Disney Trip Report, Day 1

10.20.07

We arrived in Orlando around 11am from our 9am flight and went right to Saratoga Springs to check-in. Our room wasn't ready, so we got a bite to eat there at Artist's Palette and then went to Winn-Dixie for some grocery shopping. We dropped the groceries off in our now-ready 2 bedroom villa (ground floor, right by the parking lot - nice), and rested a little. Mom and Dad made use of the patio and while they were sitting out there, a few ducks stopped by to see if they had any goodies for them. We then went to church and stopped at the outlet mall to check out the Character Premiere store. Didn't find anything there this trip, though. Stopped at BW-3 afterwards to pick up some take-out for dinner. The Indians playoff game vs. the Red Sox (game 6) was on and we started watching it, but it wasn't going well, so we turned it off and decided to get some sleep. (I was going on about 3 hours sleep after making Mark's t-shirts, packing and cleaning the house in case somebody might actually want to see it while we were away - house still up for sale).

Day 2 coming up: Universal Studios, Islands of Adventure and Bubba Gump.

Busy, busy weekend

After a busy weekend, it's time to go to work tomorrow. Yuck. But here's all the good stuff we did the last 4 days!

Thursday night we got to go to Game 1 of the division series: Indians vs Yankees. What a game and a way to start the series. Tribe won 12-3! It was pretty close at 4-3 with the Tribe in front, but in the 5th inning they broke it open by scoring 5 more runs. Whew! Dad was lucky to go to the 2nd game on Friday night where they won 2-1 in 11 innings! What a nail-biter, but so exciting.

Friday night Mark and I went to the Maroon 5 concert at the Q, which was awesome. The Indians game was going on at the same time and they showed it on the screens next to the stage. We got to see Travis Hafner's game winning single in the 11th and they waited to start the concert until right after the game was over. I really liked the concert, and wished it could have lasted longer.

Saturday Mark, Mom, Dad and I went to Toledo for Homecoming and to see the football game. UT played Liberty and won (barely) 35-34. We hit the bookstore beforehand for some UT gear and stopped at the alumni tent for some free food (hot dogs and chips) before heading over to the Glass Bowl to watch the game.

Sunday we went to Kim and Chris's after church to see their new house (beautiful!) and their daughter Catherine is almost 2 already! They even went to the zoo with us for a few hours, but they left a little early. It was so hot that day in the 80's. Never expected to spend a weekend in October in shorts and t-shirts. The last few times we've went to Toledo for Homecoming, we've had to wear our thermals and gloves and sweaters!

Happy You and Me Day!

Happy 4th Anniversary honey!

Magic Number: 3

It's Tribe time now!

Mark and I were able to go to two Indians games this past week. Last Friday, I met Chris down there and Mark went to the same game with Dad and Ken. And Tuesday, Mark surprised me by going all the way downtown to the team shop to get a hat for me that I liked. While he was down there, he picked up tickets for that evening's game. Well Friday night they won, with a walkoff home by Casey Blake in the 9th. And on Tuesday they won 7-4 against Detroit! They won again last night, so now the magic number is 3. That close to winning the division title! Ken was even able to get some tickets for the division playoffs, so Mark and I will be going to either game 1 or game 2 at Jacobs Field.

GO TRIBE!

My silly dream

I have to share the funny dream I had the other morning. I woke up about an hour and a half before I actually had to get up, so I stayed in bed hoping to be able to fall back alseep. And as usual, I started to fall back asleep just before it's time for the alarm clock to go off. This is usually when I have my strangest dreams.

So yesterday, Thursday morning, I dreamed that Mark and I had found two kittens (that looked like Tracey's cats). We were just going to leave them be, but they had collars and tags on them and we decided we should try to find their owners. We let them stay upstairs in the bedroom and they slept on the bed. We left and when we came back upstairs to the bedroom, there were now four cats, instead of two (Never did figure that one out). Now this is the funny part, all the kittens were wearing Harry Potter glasses, just looking at us.

That was my strange dream, that I actually remembered! Usually I can't remember my dreams after I wake up. But this one I did, for some reason. Makes me snicker just thinking about those cats wearing those glasses. :) I guess they would have looked like the picture above, just with rounder glasses. (The picture is from drawfluffy.com)

House for sale...

Finally! We put our house up for sale at the beginning of July. When I first saw that sign out there, I had mixed feelings. Happy to finally have that sign out there after wanting to move for the last year and working on the house to get it ready, but sad too because this is our house. My first house as a homeowner, and the one Mark and I have made our own since getting married and adding Rascal to our family. It's been 6 years already since I bought it in June of 2001.

Well, it's been a month and a half and only ONE person has come to look at it. Two other people have called on it, but only one appointment to see it. It's rather depressing. The market is really ugly right now. We've been out looking at houses, but really can't do anything until we get some interest in ours.

Mom bought us a St. Joseph statue which we buried in the front yard last weekend. Hopefully he'll hear our prayers and bring us some good news soon. The holidays will be here before we know it and we may have to wait until next year being that the holiday season is usually a slow time for home buying. We didn't want it to take this long, but we'll just have to hang in there and believe that things happen for a reason and it'll happen when it's time.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Another birthday come and gone. This year was the big 3-4. I'm almost halfway through my 30's already? How is that possible? Even though the actual day of my birthday was extremely busy, I had fun celebrating this past weekend. Friday night Mark took me out to dinner at the Willoughby Brewing Company (we always have a good meal there: pretzels for appetizers; pretzel chicken for dinner, Mark had a steak hoagie, and of course a pitcher of Railway Razz to wash all that down). Then we went to the movies to see "Knocked Up", which we both liked. Very funny.

Saturday night we went to dinner at California Pizza Kitchen in Legacy Village with Mom, Dad, Ken. Jason and Amy met us there too! It was a lot of fun, we had a great dinner, and walked around afterwards, checking out some of the shops. I was so glad Jason and Amy came, it had been a while since we've seen them. It's so hard with our busy schedules to find time that we can get together.

Today on my actual birthday, I had to work. :( And boy was it hectic. I didn't even get out until almost 7:00. Mark worked really early too (5am-3pm) and then came home and baked my cake and made dinner and got everything ready. Mom, Dad and Ken came over for cake and brought some presents too. So it was a really busy day, but overall I had a great birthday thanks to my husband, family, and friends.

What else did we do this weekend? Sunday (Father's Day) we went to church and out to breakfast with my parents and Ken. Then we went to Tracey's for a cookout and the boys went swimming. And Sunday evening, we went to Nautica to see our most favorite band in concert again: The Barenaked Ladies!! Always love them. We see every concert when they come to town, and we can't wait to see them again!