vacation Sunday: Epcot

Epcot day!  

I don't completely remember why I took this picture.  Joshua was having a hard time waking up, and he is usually the person that wakes up the most easily.

We had breakfast at the Garden Grille, a tradition when we're at Epcot.  They had a new menu item this time - steak bits.  I thought they were pretty good, but Ben really liked them.  I probably enjoyed the cinnamon rolls the most.

After the Living off the Land boat tour, we had a short amount of extra time before our next activity, which was in the same building.  We went to see the awesome planet movie, which Cheryl said she had never done before!  It's nice to find something new for her too.

After Soarin', we went back outside.  Cheryl's leg wasn't feeling great, so Isaac and I fought over who would get to push her.  I really like this picture because Isaac is trying to smile, but his eyes are trying to look forwards...as they should.

Every trip Isaac and I take a picture under the Epcot ball.  I enjoy this series of pictures because Joshua photo-bombed us while asking what we were doing.

I just looked at the other two pictures.  Isaac has grown up just a little bit!!  The kids don't sit by themselves all that often on rides, so we put them together for this one.  They told me all about the choices they made for the future after the ride!

The new test track was next.  It felt like just another work day for Ben.

Lunch time!  It was festival of the arts right now, with a bunch of little kiosks and small portions of food.  For lunch we found a grilled cheese and tomato soup and it was delicious.  Cheryl wanted a picture of the special cans that held the tomato soup, but my first try...looked like it had an extra O in the middle.

Guardians was up next, and everyone was looking forward to it.  

That was the end of the big rides.  We did several other smaller things for the next few hours.

Joshua's expressions in these are cute.  I think the first one is afraid and the second is scared.

We explored the Moana interactive water features.  They were fun.  It wasn't a hot day, but I can imagine that they are an especially lovely break when it is hot.

Then we went into the World Festival to slowly eat dinner at the kiosks and make our way home.  Joshua wanted a picture in each different country, and I wasn't about to say no.

Mexico:

Norway.  We got some delicious donut like things here.

China: we were thinking about getting some food here, but the line was rather long so we decided to keep going.

? We were going around the circle but even looking at a map I'm not sure.  Maybe Chine from the other direction?

A call-out to African nations.

Germany.  We got several foods here, and went back for seconds.  I was in charge of standing in line, so Isaac had to take Joshua's picture this time.

Italy:

USA:

Japan

Morocco: we had some really good food here too.  I think the "real" food was too spicy for me, but the dessert was amazing.  We also learned that Isaac doesn't like jiggly foods much.  He'll eat them, and sometimes enjoy them, but the idea of them is not appealing.

France: The plan hadn't been to stop at France, but I needed a bit more non-sweet food.  I'm so glad we stopped!  The cheese in a bread bowl was delicious and they had an orange chocolate dessert that was heavenly.  The line was rather long so we didn't get seconds, but I easily could have.

After France it was the turn off to go back to our hotel.  Everyone was pretty tired, so we just called it a night.  Sort of.  Joshua was interested in seeing the fireworks, so after a nap the two of us came back out to watch them.  We found a nice place to sit while waiting and then a good place to stand at the fence.  It was a little bit off the beaten path, so not too busy.   It was fun to go back out with him.

...and then we crashed.

Sunday: Great Grandma

Great-Grandma isn't doing well.  We stopped by for a bit and she realized we were there, but she was somewhat in and out of it due to pain medications.

Saturday: baked potato

Yesterday while in the car, Isaac's friend asked him what he had for lunch.  Isaac started listing the leftovers: a small piece of pizza, a 1/4 baked potato, and some potato cubes.  The friend responded that it was a lot of potatoes.  Isaac responded affirmatively.

So imagine my surprise when I found the baked potato in the microwave.  When queried Isaac this morning about the potato he just looked at me like...what about it?

I understand forgetting it there because I turned off the microwave beep, but completely forgetting that you actually ate it after several conversations?  It cracked me up.

We also went to see a Middle School production of "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe."  It was very well done and we were glad that we could support our friend.  At my request, Joshua made a LEGO flower to give him.

Friday: no school

The kids didn't have school today so we just had a nice day that almost felt like a Saturday.  Some work, some play.  Isaac and a friend went rock climbing and then came to our house for a little bit.

Joshua decided not to end reading time at the end of the day.  Phew.

