Sorry it took so long to respond.  Thanks for taking the time to explain all of that, Adrian.   Your solution seems so...  so...  logical!  lol  I guess I was expecting to be able to use some magic piece of notation that would prevent my diagram from looking so 'flowchartish'.  Oh, well.  The way you explained how you'd do it is precisely how I would've done it with a normal old flowchart.  If that's the way it should be using an Activity diagram, then so be it. 

Thanks again, Adrian!