brought us back to the inn with the things we did purchase. The walk also left us sun burned on one side and almost "snow blind" from the sun reflecting off the water and white sands.

We talked to the people at the front desk who gave us directions to a shop about nine miles away where we could find the painted bottles. Going up to our room to drop off our purchases we made the mistake of sitting on the bed. Three hours later we woke up just in time to get ready for dinner.

We got to have dinner with the President of the Scripps Networks. What an honor! Ed Spray is a down-to-earth person. We spent a lot of time talking about our families and he asked us what Scripps could do to make the Dream Home Weekend better for next year's winner. The buffet consisted of two big tables of seafood, two more tables of chicken and meat dishes and a big table of desserts. We had so much fantastic food over the weekend it is hard to remember what was served at individual meals.

At 10:00 p.m. the party was forced to move indoors. There is a noise ordinance so the band had to shut down and we moved inside with a live DJ. It was at this time the party started kicking into high gear. We're not sure what time we left the party. All I know is that when we requested a wake-up call we were far down on a long list.

Sunday (April 6, 2003)

The wake-up call came all too early. After getting dressed and packed we headed out for breakfast. We got to the front desk to find out our limo was there to take us to the airport. It seems the driver forgot to set his clock back for the time change. ;) At least we had time for breakfast and I'm glad we did. The breakfast buffet included fillet mignon, shrimp, bacon, eggs, pastries and two or three tables of other stuff.

The ride to the airport was bittersweet. We were glad to be heading back to Pennsylvania to the kids, but sad that we were leaving Florida behind. Dream Weekend was all too short.

We met some "old friends" at the airport. The two couples from the Lions Club that flew with us from Orlando to Panama City would be flying back with us. After some final farewells to some HGTV people who had flights at the same time, we were off...

Entry One
Entry Two
Entry Three
Entry Four
Entry Five
Final Entry