Thursday: half days

The kids had a half day of school today.  Isaac also had his math class in the afternoon.

Isaac also managed to convince Ben that since he had math class in the afternoon, he shouldn't have to go to school in the morning.  

So I brought Joshua to school in the morning, and then picked him up after my first class.  We all ate lunch at home, then Isaac and I went to Hope for our afternoon classes.

The half day really broke up my day.  Normally this wouldn't be a problem, but there were a few extra things I needed to deal with today.  Although I managed to get many things done, I'll need to do a little bit of work this weekend to finish up the important items for Tuesday.

Wednesday: boring day

It was my boring day.  I started the laundry.  I got more cat litter.  I got groceries.  I stopped by the library.  By this time it was almost lunch - so I put away the groceries and then had lunch and a nap.

I did a few other miscellaneous chores when I woke up and picked up Isaac.  A half hour later I went to pick up Joshua.  I made dinner and went to karate.

I may have had my last evening reading time with Joshua.  He said he wants to be done with book time and we'll see if that sticks or not.

I won at Azul tonight by two points.  Isaac was trying to be mean in the last round, as appropriate, but didn't spend all the time to fully understand my board and made the wrong choice as he was trying to be mean so I got more points than he was expecting.

Tuesday: computer programs

Moodle was finally up again this morning.  CIT has done a nice job keeping me informed...it was mostly fixed yesterday around noon but they wanted to wait until this morning.  They had a good reason that I didn't completely catch.  

I also needed to put midterm grades in today - my computer in my office won't connect to the system.  This is the second this has happened, so I guess I need to put a ticket in to CIT.  I give them so many tickets.  At least most of them are low priority.  I can reach the system from home, so it's an easy temporary fix at least.

Monday: county country

Ok, who in the world made the two words 'country' and 'county' both look so similar and be used in similar contexts?  It's the worst.

I was signing Isaac up for high school next year and got to the field to fill in the county.  Ok.  I, as always, have to pause, think about if there is an r in the field.  Then, once I figure out there isn't, I put in the county.  But I have to pause every single time there is a county.  

Oddly enough, if I have to fill in a country it usually isn't a problem.

I found a good picture of Isaac on the third route from the competition.  I didn't get a picture of him this far through the route.

Saturday: Scrapyard QE

Scrapyard's rock climbing for USAC was today!  It was amazing to wake up in our own home and only need to travel 10 minutes to get to the competition.

Isaac competed in the morning and the routes were hard.  It started with a pink route.  I think one person finished this route the whole morning.  It didn't go all that well for Isaac, but honestly, we expected that.  Even the demo video for the route looked really hard.

Next was a red route.  We thought this route might be possible, but when it was seen in person we changed our minds.  There was an outcropping that was very difficult to get around and then it was slippery to get up to the next point value.  Isaac didn't get any points on this one either.

Next was a black route.  This one looked hard...hmm, I'm saying that a lot...but Isaac got to the 5 point hold!  We weren't really expecting that, but he figured it out near the end of his time.

Lastly was the yellow route.  This one looked to be the easiest, as easy goes, and it was also the one Isaac got farthest on.  It took several tries, but he was able to get the 10 point hold.

A friend from church came to watch Isaac climb too, and his youth leader got there for the last climb.  The last climb was the best, so it was nice.

In the afternoon Ben and I judged while Isaac did some miscellaneous running tasks.  I had route #4 for F-13.  It must have been on the easier side because about half the athletes finished it.  All the athletes got the 10 point hold.  It was an easy route to judge though.  Ben had route #3 for F-13 and said it was really hard.  Judging was more interesting than I expected.

Friday: Moodle emergency

It was a nice day.  I did a few normal chores and then started working on the LEGO room.  I cleaned one small cabinet and apparently it was not being utilized well because when I was done it was almost empty.  I also cleaned the front of the doors - I'm not sure how one of them got so messy.  It's in the basement!

My moodle course disappeared from the website this evening.  I received an email from a student saying, "did you close Moodle?  I can't see it."  I thought that was the weird, obviously, so went to look.  My ability to even see the course was gone.  So I put in a ticket for CIT.

But, it was after hours.  I wondered if I should call the emergency line for CIT.  I checked with Dad - I figured he would know if this was emergency level or not.  He said it was.  So I called campus safety and said I had a tech emergency and needed to contact the on-call CIT person.  They called back a little later - I felt pretty bad about it, but it seemed like it was the right answer in the end.  They were trying to do some updates in advance of a different update that was going to happen on Sunday, but it didn't go quite as planned.  They thought they had fixed everything, but obviously not.

