Disney Vacation: Animal Kingdom

OK, back to vacation. We will have been home one week tomorrow and I feel as if we went away 4 months ago. Thanksgiving was great, shopping at 5:15 Friday morning was great, my nap yesterday afternoon was great.....

Some people diss the Animal Kingdom because they don't think there is enough to do there or enough rides or something. We happen to love it! B is really into animals, especially giraffes, and DH and K love scary rides and Everest is one of the scariest of them all! My tip for AK is to get there right when it opens and ride the jungle safari ride. That is when you will see most of the animals because they have just been fed. Everest is the new ride at the park and it is roller coaster scary. I don't do rollercoasters. One night we ate at the AK Lodge which was beautiful and I guess during the day when it is not pitch black out you can see animals from all the windows!

A baby giraffe..
A baby elephant..
A large gorilla. Their fur turns gray at about 12 years of age. Tough to get old.
A magestic tiger.
B and a giraffe head. (So it was a little cold the morning we went!)
The tree of life that has hundreds of animals carved into it.
Why did Tinkerbelle land on Tiggers foot?
Because she didn't want to step on Pooh!
This was freaky tree lady. She was dressed like a tree/vine thing and was wrapping herself around this pole. Do you think they picked her out of a strip bar for her excellent pole work?
Rain ponchos a must for the white water rafting ride!!!
Everest in the background.
K with a friend from the petting zoo.

2 more parks to go. Nothing like dragging my vacation out for you!

Happy Turkey Day!

Before I roll into bed (literally- I ate way too much!), I just wanted to wish my friends and family Happy Thanksgiving! We had a great day and remembered that there was much to be thankful for in our lives.

Tomorrow it's off to help support "black Friday"! I LOVE bargains!!!!!!!!

Disney Vacation: Epcot

OK, so I have been back since Sunday night, but re-entry into the real world has thrown me. Our vacation was great! The weather in Florida was lovely for a hearty New Englander....mid 60's during the day, mid 40's at night. Not quite tank top weather, but my cheeks got color nonetheless. I wasn't sure how to post about the trip and include some of the 500 pictures I took, but I think I will go park by park....

We start with Epcot. Epcot is like 2 parks in one. There is a cool futuristic, learning side and the countries side. We did one half the afternoon we got there and the other half one afternoon after doing the Downtown Disney requisite shopping.

The parks were decked for Christmas....

Everyone has to have a photo (or 50) of the "ball". This ball actually has a really cool ride inside of it.B and I visited with Chip and Dale while DH and K were on Test Trak and almost throwing up on Mission to Mars.
Didn't take DH long to get into the vacation spirit. This is so out of character for DH that I thought the girls were going to wet their pants laughing! (Johnie Depp's Pirates of the Caribean hat, complete with hair).

I could return to France without traveling over the ocean. It is amazing how Disney pays attention to detail!
The Eiffel Tower, next to the Seine.
There are always street shows in Epcot. I have no idea how this guy kept catching bowls on his head.Can you guess? Yup, England with it's token red phone booths. (Of course having never seen a phone booth, the girls thought this was pretty cool.)
And yes, we did rent a wheelchair for the broken footed one. It did score us some line cutting, but only about 1/2 the time. Some times the wheel chair people had to wait in the wheel chair line. K did enjoy us moaning about our feet at the end of the day, though. Nice kid!

I missed you guys and will work hard at catching up, between laundry and baking, cooking and the family thing for Thanksgiving. Stay tuned!

Disney or Bust

Twas the day before departure,

And all through the house,

Bags, clothing, cameras

Excitement to see THE MOUSE.

The washer was going, the vacuum too,

A pile of homework to bring with, EWWW!

The children were jumping and bouncing off the wall,

"Where are my mouse ears, where is my shawl?"

While I stress about shoes and weather to come,

My husband relaxes and sits on his bum.

The dog is all clean and ready for doggie daycare,

Will she behave, will she eat, how will she fare?

Just one more day of school and activities after,

Then it's off on a plane to the land of much laughter.

As the temps drop here, I will get the 'to do list' done,

I will run here and there, to get to the land of the sun.

If I were Trump I would have hired a jet for you all,

With all of us there, we would have had a ball!

This trip, however, is just for us four,

Stay tuned, sit tight, I'll have stories galore!

The Mall, It's November, right?

Crazy Cape Cod Mall. When I popped in to go to Barnes and Noble last week, I noticed the Christmas decorations. 

Yesterday, after having my "girls" (and I mean the ones connected to me) aggressively manhandled by the mammography technician, I went to the mall. I went to look for birthday presents for B, my nephew and ideas for Christmas. And of course a little something for me to celebrate my squeezed boobies.

