Sleepover

Happy 7th anniversary to Kera and Chris. I'm especially excited because that meant Gwen got to have a sleepover at Grandma's! We ran some errands early on Saturday afternoon and ate an early dinner. My friend Renee invited us to join her family and some other guests in the box for the hockey game. Gwen was very excited and had quite a few interesting observations.

1. When I was here before to see the Doodlebops and Sesame Street Live, there wasn't any ice. Where did the ice come from? Hmm. Excellent question. The ice was there all along but covered by flooring?
2. Why are those boys fighting? Hockey's a rough game and when they slam into each other trying to get the puck, they get mad at each other.
3. Where are those bad boys going? What happens when you're a bad girl? I either have a time out or I get sent to my room. Exactly! Those bad boys are having a time out in separate rooms!

Gwen definitely enjoyed the bottomless chips and pretzles not to mention the yummy Hershey chocolates Renee provided in the box. I am also happy to see from these two pictures that Marie is still the favorite stuffed animal of the week!

On Sunday, Gwen wanted to feed the ducks and play on the computer. It was downright cold as we hustled our way down to the pond. For the first time I can remember, the pond was almost completely frozen over. The kids were playing hockey (without skates) and having a great time. As soon as the ducks saw us walking their way, they hopped out of what little water is still open and quacked their way over to what they seemed to know was a great sourdough bread meal. A good time was had not only by Gwen, but Grandpa too.

Frozen, we headed home to play on the computer. Gwen's site de jour was pbskids. I was sitting on the other side of the room on the other computer and she was happily click, click, clicking away when suddenly the printer started. I turned and asked, "Gwen, what are you printing?" "Sesame Street bookmarks." Yes, indeed, they were. After printing one in black and white, I let her print an Elmo bookmark in color. Later, she cut them out (doing a very good job too) and we added eyelets and she selected pretty ribbons to adorn them. They looked very pretty in her new book too!

She had us laughing like crazy when singing Do Your Ears Hang Low. Her voice was very quiet the first time so we told her to sing it loud enough to hear in China! Too funny!

Unfortunately, the weekend was all too short, and it was home for Gwen and back to work for us. We loved the sleepover though and can't wait for another.

Oh la la, Marie!

The last time Gwen spent the night, we rented the Aristocats. Gwen was quite taken by Marie, the little French girlie kitten. I picked up a Marie stuffed animal in France at Epcot and she is sooooooo soft and cuddly. Gwen's lovin' it!

happy Birthday, Sue!

When your birthday falls on a holiday, it just sucks. Born on New Years Day, my friend Sue never gets to really celebrate the day. Before Christmas though Renee, Sue and I set a date to go to the Melting Pot which just opened to belatedly celebrate her birthday. We had a reservation and a good thing too because the place was packed. Happy birthday Sue!

Poor Piggie

On Friday during our WDW trip, I noticed that my left big toe was really sore. It kept getting worse while we were there, and I was pretty sure that the nail was ingrown. I never had problems like this until right before Thanksgiving. Since it was the day before the holiday, the podiatrist just trimmed the nail, but he told me that once the nail starts to grow that way you nearly always have problems. So as soon as I got home, I made an appointment and had the nail surgery on Friday. Damn nail...poor piggie.

Sniff, Sniff, the Magic's Over

We had about a half day to spend in the Magic Kingdom before flying home on Wednesday. Again, arriving early enabled us to hit all the major stuff before Noon. The highlight for me was getting to see Tinkerbell, Iridessa, and Fawn. Tink gave me some pixie dust to use on the trip home so my wings didn't get so tired from flying such a long distance!

Sigh. The magic's over....until the next time!

Segway Through Epcot

When Renee and I were at Disney in September we signed up for the Segway tour in Epcot. This second time went a bit better. We arrived at the Park at 7:30 and you will probably never see a pic like this with no people swarmed around it!

Magic in the Magic Kingdom

The guys were going to the Space Center so Kim and I headed to the Magic Kingdom. We didn't do anything new or different at MK, but the park has so many old favorites that it's always a good time. We walked onto every single ride without much of a wait at all. That's my idea of a great day in the Park!

We rounded out the day with dinner at the Flying Fish on the Boardwalk. Another expensive, but very good place to eat.

Marathon Day at Epcot

Kim and I told the guys that we were not coming to any of their races. We lied. We did show up along the course as they ran through Epcot. Are we wonderful, or what?

Kim and I signed up to do the Behind the Seeds tour in the Land. It is a walking tour led by an intern that hits one of the laboratories and then goes through the stuff that you see from the boats. It's about a 45 minute tour and we really enjoyed it. Kim is holding a pumpkin that was placed in a Mickey mold.
I forget the name of this plant, but when you touched it, the fronds all closed up.

This is the start of a pineapple.


We finished up with our post-marathon dinner at Spoodles on the Boardwalk - another new place for us. Dinner was great and reasonably priced. We finished up the day with a bottle of Iron Horse Fairytale Cuvee which is only sold at Disney. Yummylicious.

Animal Kingdom

I'm starting to think that AK is my favorite park - except on a Saturday when it tends to be wall to wall people. But, on this particular Saturday it wasn't too bad. My philosophy on these parks is that you get up early to be at the park when the rope drops, hit everything you want to do before the crowds hit, and then get the heck outta there.

