Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Decorating For Fall

Seeing all the halloween decorations at Mickey's Halloween Party got me in the mood to put out my pumpkins. I made a monogrammed pumpkin and drilled holes in the other one. Here's a daytime shot.



I took these tonight. I carved a small hole in the back of each pumpkin and stuffed Christmas lights inside; I also wound the lights around the wreath under the top pumpkin.



:(

I tried uploading the video of the Halloween fireworks at Magic Kingdon to YouTube, but it was rejected because it is too long. I really wanted to show it to you guys....guess you'll just have to come visit if you want to see it.

Hope you guys enjoyed the vacation pictures!

Getting To Know Me

My friend Ann forwarded me this e-mail...I'm sure you've all gotten one of these at some time. I thought I'd post it with my answers just in case anyone is interested.

Welcome to the 2008 edition of getting to know your friends. Change all the answers so they apply to you, and then send this to your friends including the person who sent it to you. The theory is that you will learn a lot of little things about your friends that you might not have known!




1. What time did you get up this morning? around 7:30

2. Diamonds or pearls? diamonds for every day, pearls for special occasions

3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema? Hancock

4. What is your favorite TV show? What Not To Wear

5. What do you usually have for breakfast? protein shake

6. What is your middle name? Michelle until I got married, now it's Powell

7. What food do you dislike? Chinese

8.What is your favorite CD at the moment? any of Beck's music

9. What time is it right now? 4:15 pm

10. Favorite Sandwich ? PB&J

11. What characteristic do you despise? selfishness, sneakiness

12. Favorite item of clothing? jeans for casual, my LBD for dressy

13. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? Europe

14. Where would you retire to? Wherever Jon and Savy are

15. What was your most memorable birthday? 31st, because I was expecting Savy

17. Person you expect to send it back? I'm not sending to anyone

18. Morning person or a night person? Night

19. What is your shoe size? 8

20. Pets? 2 cats and 2 dogs

21. Any new and exciting news you'd like to share? Just got back from DisneyWorld

22. What did u want 2B when u you were little? Lawyer

23. How are you today? Glad to be home

24. What is your favorite flower? lillies

25. What is a day on the calendar you are looking forward to? Christmas

26. What are you listening to right now? Savy playing

27. What was the last thing that you ate? 100 calorie hostess snack

28. Do you wish on stars? All the time!

29. If you were a crayon, what color would you be? Sage green

30. How is the weather right now? lovely fall weather

31. Last person you spoke to on the phone? Rhonda

32. Favorite restaurant? Texas de Brazil

34. What was your favorite toy as a child? Barbies

35. Summer or winter? winter

36. Chocolate or vanilla? chocolate

37. Coffee or Tea? neither

38. Do you want your friends to email you back? I'm not sending e-mails, but they can leave me comments if they like!

39. When was the last time you cried? Friday night (from laughing so hard); I can't remember the last time I cried because I was sad

40. What is under your bed? flea powder

41. What did you do last night? laundry from vacation

42. What are you afraid of? 1. Losing those I love 2. zombies 3. Danny DeVito 4. I'm not really afraid of British children, but listening to them talk freaks me out

43. Salty or Sweet? salty

44. How many keys on your key ring? 4

45. How many years at your current job? close to 2 years working at home

46. Favorite day of the Week? Thursday

47. Do you make friends easily? not too easily...I'm cautious

48. How many people will you send this too? none, but everyone can read it here

49. How many will respond? na

50. Do you like finding out all this stuff about your friends? yes

Sunday, September 28, 2008

DisneyWorld Days 6 and 7

OK, this is going to read like the backwards episode of Seinfeld. If you want to read starting with day 1, go down and start at the post titled Day 1, 2, and 3.

We went back to Magic Kingdom on Thursday and saw Snow White and Jiminy Cricket as soon as we walked into the park.



Here we are in our teacup waiting for the ride to start. The teacups spin slowly, but you can make them spin faster by turning the wheel in the middle....Jon spun us so fast we got dizzy!


We rode the carousel over and over and over again....I think that's Savy's favorite.




Here we are riding It's A Small World for the second time. Savy spent the whole ride both times asking "what's that" over and over....constantly. Jon had answer duty first ride...I had to answer her for the second ride.


Savy had the best seat for every parade....Daddy's shoulders. She really liked all the parades and waved to all the characters.


Friday we went back to Epcot for lunch at the San Angel Inn...very, very good. I love this restaurant. It's inside the pyramid in Mexico (world showcase), and it's as if you are sitting in an open air restaurant under a starry sky.


We finished up the world showcase that afternoon. Savy loved Neptune's fountain....I think this is Italy.



Friday night, Ruth went back to the room early to rest. Jon, Savy and I ate dinner at Rose and Crown, a Pub in the UK (world showcase). After the meal, we went to their VIP area to watch Illuminations, the fireworks show for Epcot.