What I wasn't expecting to find was Santa and Christmas music playing in every store. Santa gave me a big wave, which was nice. He hasn't forgotten me or all the letters I have written to him over the years, but what was he doing so far away from home base before Thanksgiving? Call me old fashion, but I seriously don't think Santa should be at the mall until black Friday. The guy has a very busy month of December promoting Christmas. Can the elves be trusted to make all the toys in time? And who is checking "the list" twice? How is Mrs. Claus getting the turkey and it's fixins ready without the big guy? (Oh, wait a minute, women across the world manage quite well getting Thanksgiving dinner together without help from a big guy even when they are in the same room.)

I don't know if Santa or the Angels had anything to do with this, but I was wondering aimlessly around Macy's, actually looking for a dress for B that wouldn't make her look like a 9 year old Britney Spears, when I saw it. A very long, double sided rack of clothes, all sized correctly, separated by style and color with heavenly lights above it. The sign said, $9.99. with another 20% off. Seriously, I looked around to see if someone was videotaping me. There were beautiful things on this rack, that had never been marked down. I took 3 items over to the scanner because this was too good to be true, right? Nope, they all came up $9.99. 

It was a Christmas miracle.

Maybe it was a good thing Santa was in the mall yesterday.

Please know I joke about mammograms, but have had them since I was 29. They are very important for women's health and if you are 35 and haven't had one yet, go see what you are missing! The new digital ones are not as bad as the old fashioned cave man ones.

My Dream Date

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Disney

In a week we are headed to the Magical World of Disney!!!!

Are we excited? Yeah, just a little!!!!!

We have been to the 'world' a few times (OK, the girls have gone like 4 times already). We haven't been in 3 years though, so we are psyched!

Of course, for kicks, we have a kid with a broken foot this time, but we will not let her pain slow us down! Actually, her foot is doing pretty well and she only needs the boot for another month or so. We will be hooking up with a wheelchair or stroller for when she(or hubs-yeah right) gets tired.

So my question to my bloggy friends is "What is your greatest Disney tip?" Bring them on, I have a few myself, but would like to hear yours. We are staying at the Carribean Beach Resort on Disney property.

M-I-C K-E-Y Why? Because we love you! M-O-U-S-E!!!!!

Fall

This is the reason people don't come to Cape Cod to view the foliage.

Could my yard BE any more BROWN!!!???

Looked who popped into my picture taking frenzy this morning without being asked.....

Um, does someone need a little attention?

Good news

Amazing. 

Last night was simply amazing. No matter who you were voting for, yesterday was a day to remember. My sister in law and I worked a bake sale to support the school's jumprope team at the polling booth. It was absolutely amazing to see the amount of people that turned out to vote. Young and old, healthy and not so, men and women, every color and every size. The lines were out the door of the polling spot. Never before had I seen anything like it. It was inspiring! And then to have an African American win the presidency was just unbelievable. I kept wondering if Martin Luther King Jr. was jumping for joy in heaven.

Then came this morning when K woke up and her foot still hurt from stepping out of the car yesterday afternoon and hearing something "pop". Nothing swelled last night, nothing bruised, but she couldn't put weight on it. This morning, I didn't want to fool around and took her to the ER for xrays. Of course, this meant B came with us because she is pre-med in 4th grade. Her goal in life is to break something so she can get xrays and a cast. This was second best. 

We were there for 2 1/2 hours. K did have a small crack in her metatarsal bone. She did wind up getting crutches and a boot and an appt. with an orthopedic. The amazing thing was watching the ER staff and what they go through in a typical day.

These are ordinary people doing an extraordinary job. Ambulances came in every 15 minutes or so, one person had to be med flighted to Boston, many people had xrays. One older woman was dressed all up and had a broken wrist from a fall, but was joking with the EMTs. My girls learned that there is a special charcoal mixture that people have to drink when they take a lot of drugs and won't tell the staff what they were. We saw one man who had come in because he had been found on the sidewalk. One very older woman had an oxygen mask on. Then there was the code blue that came in with staff doing cpr on him to try to save his life. Unfortunately, despite their valiant efforts, this man lost his battle. I heard them time his death and saw the body bag. The girls did not know he didn't make it. They were busy praying for him and looking in the opposite direction so they couldn't see what I could see. 

We were in the hallway, because we were not an emergency and were just waiting to have K's xrays read. That is how we were in the midst of the hustle and bustle of the ER. 

It certainly made me give thanks for our simple problem and the energy and efforts of these ER people just "doing their job". 

Simply amazing.

Get Out And

Halloween

I know, you have all had enough with the Halloween thing. I know I have. I am happy to have enough candy now though to get me to Thanksgiving. Just wanted to share a few pictures from the night.
Please pardon the horrid lighting on this picture. B was a witch, not a mean witch, but a fashionable witch. K was dressed as her cousin C and earlier in the day, C was dressed as K. She had his tilt of the head and look down so well that her friends thought she was him! Until he showed up in pink pants!
Had to stop by Auntie KK's and Uncle Squishy's house, too!

I have to get my intravenous of candy hooked back up. Tootles!