My cousin Memory joined Kim and I for the day. It's always a pleasure to spend time with her, although I know she's getting tired of coming to Disney to see me when she lives an hour away. Maybe next time she can get me out of the Park long enough to go visit her!

We hit all the major attractions we wanted to and had no lines. Everest, the Safari, Dinosaur, and Finding Nemo were all hit first thing. The guys, having finished their 1/2 marathon, joined us for lunch at the Yak & the Yetti. I hadn't eaten here before, but had heard good things. Because Kim and I had a big breakfast at Boma, we shared a steamer basket appetizer for 2 with dumplings and steamed pork buns. All very yummy, but I have to say, Renee & Jeff's steamed pork buns are way better.

The other new thing we did at AK was to stay for the parade. We went to see the Festival of the Lion King and then found a spot to wait for the 4:00 parade. It is very clever and I enjoyed it.

We finished up the day at Il Molina, an Italian restaurant at the Swan. It was way, way overpriced for what it was, but it offered the largest pasta selections for the pre-marathon dinner.

Disney Hollywood

We did a few different things on this trip and ate at a few different restaurants. I'll break this up into a few posts to make it easier to read.

On Friday, we met our neighbors, Deb and Loren, at Disney Hollywood. They actually extended their stay so that we would have a chance to experience the magic together! LOL! Deb will appreciate the fact that I'm not going to tell the world how she freaked on Tower of Terror.

We made a beeline for the new Toy Story Mania attraction - which is, of course, where everyone else was headed too. It's something like Buzz Lightyear in that you're shooting things, but this is set up more like individual shooting galleries which interact when you hit them. Very cool, and I loved the game motif, many of which I played with as a child and have enjoyed playing with Gwen.

One of the things I enjoy doing at WDW Hollywood is drawing a character with an imagineer. My artistic ability is seriously lacking, but it never fails to amaze me how easy they make it seem. Here's my version of Daisy Duck - not great, but much better than the Goofy I drew last time we were there!
Gwen - this one's for you! The new High School Musical 3 show seemed to be a big hit with the kids. We stopped for a few minutes so I could get a pic for Gwen who just loves HSM.

The parade has changed here, and call me old, but I really liked the old parade better. I think if you're a kid you might enjoy this, but I really missed seeing all the characters. It's basically a parade that makes two stops where entire parade is stretched out for quite a way. What you see is whatever singing and dancing is going on in front of you. In our case, it was just people, no characters. Each section is lead by an army guy (toy story) and our guy was pretty funny, but I really missed seeing all my favorite characters.

The guys wanted to go to the stunt show and we hadn't seen it for several years. I think everyone, including Matt, enjoyed it.

We finished up the day with dinner at Mama Melrose. We had never eaten there before. While the food was okay, the service was not. Our waiter was surly at best and we did let the manager know. All in all though, it was a great day.

Officially Goofy

We're back from Disney's 16th Annual Marathon Weekend. Brent and Matt Miller officially completed the Goofy and unofficially completed the Dopey. What the heck, you ask? The Goofy medal is awarded to those competitors who complete both the 1/2 marathon on Saturday and the full marathon on Sunday. Pretty goofy, huh? The Dopey is the unofficial name runners have given to those crazy enough to also run the 5k through the Animal Kingdom on Friday. Three days of running events through the various parks at Walt Disney World - a runners utopia! I'll post some better pics soon.

The Tender Bar

The Tender Bar is a memoir written by J.R. Moehringer. It's a coming of age book about a boy growing up for the most part without his father. As his mother struggles to support them, he searches for male role models and finds them in the patrons of the local bar. This book is well worth the read.

Word for 2009

Rather than New Years resolutions, Ali Edwards has been posting words that she tries to focus on for the new year. This year, she is pregnant with her second child (a girl!) and has chosen nurture as her word. I've done this for the past few years - with limited success - not unlike resolutions I suppose. One year I chose move. I started to go to yoga and resumed work with a trainer. One year I chose simplify - that one was pretty much a bust, although I did make some miniscule progress. This year, I've chosen forgive as my word. As someone who almost never held a grudge, I find I have some work to do here

Project 365

Creating Keepsakes offers a Kit of the Month (KOTM) that are typically created by some well known scrapbooking artist. I think I bought one by Ali Edwards last year. This year Becky Higgins created one entitled, "Project 365." It was realeased for sale yesterday.

The premise is that you take a picture each day. The page protectors are divided sheets and each 2-page layout makes up 1 week. So, at the end of the year, you have a representation of your entire year. I liked the divided pages and the journaling cards are pre-printed with designs so you can add your writing and just slip them into the slot. Very little actual scrapbooking to be done, but a good way to document a year. The picture below is one of Becky's completed pages. Pretty cool, and minimal effort. I'm liking that!


Purchasing the kit was very reminiscent of registering for CKU's in the old days. The system crashes, things don't show up right, and you end up wondering if you actually ordered the thing or not. Since I have a customer order number, I'm assuming (from the email I got) that it's ordered. Since my totals were displayed as "0", should I assume it was also free? Yeah, probably NOT! LOL!