I almost forgot about this...it was so funny. Jon was at the concierge desk making preparations for our checkout Friday night, and Savy and I were waiting for him in the lobby. There is a tv with bleacher style seating there to keep the kiddies occupied. Savy was watching tv when this little boy...probably around 5 or 6 years old....came in and sat down on the other end of the bench to watch tv. Savy went and sat down right next to him...I mean so close to him that you couldn't slide a piece of dental floss between them. Then she said "Hey, big boy"....I'm serious, she actually said that! He looked at her...a little uncomfortable...and slid a couple of feet down the bench. She slid right back next to him and said it again...."Hey, big boy." They did this a couple more times, then he got up....and she followed him. He started running....and she chased him. She chased him around and around the lobby I don't know how many times. He finally stopped, out of breath, and said "Please!", but she kept coming after him. He ran again and she chased him again until his Mom came and took him away. It was so freakin hilarious....Jon and I laughed until tears were streaming down our faces! She is certainly not bashful!

We flew home Saturday. Savy was acting like a seasoned flyer on the trip home....she had her chips and drink, and was watching cartoons on Jon's ipod.


I thought this was a cute pic of Savy and Ruth before Jon took her home...they're watching hummingbirds at the feeder just outside the window.



We had a great time, but I'm so glad to be home! We've already made our reservations to go to Disney for next year around the same time. Next time we are staying at Port Orleans (a moderate resort). We stayed at the Boardwalk (luxury resort) on our honeymoon...this time we stayed at the All Star Music resort (value). We plan to stay at a different resort every time we go, but I doubt we'll ever stay at a value resort again. The resort itself was nice, and of course value resorts are the cheapest. But they also have the most kids and they are farther from the parks.

DisneyWorld Day 5

Wednesday was Animal Kingdom day. We ate lunch at Flame Tree Barbeque (an outdoor picnic-style restaurant) where Savy got us in trouble for feeding the ducks french-fries. After lunch we saw The Festival of the Lion King, one of my favorite shows. The photos don't do it justice.



We rode the Animal Kingdom equivalent of Dumbo...not such a long line for this one. There we are in the front and a little to the left...you can't see Savy, but I swear I wasn't riding this by myself.



We went on a safari. The vehicle moves pretty fast, so most of the pics were blurry...these were the best.

Mommy and baby giraffe



Mommy and baby elephant


Lion


Jon and I did the child-swap so we could ride Dinosaur and Expedition Everest. Ruth rode Dinosaur with us. We also saw the new Finding Nemo show....fantastic!

Here's a good pic of the tree of life.


We ate dinner at Tusker House in Africa after the safari. We saw Lilo and Stitch on our way out.

Disney Day 4

We went to Epcot Tuesday. We started out in FutureWorld. Savy loved The Seas With Nemo...it used to be The Living Seas, but it's been renovated and changed to a Finding Nemo theme. Here she is in the shark's mouth after the ride.



We rode Soarin', the new hang-gliding attraction....it's awesome! Not only do you have the visual sense of soaring over the landscape, but there is wind blowing through your hair and they even introduce different scents with the changing scenery. It is very realistic!

We visited a couple of countries in the World Showcase in the afternoon. Here are Jimmy and Savy in a shop in Norway.



When we were at Epcot during our honeymoon, Jon and I did the "Leave a Legacy" thing where they engrave your image on a plaque and mount it on these structures at the park entrance. There are many, many plaques, and the images are quite small. We had one of the cast members look up our location in the directory, and we found ours!

This is a view of the area just inside the entrance,


This is the one we're mounted on,


And here we are! Can you pick us out?


Tuesday night, Jon, Savy, and I went to Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party. Here she is in costume before we left the resort. She wound up wearing a T-shirt under her costume because it was scratchy around the waist and arms.





They closed Magic Kingdom early Tuesday afternoon and redecorated the park for Halloween...it reopened from 7pm til midnight for the party. I don't know how they did it in so little time, but they even changed out the plants and the statues!







We had dinner at Liberty Tree Tavern where Savy met Minnie, Goofy, Pluto, and Chip & Dale...all in proper Halloween attire of course!





Here she is whistling for Chip...she couldn't wait for him to get to the table.


She wanted to squeeze his nose over and over. Just in case anyone is wondering how to tell Chip and Dale apart, Chip has 2 teeth and a brown nose that looks like a chocolate chip...Dale has 1 tooth and a smaller black nose.


He squeezed her nose right back!


She gave him a high-five


and kissed his nose.



The cast members were all over the park giving out candy, so this was technically her first trick or treat experience...she thinks trick or treating is a brilliant idea. We picked up a Mickey bag at the resort for her candy.



Since the Halloween Party is an extra charge and not open to everyone, the park was not crowded at all. We rode Aladdin's Magic Carpets back to back without even having to get off the ride!


And when we got finished with that, Aladdin and Jasmine were waiting for us!


The Headless Horseman was riding through the park, but he was too fast for us to get a picture. There was a special Halloween parade that was awesome.



Dancing ghosts


These ghouls were dancing with shovels...they were hitting and dragging them on the pavement so hard that sparks were flying.



The whole park looked different...even the lighting on Cinderella's castle was different. There was spooky music playing all night.




There was also a special Halloween fireworks show instead of the usual wishes fireworks....it was incredible! I got it on video and will post the video if I'm able. It's so long that I might not be able to download it to youtube...I'll try soon.

I enjoyed everything we did on the trip, but the Halloween Party was by far my favorite!