Disney Trip Report, Day 2

10.21.07

Our day at Universal. We started off in the Studios side, and headed straight back to check out the wait for "The Mummy." It said only 10 minutes, so Mark and I went in while Mom, Dad and Ken waited outside. It actually took longer, probably around half an hour by the time we got out of there. It still wasn't that bad, but we only got to ride once. Still a good ride, great special effects. Next, we went on "Jaws" and then Mark, Dad and I went on "Men In Black." We walked around the park, checked out the "Kwik-E-Mart" store with the Simpsons stuff (they're building a new Simpsons ride), even got a picture with Homer and Marge. Had lunch at Mel's Drive-In. And last but not least, saw "Shrek 4-D."

Then we headed over to Islands of Adventure. Mark and I were able to ride "The Hulk" right away, less than a 10 minute wait, which was great. Ken, Mark, Dad and I went on Dr. Doom's Fear Fall, and then Ken, Mark and I went on "Spider Man." Just after we got off that, the rain came. It poured for a little bit and we got the ponchos out. When it lightened up enough (and even eventually stopped) we started making our circle around the park. We were in Toon Lagoon and getting the people on "Bluto's Barges" wet with the water sprays and Mark and I decided we'd go on the water ride too, but they shut the ride down just as we were going to go on because of lightning in the area. Bummer. :( So we started walking again, and next ride we came upon "Jurassic Park" was closed too. We thought then we'd catch the Sinbad show, but that was cancelled too. So next was "Poseidon's Fury" and that was actually open! The last few times we've visited it's been closed and Mark had never seen it, so Mark finally got to see it this trip. When it came to exit, it was pouring again!! The downpour didn't last too long, and when it lightened up enough, we walked through Dr. Suess towards the front again. Mark, Ken and I rode "Spider Man" one more time before we headed out of the park and into Citywalk.

Dinner was at Bubba Gump, where we were hoping there wouldn't be too long of a wait. We were really surprised when they told us it would only be a 5-10 minute wait. It didn't even take that! It was a really good dinner, and we had a really nice waitress who took good care of us. That was a fun dinner. Mom and Ken had fish & chips, Mar and Dad had bourbon mahi mahi and I had coconut fried shrimp. Yummm... Did some shopping afterwards at the store there (I got a sweatshirt and a glass, Mark got a t-shirt, and Ken got a t-shirt too) and then at Margaritaville (Ken and Dad both got t-shirts here).

Headed back to Saratoga Springs after all that, and Mark and I decided to take a walk over to Downtown Disney. I'd say it took us about 15-20 minutes to get over there. The longest part was just walking through the hotel grounds to get to the walkway by the lake. Once you got to the edge of the resort, it was a quick walk over a bridge and you were right by the entrance by the scrapbook store (my favorite!). We had time enough to the check out that store, the Team Disney store and the World of Disney store. We caught the last boat of the night (11:00pm) at the dock there to take us back to Saratoga Springs. It was a nice boat ride, and it was a quick walk back to our room where the boat dropped us off.

Day 3 coming up: Disney-MGM Studios, Chef Mickey's and extra magic hours at the Magic Kingdom.

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.