Fast forward about an hour and I could see my course again.  However, it wasn't really fixed - there were some issues getting half the students back into it.  The on-call guy had called three other people and they got it mostly working but not fully working.  The long and the short of it was they wanted to hide the course for the weekend and then it would be the #1 priority for Monday morning.

I have some work arounds and so said that was ok.  Tuesday is pretty light in regards to homework, so it just involved me sending an email with some links in case people are trying to get ahead or catch up.  It was annoying, but it was also new!  I've never gotten to call saying that I had a technology emergency.  All my requests tend to be low priority.

Last Saturday: Magic Kingdom

This was supposed to be a slow day for us, but Disney time happened and suddenly we had spent most of the day at the park.  What a problem to have. :D

I forgot to talk about the previous night's adventures!  It really should have been in Friday's post, but I'm writing this one.  Before making our way all the way to the room, Cheryl stopped at the front desk to complain about a noise in the room.  It was frequently reoccurring, happening at least once every ten minutes but not on a schedule.  I think it woke at least Ben up if not Ben and Cheryl the night before.  We could not figure out what it was.  If we were on one side of the room it sounded like it was on the other side, but when we went to the other side, it sounded like it was on the first side.

A housekeeping manager came up.  Never did she not believe us, but the first time she heard it understanding dawned on why it was annoying.  She attempted to troubleshoot the problem, but in the end called engineering.  They attempted to troubleshoot the problem, and in the end got us a new room.  The new room was much closer to the elevators!  It was almost worth having to change rooms at 10:30pm just to not make the five minute walk to our rooms.  Ben kept in touch - after confusing several people they thought it was a pipe in the bathroom in the wall or ceiling.

We started out with breakfast at a hotel and it was probably my favorite of the trip.  There was strawberry soup, gummy bears, and a great eggs benedict.  Oh, and potato barrels.  I do love the potato barrels.  There were characters at this breakfast and I think they were more fun than normal because they could talk.  Maribel loved the blue on Joshua's glasses, Aladdin was looking for his monkey, and Tiana talked about the food.

I did not take many pictures today - a bit of a problem when I end up writing these several weeks later.  However, Ben's scooter worked well the whole day.  I think we headed over to Tron next.  I don't seem to have the ride pictures for the first time we went on it, but Ben and Isaac went in the front car so they got a picture of us while we were waiting.

I loved it!  I loved how it got really fast, but slowed just enough for the first turn to not be jarring.  There was a lot of discussion about favorite roller coasters, but this one was probably mine. 

We went on the people mover as there was a bit of time before Space Mountain.  It had a bunch of stops and starts and we were wondering if something was wrong with it, but overall it kept moving.  Then on to Space Mountain!  I love Joshua's expressions in all these photos.

It was lunch time (ish) when we got off, so we had a snack of pretzels.  I love soft pretzels.

We went to the laugh floor with Mike Wazowski.  While waiting, you're supposed to text jokes in.  I feel like we've texted a joke in every time, but Joshua got his told this time during the show!  (The bile at the beginning is for which show you're going to be watching.)

The boys tried their strength, but everyone failed to get the sword out.  The day had warmed up a bit too, which was nice.  Joshua, our hot one, was getting too hot, but it was only mid 60s.

Seven dwarves!  I rode as the single rider with a guy who promised to hurt my ears from screaming, but then didn't make a peep.  The rest of the crew went to the front of the line.

After a dinner of some dressed up tater tots (have I mentioned they're delicious?) and a few other small rides, we had done most of what we wanted to do.  The wait for Tron was down to 75 minutes, so we decided we would wait for that.

It took more than 75 minutes - it was probably at least 90.  We had a few things to do in line and the line kept moving, but it was still a rather long time.  At the end, we asked the kids if it was worth it and they both had a similar answer - yes, but only because there was nothing else they really wanted to do.  Even so, I think it was on the edge of the maximum wait time they both wanted to wait.

But it was so much fun!  Isaac convinced me to go in the front with him and it was good.

We got home that night, of course rather tired.  We grabbed some corn dogs from the Boardwalk to eat in our new, annoying-sound free room.  After some showers everyone went to sleep early.